Madison’s Blog

We went in for Maddie’s scheduled spinal tap and chemo today.  We found out that her counts are going down instead of up.  When we left the hospital on Wednesday, her ANC was 102.  We thought that since she hasn’t had any chemo for two weeks now, her counts were definitely on it’s way up.  Her ANC was only 56 today.  That means that of the blood sample they took, there were 2800 white blood cells but only 56 were neutrophils (the good stuff that fights infections).  That’s 2 percent.  That’s the same percentage that it was earlier last week.  Her ANC needs to be a minimum of – or close to – 500 to continue treatment.  Her spinal tap has been rescheduled to next Friday.  Please pray that her ANC will be 500+ so we can get on with treatment.  It’s an uneasy feeling for both the doctors and us to hold off from any chemo for so long.  Next week will make three weeks without any!  More importantly, that fevers will be kept at bay until her count comes up.

It seems her body was just yearning for a break and is taking awhile (a long while) to produce the good stuff we’re waiting for.  We have to cheer for her neutrophils to come out of her bone marrow just as we will cheer for UH to win this weekend!  It’s a struggle, but they’ll do it eventually (Maddie’s neutrophils too)!

Poor Maddie… she’s going stir crazy having to stay at home for so long.  The only places she’s been for the past two weeks is our house, nana’s house and the hospital.  Just like old times.  Looks like a big part of her Fall break will be more of the same.  The good thing is that she still has Trevor so we have to keep him healthy for his sis!