December 13, 2005

Greetings from Iowa City (again). As I predicted, Leah has felt pretty good all day. We went to an activity in the morning where we used foam stickers to decorate door hangers. This afternoon we cut out Christmas pictures from Christmas cards and then used popsicle sticks to make a frame around them and added some glitter. It will surprise no one to hear we also visited the library twice today. The library is on the eighth floor, and while it is not large, it is a nice, cozy place with a good selection of books. Leah has a whole stash we have been going through. We had to do a little sweet talking to get to check out as many as we wanted. Apparently they are not used to the Leah Ristau method of book checking out. It is normal for us to come home with 25 new books after each visit to read together.

Right now Leah is receiving her first blood transfusion. The only number they are concerned with when they look at her blood counts is her hemoglobin. This was low after our blood draw yesterday at Covenant, where the results were 7.8. They did a blood work-up when we arrived here and it was 8.0. That is the borderline number for transfusing. After talking last night we decided we would visit with Dr. Rahdi about this again in the morning. We agreed this morning to take a blood count this afternoon to see where her hemoglobin was at that point. The expectation was that it would drop due largely to the fact that she is on IV fluids and this causes things to be more diluted. The results came in around 5:00 that her hemoglobin was 7.2. Although she does not act sick, she does act tired and we carried her around much of the day. While it is rare for there to be side effects due to the testing they do with the blood, the nurse's assistant must stay in the room for the first fifteen minutes after a transfusion begins to make sure there are no complications. This evening our nursing assistant is Jeremy. James Brown was here earlier in the day and we enjoyed teasing him a bit more, but his shift ends at 3:30. Jeremy is quite a nice guy, too. He read Leah a book earlier and they have struck a deal that if she drinks her juice he will return to read her a bedtime story.

Chris was here until a little after 5:00 today. We seem to have things under control here, and there is not much to do except sit around. Leah and I are quite capable of getting to her activity times and the library, although she was quite sad when he left. She has taken to calling him "Errand Boy" when she needs things and told me that we would need Errand Boy to do things tomorrow. He plans to work while he is home and will have to pick us up at some point when we know we are being released.

We would like to think that Thursday will be our day of release. However, we have heard them toss around the fact that if her blood counts plummet (which they should) we will not be released when they are at their lowest point. They will have to be going upward before they release us.

While we are not excited to be here, we are getting along well, and we continue to enjoy the other families in this unit. It is amazing that while cancer seems so rare in children, there are so many different people who have gone through something similar to our situation. Continue to send emails (tina@forbin.net, and ckristau@forbin.net) and especially prayers.