January 15, 2006

Leah has had a fever-free day in Iowa City (knock on wood). She spiked her last fever at 2 AM, at 38.3 (which translates into 101.4). Since then she has not had Tylenol. My mom came down today with her friend, Pat, and she agreed that Leah looked much, much better than yesterday. So far her blood cultures have not grown anything, so we will probably never know why she ran the fever, but that is fine as long as it is gone.

As always, we are never in a rush to get up in the morning. Since Leah was febrile her vitals are taken every two hours. That is a lot of waking up in the night, so sleeping in seems a must. Dr. Loew rounded again today. He has a different manner than the other doctors we have met so far...more abrupt. I had been warned by many parents about him prior to meeting him, so I knew what to expect to some degree. I can understand their perception of him, and maybe because of that, I have not found him hard to deal with. He did a very thorough pushing/pressing/poking of Leah's abdomen today. Anytime anyone touches her there she instantly screams that it hurts. He seems to think that it did at one time, but does not anymore. Granted, he never saw her when she was first diagnosed, but according to him, he was able to push in fairly far on her left side (the side without the tumor). So, even though we know nothing until we have the CT scan, he did not seem alarmed by what he felt today. I have many theories about all of this: even if her tumor is shrinking, her other organs that were squished are moving back into place and taking up the room that the tumor is leaving; her stomach is much bigger because she is eating more; her bowel is also much bigger and can hold more; and we have two more rounds of chemo. to go AND they still have to take something out so it is not going to be normal for a long time yet. We also have many, many people praying for Leah each and every day and believe that God is hearing these prayers.

Today Leah ate an all-time record four blue Trix yogurts. Anyone who has seen these yogurts know how blue they are. I am sure you can imagine that after they are digested and come out the other end, the blue dye has not disappeared. James the nursing assistant got quite a charge out of this. Leah's question of the day was that if she is eating the blue yogurt from the package and giving Grandma and Grandpa the pink package and they were eating pink yogurt, what was happening to them after they ate that? Pretty smart.

Tonight we had another GCSF shot and afterward Leah and I went downstairs to get an ice cream cone as a treat. She wolfed down a lot of ice cream before deciding we should head back up. We are getting more adventurous on our journies and seeing more and more of the hospital.

This morning a gal I went to Wartburg with stopped by to see us. I had not known her at college, but she is down here with her husband, Bruce, who is receiving a bone marrow transplant. He is also on the seventh floor in the unit right next door to us. If you have been reading our blog, you may have seen her post on Friday night. Their website is www.caringbridge.org/ia/bepositive. Please pray for their family as they also go through this fight against cancer. It is amazing how many people's lives are affected by cancer, and how many of them we have met here who are young people --I have been quite naive until now.

Right now we still do not know what the week ahead holds for us in terms of when we can start chemotherapy. We should have blood count results back tomorrow that they will look at and make some decisions from. Chris is still planning on coming down Tuesday night and Wednesday, so I can spend a little time with Chloe.

We are happy Leah has had a good day, and hope for another one tomorrow. Please continue to pray for us each and every day.