March 4, 2008 - HELP!

Happy Day 21!!!

Hi everyone! Well, we had clinic today and let me tell you, it was the fastest clinic day EVER. In and out in 2 1/2 hours and that was WITH treatment! Yes, Alex had enough white blood cells to continue. We were really happy about that. The red count was still low, but the overall volume of blood had increased, so that was great.

This clinic day was TOO funny! SO, we are sitting in our room waiting on the doctor and the blood counts to come back, and this is Alex's time to entertain us lately, so... she rips off the paper on the examining table and writes "HELP" on it... there is a window in the room that looks out onto the hallway of Primary Children's Hospital, so Alex opened the blinds and held up this sign to every person who walked by. It was hilarious to watch all the different expressions. We were laughing so hard. Anyway... once we moved to the infusion room, the front desk lady came back and said that it was the funniest thing she had seen in the clinic and that Human Resources had called and was concerned about the child in room #1. It was great. I have included a picture. She even had me email her the picture. I think all sorts of people from around the hospital sent others to look at the window. It was like a hidden camera scene from Jay Leno or something... the different looks we were getting... some just standing there for a second, wondering if they should come in?? Was it funny? Should they just ignore it and move on?? OH, you had to be there. I haven't seen Dan laugh that hard in a LONG time... and he laughs a lot.

Other than our waiting room fun, there wasn't much else exciting that took place. Alex felt well enough (obviously) to order from room service and have lunch brought up while we waited for her chemo to arrive. Now we are hopefully going back next Friday for "Day 31" and the second to last treatment on this plan. They will actually send a nurse out to our home on Thursday to run a complete blood panel to see if we have to waste our time going in on Friday. That will be nice.

...as I was sitting there today, there was a couple that was being escorted through, a nurse showing them the clinic for the first time. They had that "deer in the headlights" look. You could tell that they were getting the first tour of everything. I know exactly how that feels...I am sure I had the same look. I felt for them... because I had no idea, at the time, how much that place was going to be a part of our lives and how scared I was at the unknown... so many questions and you don't even know what they are. Now it is just part of our routine... something that we don't complain about too much, and we just try to find something to laugh about while we struggle through. Alex is an amazing girl.

No word yet on if the Neurologist read the EEG results yet. My answer would be no... so I will have to bug her about that. As far as the last bone marrow biopsy went a few weeks ago, there was still a reading of 0% leukemia cells! Yea!!!

Thank you everyone for all your thoughts and prayers. Please keep the good blood cell ju-ju coming! We need two more treatments out of this one! Next week will be a Spinal Tap. I will try to remember this time to get a picture of it... it is pretty interesting. Have a great week everyone! Thanks so much for taking the time to read Alex's story.