Clinic again...

First of all... Hi to Uncle Sam. Hope you are enjoying things stateside (and in tropical paradise, no less).

We left the hospital Monday morning. No conclusion about what caused the fever... probably just a minor yeast infection? Anyway, IV antibiotics did the trick.

Tuesday was spent hanging out and making Flower Fairies (using a kit from TC).




Mollie went to clinic today (dressed like a rockstar).



It was a quick visit just to monitor her CBC. We spent most of the time in the waiting room playing bowling on the Wii (well, Mollie watching and Matt and I playing). Mollie's blood counts were great. Her ANC was 5400. At diagnosis, it was 0. Since then it's bounced around between 800 and 3000, so today's results are really good. That means she has one more week of consolidation therapy and then she starts interim maintenance (IM). IM starts out with IV vincristine, a 5-day pulse of dexamethasone, oral 6-MP, and oral methotrexate. Sounds worse than consolidation to me.... but it is essentially the same therapy she'll be on for the next two years. In fact, the protocol states that she will be on long term maintenance (LTM) for 2 years from the day she starts IM.

Postal service update: we have received several letters and postcards (Mollie enjoys hearing from friends and family) and a package from Lauren (Mollie loves the paper dolls).

Hospital Ins and Outs

Mollie woke up at 5 AM Sunday with a fever of 99.5. Throughout the day she complained of various ailments and wanted to go to "that place where they have comfortable beds and Rice Krispies" (the hospital). We decided to just keep checking her temperature and it stayed between 99 and 100 all day. So we finally spoke with Dr. B who sent us to the Pediatric ER.

She got her port accessed AND also a venous blood draw (to make sure there was no infection in her central line). Then she got IV antibiotics and we waited around for something to happen.

Finally the attending came in and told us he had Dr. B on the line; they wanted our opinion on whether she would be better off going home or being admitted. Matt and I both preferred to go home, and they said fine. But... Mollie was all set to go to the hem/onc floor and get settled in. So we spent about 10 minutes talking her out of staying in the hospital and hyping up going home.

About five minutes later the attending came in and said, "Dr. B just put the brakes on going home". All the doctors are scared of Dr. B. So we had to re-talk Mollie into staying in the hospital. Sigh.

Looks like we're going home today though. Dr. A rounded this morning and agreed to discharge her since her fever is down, her ANC is good, and this doesn't look like anything serious.

Right now Mollie is at Camp 2 Go. The child life team is hosting a "summer camp" right here in the hospital. I'm headed out to see if she's having fun...