Round Four of Chemo

Somehow we managed to go the entire three weeks in between chemo treatments without having to go to the hospital or the clinic for anything. It was strange. I don't know if we will be so lucky this time as the chemo drugs this round usually have stronger side effects, so I am anticipating a blood transfusion or platelet transfusion, but we always anticipate that anyway.

Round 4 of chemo is underway. Day one was yesterday with three chemo drugs, doxirubicin, carboplatin, and VP-16. The doxirubicin and carboplatin are pretty strong, so I am a little bit nervous about how Brynlee will feel this weekend, but at least we have Zofran this time to help her with the nausea. She is doing really well so far and has been eating (which I'll get into that in a minute). We are scheduled for her VP-16 today at 4 p.m. and then we are going to go home for the night and come back tomorrow and get the third day of VP-16 in the clinic.

Here is Brynlee waiting for the chemo yesterday. She has been happy, and thankfully we have had nurses that she has been okay with this time. I still feel bad that she doesn't like nurse Cherie, and I really would have felt horrible if Cherie would have been assigned to us again.

So for the eating part. The last time we were in for chemo Brynlee wouldn't eat the formula they had made. She drinks the Sam's Club brand of formula at home and has been tolerating the Enfamil equivalent up until now. So I brought her formula from home and asked if we could just try feeding her that. The nurse was okay with it, the nurse practitioner was okay with it, the dietician/nutritionist was not okay with it. Apparently the hospital has more germs than our home and it is not safe to mix her formula in her room and they can't take her can of formula from home to the mixing room because it is not sterile. I'm sure these policies are all of a legal nature. Anyway, so they were going to go out and buy her kind of formula from the store and mix it here today. Okay, so what am I supposed to feed her until then? So I tried the premixed stuff they brought in last night and she wouldn't eat it. After about 30 minutes of her fussing I fixed my own bottle of her regular formula. My choices were to starve her or feed her what I have. I like the nutritionist lady, but really? What were you expecting me to do? Oh, it's always something and you definitely just have to kind of roll with things around here. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the hospital and all that they do for my kiddo, but as a parent in this situation sometimes I just have to take care of things in my own way.

On Tuesday Brynlee had her physical therapy session, and she is still doing well and making improvements with her abilities. She is now rolling from her tummy to her back regularly, and she is pushing up on her hands when she is on her tummy. She is sitting up on her own better and improving with her sitting in her babypod seat. She is getting stronger it seems, so we will just keep working on it.

Where do we go from here? We will have scans again before the next round of chemo in three weeks and see what's going on with the tumors. I am hoping for the best and positive thinking and praying for a miracle in that wouldn't it be wonderful if her tumors had all gone away except for the main one and we could be done with chemo and have the surgery to remove the remaining part of the main tumor? Okay, I don't know that will happen after round 4, maybe round 6, but I do know some kiddos get away with only 4 rounds, so why not hope and pray for that? Thank you everyone for your prayers!