A little frustated

On Sunday (July 31st) home health came again to draw blood from Avery's port to see if her counts are high enough for round two, in this phase of Chemo and once again they struggled. They poked her 3 times, and still couldn't get it too work. Last week, she was poked twice and it didn't work, so we went to the hospital and she was poked again in the hand. They really felt bad and it was frustrating for us. Where it was Sunday, I called the on-call oncologist who said just to come up the next day and they would draw them there and hope that she made counts or it would be a wasted drive. I've been wrong before, but did feel with her ANC being 1300 last week we should be okay. We drove up on Sunday and stayed at Rachelle's house to make it fun for Avery to see her cousins. Also, I needed to break up the trip for me & the baby because of Pre-clampsia I need to be laying down as much as possible. My mom came with us because depending on my appointment on Tuesday the baby will probably be coming this week or for sure next week depending on how the Dr. feels about my protein test he got back & how my blood pressure is. This way we have an option for someone to help get Avery to her chemo treatments. Thank heavens she's so willing to help. Again, like last week, her port wasn't clogged and the nurse at clinic had no problems accessing her port. It also didn't hurt like it has the last 3 times at our home. Again frustrating. They gave us some pointers to pass along to home health and suggested maybe they would teach Johnny & I how to access her ourselves and teach us how to flush her line etc. I'm hoping for now we can get home health to figure it out. We had to wait for her counts to come back, before they can order/make the chemo in case her counts aren't high enough. Her ANC came back at 1200 (100 less then last week, but still high enough) and her platelets were also high enough. We then had to wait a few hours for the lab to make the chemo. Again, so much better when we have labs done the day before so we don't have to wait for blood results, then wait for her chemo. It was a long day, but glad we broke the drive up this time.

Avery is a trooper and takes it all in the best she knows how. I keep reminding her she's one tough chick. She amazes me with how strong her body is right now and how her little body is handling all these toxins being push into her blood. People say, she looks so good and she does. I've seen a lot of cancer kids now and she is doing amazing well under the circumstances. Her viniscristine chemo stayed the same, but the Mexadraxate dose of chemo went up and although a few complaints (mostly leg & heel pain) she has done well today. What a brave little girl to have to go through all of this! As I think of how well Avery is doing, and the little things I'm complaining about, it breaks my heart for all the brave children having to battle cancer or my friend, Diana, whose Dad also has ALL, the same type of cancer Avery has, is struggling, but continues to be such a fighter. He has shown tremendous strength and courage as he continues to fight so bravely. This family has truly amazed me with their example of love & their faith of eternal families. As I catch up on their blog (their's a link on my blog) my heart ache for what they are going through, I can relate to watching the ones you love suffer, but I am so inspired my their examples. Although I would never wish this trial of cancer on anyone, it makes me so grateful for the 90% survival rate for kids with ALL that have Avery's standard risk category, but also makes me sick that 1 in 10 kids don't survive and that surprisingly as you enter the cancer world you meet and realize just how many kids are having the fight of their life. A lot of other children's cancers have a much lower survival rate. This year Salt Lake had their first CureSearch walk for the Children's Oncology Group to try to find better treatments for cancer kids & improve their success rate for all types of cancer for kids. Hopefully next year we can participate. We are so grateful for how far they have come over the years to find cures & better treatments for these children. Thirty years back if you found out your child had cancer there was very little hope and we are so grateful for all the research they have done to treat & cure cancer.