December 16, 2005

Hospitalitis has officially set in. We have spent much of the day in the room. Leah spiked a fever of 104 last night. That is the highest it has been so far. It does come down with Tylenol, but they continue to take blood cultures to sample and monitor things very closely. She also had a fever much of today and looks like she does not feel well. We have heard that this can happen as her blood counts continue their downward trend. Her counts have not even bottomed out yet. They are expecting that to happen this weekend or by Monday. Even if her fever does not return (which is unlikely) they will not release us when her counts are their lowest. They will wait until they begin to move upward. It seems we will need to get used to a lack of control about many aspects of our lives.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to a visit from my parents and Chloe. Leah is not in a great mood to enjoy visitors, but I am looking forward to leaving the hospital -even if it is for a short time- and having Grandma and Grandpa take over.

This day has been unremarkable and full of our usual visitors of doctors and nurses. Our room provides the perfect vantage point to watch everyone who enters this unit so we are able to keep track of the goings on here without exerting much effort. Dr. DePaola stopped by to say a quick hello as did Mary in the Middle and Jane, too. We do now have our calendar of Leah's treatments which are subject to change depending on Leah's blood counts. As of now the plan is for her second treatment when we are admitted to the unit to begin on December 28 and the third treatment on January 17. As we are finding out quickly these dates are tentative and may or may not change.

We are praying to be home soon and for all fevers to stay away. Right now it seems as though we have not been home in a very long time.