Leukemia management is becoming routine

 This is day 13 of my baby, Serenity, being diagnosed with and treated for Leukemia.  Day 11 is here.

First, thanks to everyone who continues to comment and especially those that are still blogging about Serenity.  We really appreciate the emotional, financial and spiritual support that continues to roll in.  I’m preparing some stats on the chipin donations that I want to share in an upcoming post.  The amount that has come in is staggering, the number of people – especially those we don’t know – who have donated is amazing.  It’s all happening because of all the people who have installed the widget on their site and who have blogged about it, it really is becoming quite a study in internet based support.

Her Zofran, which is for nausea, ran out today – it’s only $250 bucks a bottle – so we have to get some more tomorrow.  I’m pretty sure we’ve already spent over $1,000.00 on medications.  We’re already getting bills from the hospital, it’s only a few so far – lots and lots more will come – and it already totals over $8,000.00. 

Serenity is doing pretty well, all things considered.  She still throws up several times a day but she has been eating pretty well.  She’s lost several pounds and looks frighteningly thin, but it’s to be expected.  She takes steroids to counter affects from her chemo and Perced to counter the effects of the steroids and zofran to counter the effects of it all, Oxycodin to counter the pain from the chemo and leukemia and Sephra to keep her from getting pneumonia that she is susceptible to from the chemo.  She panics everytime she sees a syringe, signs ‘all done’ (we teach sign language to all our kids when they’re infants) and says “No Medicine, done!”  Then screams as we force it in her mouth.  But, the screaming is subsiding and the panic is as well.  She now frequently says “no medicine” as a question every time we approach her (without syringes).  We tell her “not right now, but in a little bit” and she relaxes a bit.  I think she is beginning to adjust to the idea that she has to take medicine all the time although she has no idea why.  I think that’s the worst part – she doesn’t have any clue as to why all the sudden she is getting all these treatments and her parents are forcing her to take yucky medicine.  When she throws up she pushes her throw up tray away and says “all done” – at almost two years old she is already a pro at puking. 

There are happy times now too.  She frequently plays with the kids and likes to play little games with her parents.  Today she was playing “poke dad in the face” which she thought was absolutely hilarious.  My favorite times are when she finds something exciting and starts to laugh.  It’s a beautiful thing to see her laughing.  After all she’s been through in the last 2 weeks it’s just wonderful to have her with us and to have her laugh.

UPDATE: Day 16 is here.

The story of Serenity’s battle with Leukemia begins here.