February 11, 2006

Good morning in Iowa City. We arrived here yesterday at 8 AM and despite winter roads all the way to Raymond, the interstate was entirley clear and we had no problems whatsoever. We did our routine stop at McDonalds and had breakfast and then proceeded on to the hospital. When we come for chemotherapy we have an appointment in the clinic first, so we stopped there and met with Mary and Dr. Loew. Leah's port accessed easily and had blood return, too. This is good news, but it is still heartbreaking to watch the tears and see how scared she is when they have to do this to her. She is up 3 pounds again in weight. Right now this is visible in her face, and that is fine with us, since there may be a time when she does not have an appetite. This was definitely not the case yesterday. She had pancakes at McDonalds, and did not eat a lot, but by the time we were in the clinic my mom had to go out to the van to get her some Reeses peanut butter cups and then once we checked in to our room we had to get her a frozen meal ready to eat.

Leah is probably the most talkative she has been at the hospital. Dr. Loew tried to get her to sing his lip sync with him to Mary but she was not going to do that. Stephanie was Leah's nurse yesterday and Leah looks forward to seeing her. We played some of the music on our computer for Stephanie so she could teach us some new songs. I ran a few errands yesterday. We forgot to pack sippy cups -an essential item-so I ran to Wal-Mart to get a few for Leah. My mom stayed overnight with us, so she and Leah went to the library to get some books and videos while I was gone.

In order to get Leah ready for chemotherapy they need to hydrate her for hours before this begins. By 5 they were ready to start chemotherapy, which is different this time than the previous three. They are trying some new chemo. drugs in an effort to surprise her tumor since it has grown accustomed to the old drugs. This time there are two drugs being used over a five day period. On Day 1 (Friday) chemo started at 5 and went until 8. Today it will start at 2 and run until 5. Each day it will be moved up by 3 hours so that we should be able to go home by the fifth day (Tuesday) if she is feeling OK. So far, it seems things are going along well. Adults would undoubtedly dread each round of chemo and the side effects associated with it, but Leah does not think twice about this. She just knows she is hooked up to her port and they are giving her different medicines through that. Nausea and vomiting are listed as side effects, but so far we have not seen that. In fact, this morning Leah has eaten two pieces of cinnamon toast, 5 Reeses peanut butter cups, and a frozen pizza meal and it is not yet 9 AM. The only good news about being hooked up through her port is that three of her medicines that she takes each day can be given through IV fluids. Considering they are the three that Leah hates the most, that is good news.

The one bad thing about chemotherapy is that since she is hydrated, she is also going to the bathroom a lot! She is required to go to the bathroom every two hours all night long. This did not go over very well last night. There have been different times when she just gets up, goes and returns to bed. Last night there were a lot of tears which I will attribute to exhaustion. After one of her urine samples came back as having sugars in it, we were awakened at 2:30 AM to have her finger poked for a blood draw. That was not met with much enthusiasm, either. I hope someday these memories fade from her mind. Eventually her IV fluids were changed to make up for the sugar in her urine and by this morning her urine samples tested fine again. I will have to talk with her that she will be getting up again tonight every two hours to use the bathroom as well. Since chemotherapy starts earlier, she only needs to get up every two hours until 4 AM, and tomorrow until 1 AM since it is moved ahead by 3 hours each day.

I feel like we hardly slept last night but Leah was asking for breakfast by 7 this morning. She is now sitting reading her Berenstain Bear books in bed for us all. Everyone who stops by and hears her read comments on how smart she is and how cute it is when she reads.

James is here today and has been by to weigh her. Nancy, the resident we got to know back in December, is cross-covering this weekend, so she came in right away, too. Leah did smile yesterday when she found out Nancy would be here, but today she did not let on that she might like Nancy at all. However, she did not yell at Nancy and tell her to leave her alone, so Nancy was impressed with that. Nancy also commented on how much softer Leah's stomach feels. It does feel softer, yet I keep remembering Dr. Rahdi's comments on how this is Stage 4, so even if it feel softer, it is still not resectable and needs to shrink more to be able to take it out. There is such a long road ahead of us and so many different hurdles we still need to overcome. It is overwhelming to look too far ahead.

Today my sister, Suzanne, is coming to stay with us. She will leave tomorrow, so our time here has been broken up nicely. That leaves only Monday by ourselves-and sometimes that is nice, too, and then Tuesday when we hope to come home. Leah is not much interested, but I am planning on watching the Olympics. We told her that we were going to have an Olympic Opening Ceremony party last night when we watched them. The whole idea was obviously confusing to Leah since she asked where the party was midway through the opening ceremony. I only made it as far as Sweden in the Parade of Nations before I fell asleep.

Tonight Leah's nurse, Roshaun, is back and plans on bringing her a CD of music. Leah is looking forward to that, too.

Keep praying for her tumor to shrink so resection is possible. Dr. Rahdi has pointed out that this is the cornerstone of her treatment and quite necessary. Her scan is 12 days away and we pray for good scan results as well that show a much smaller tumor.