January 22, 2006

Tomorrow morning is the dreaded scan. I have spent another day thinking of little else. Our day will begin early because she is scheduled to go to anesthesia around 7:15 AM. The schedules seem to change a bit around here, so we will be ready whenever we are summoned.

Chris and Leah had another night of a lot of bathroom visits. Even though she was not being awakened every two hours to use the bathroom, she was still being hydrated a lot, so woke up on her own to use the bathroom. This is one time we almost wish she still used Pullups. Around 6 in the morning Leah woke up and tried to kick Chris out of bed by telling him he needed to shower. I doubt he was thrilled by her demands.

Their day was uneventful-not even a trip to the library. Leah was still quite tired due to lack of sleep and she did receive her Vincristine and 5 FU today. My aunt and uncle came to Iowa City for a visit and read Leah some books and brought her some grapes, which seemed to be a hit with her. I have tried to order them off the menu for her, but you have to be six years old to get grapes here.

Chloe and I slept in a bit-after staying up talking on the phone to our neighbor Esther til almost midnight on Saturday. Chloe loved getting to sleep with Mom, even though she woke up crying twice-very unlike her. We went to church this morning. It is the first time I have been able to go since Thanksgiving. We have been home a few weekends, but we have also been told to avoid crowds for Leah's sake and if her counts are low we certainly are not exposing her to any germs we don't have to.

I did manage a workout this afternoon while my mom watched Chloe, and then Chris' mom came over to do some laundry while I packed. She took Chloe back to her house since she will have her overnight tonight and take her to get her second flu shot. Leah is rather depressed about missing that. She has mentioned several times she wants to see Chloe get a shot. Perhaps after having everyone poke and prod her she is ready to see someone else's pain.

As I have mentioned, Leah rarely can be tricked and she also never forgets anything. Earlier Chris handed me a piece of cherry pie my aunt had brought. I told him I did not need to eat the whole piece and Leah chimes in with, "yeah...if you eat it your butt will get fat. Remember when James told you that?" This all goes back to a conversation I had with James over a month ago when Chris snuck a bag of Gardettos into our things we brought to Iowa City. James is so helpful sometimes.

Tonight Leah was moved to a different room. When they were discussing new admits they were getting tonight that would need single rooms I knew our days were numbered. I hoped they would be able to leave us in our room until we left tomorrow, but there is no other room free up here, so we have now moved into room 57. Leah's roommate is a cute little five year old girl named Jewel. Unfortunately Leah does not seem too excited about our room change. We do have a lot of stuff that we are now cramming into a smaller space, but it is OK. The biggest challenge is determining whose machines are beeping and which nurse we need to call.

Thank you for all your prayers, and please pray, pray, pray for good scan results.