January 19, 2005

As usual our plans have changed again. After talking with Dina, the resident, and Dr. Goldman and Dr. Rogers, we are planning on starting round three of chemotherapy tomorrow. On Wednesday they were planning on sending us home for the weekend, then bringing us back on Monday for her scan and chemo. Chris and I talked about this, and even though it would be nice to come home for the weekend, it would be depressing to have to come back next week. Chris also happens to be off this weekend and could be in Iowa City more. I would also be able to go back to work a bit more next week if we had chemo this weekend. I talked with the doctors about this and the rationale behind waiting. Really, there are no hard and fast rules about this, so they are willing to have her start her chemotherapy tomorrow.

Today we are doing a twenty four hour creatinine clearance (we have to save all her urine output and they check it for various things). We also visited the audiologist to check her ears. Leah does have a bit of high frequency hearing loss. This is what they have expected, and they will watch it very closely. The ranges she is experiencing loss in are not those that include speech sounds, and seem to be fairly typical in cancer patients. It is still hard to hear that the things we are doing-and have no choice about- are causing her some permanent damage. Yet, there are ways to help people with significant hearing loss and at this point it is only in the high frequencies.

Leah had a good day. We went to the library and picked out some books and videos. She did an art project this morning, and we finally have a laptop checked out so she watched a few DVDs. Her appetite has been better today-she is back up to her 3 yogurts a day ratio.

Stephanie was her nurse today and Roshaun is her nurse tonight. She is familiar with both and enjoys them both, too. Roshaun talked to her about signing up to take Leah as one of her primary patients. That would be wonderful, and even though Leah did her best "I am the Queen and I won't acknowledge you are talking to me" faces, she did tell me later that she wants Roshaun.

Leah's biggest thrill of the night was channel surfing and finding Jim Cramer's show Mad Money on CNBC. Chris watches that, and had taught Leah that this is the Boo-yah show. She thought it was great to get to see it again.

We had visitors today as well. My friend Ruth came down, and Wendy, a college acquaintance visited again. Her husband Bruce is recovering from a bone marrow transplant, so she is back and forth between their home and Iowa City. Right now it is easier for her to visit me since he is in a unit that is more restrictive and Leah would not be able to visit.

The Reed family is also back in Iowa City. We met them right before Christmas. Their son Kyle is fighting cancer and will have surgery tomorrow to remove a tumor. This is his tenth surgery and we are praying right along with them that they receive good news. Please pray for Kyle and his family as well. Their website is: www.caringbridge.org/ia/kyle. Kyle has been fighting cancer for over two years already.

Please pray for Leah -for chemotherapy to be effective, and the side effects to be minimal, for the tumor to shrink. Please also include other families that are fighting cancer in your prayers-for Bruce and Kyle especially.