They gotta be up!

Her white counts that is. She seems to be feeling much better and having more energy. She laughed a lot this weekend which was nice. We spent Friday night in Soddy visiting with friends. Summer opted to sleep in our room in her bed rather than upstairs with Katie. She slept in her bed all night which is pretty amazing these days. Her belly always seems to start hurting at some point in the night at which time she comes to my bed for a little while or I go to hers. I am hoping those days will soon be over. Not that I mind sharing a bed with her, but it is rough to get up and down and up and down all night. Plus, anytime she is in discomfort, I feel somewhat helpless. She has been complaining less and less though. I am so tired of all of these chemo side effects taking away her joy and happy nature. I can see the light though and it feels good. I hope today was her last Neupogen shot. Ever. She has been on them almost three weeks now and not one of them was easy. I guess nothing worthwhile ever was easy.

Yesterday, we went to Willow's rock star birthday party. It was fun because the kids were dressed up and all the "cool" adults were too. There were a few lame people who showed up in their regular clothes. The kids rocked out a little with some blow up guitars while watching Hannah Montana (I think). Summer was feeling good and wasn't completely glued to my lap. Her favorite part of the cake was not the icing. Not sure where she gets that from. Maybe her Daddy? Oh well, we made a good team cleaning up all the crumbs on the plate. We left there to go home and rest before meeting up at Chilis to celebrate my granny's 77th birthday. Summer ordered the chili which was nasty to me, but great to her. She really likes chili and also baked beans right now. She will ask for baked beans for breakfast!!! She also likes mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. She'll put a little of each in her mouth and then chew it up. She's been eating (and pooping) like a horse lately. I can't keep her full!

We should be getting the results of Clint's scan sometime this week. Then next week Summer has her three scans. I must say they are the worst part of the process. The possibility of hearing the words "it's back" is scary. I will not live in fear though. God is in control!!!

Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog!

Summer is up eating a pb & banana sandwich. She actually slept until after the sun came up today (7:15 a.m.). Yay! Sounds like Daddy is up and bugging Summer already. I am thinking about taking Summer to see her great grandad today. He hasn't been doing well lately and she is feeling well enough to go visit now so I hope he is up for it too. We might also take a trip to the playground or somewhere else fun in Trenton. Oh the choices....NOT. The town is pretty small and we could either go to the playground or a state park as I see it.

Yesterday, we went to the zoo with our friends Selena, Willow, Mo & Mason. We had a picnic lunch before we toured the zoo. Summer rode the carousel once while we were waiting on the other kids to get there. Then after the zoo, she rode it twice. Her friends wouldn't get on it with her, but I don't think she minded. She really likes the carousel. I am thinking of taking her to Lake Winnie on Sunday if she is up to it and her counts are up. She hasn't been there since she was a baby, and they will be closing up for the winter soon.

We also have more fun scheduled this weekend at Camp Agape. They are having a children's fun day which is for childhood cancer patients and their families. SpongeBob is supposed to be there. They have a gingerbread house full of candy for the kids to fill their bags with. Horseback riding, fishing, petting zoo, dunk tank, face painting....it should be fun for sure! They are also doing fireworks, a hay ride and dinner the night before. We could camp in one of their cabins on bunk beds, but I don't think I could sleep through other people's snoring and noises. We may take a pop up camper if they will let us. Already got the call in.....

Summer's belly has been hurting the past day or so, so she is back on the Zophran. She is still eating good although she will ask for some things and eat only a bite or two which is a little frustrating when you are the one who ends up finishing most of the stuff she doesn't eat. Not too good for the figure, but I am still doing the P90X dvds in the hope that exercise without dieting will still do my body good. :) I have only missed one day so far which is pretty good considering I was working out once or twice a week at the most. Summer only bugs me a little when I am doing it. It is not too annoying except during yoga when you are supposed to have a clear mind, but I am so worried she is going to start climbing me like a piece of furniture I can't clear my mind with her in the room. Or she starts singing. Or sniffing my arm pits. LOL So, anyways, at least she is eating. Now she is working on eggs and angel food cake. Her first piece since we made it two days ago. Half of the cake is gone and guess who is responsible for that. Should be an easy guess. ;P Apparently, she only likes the brown parts.

We go back to clinic tomorrow. It is supposed to be a zoo in there because they are closed today due to a COG conference. We have the earliest appt. (8:30 a.m.) and I think we might just be 15 minutes early to make sure we aren't stuck in a long queue in the waiting room. Last time our appt. was at 9:00 a.m. We got there at 8:55 a.m. and were behind at least 6 other patients. I hope her counts are up. She is very tired of the shots. She is happy to have only "one more spend the night" for chemo and "one more shot" round (usually around 20 per cycle this late in the game). We are on shot 13 for cycle 7 today. I don't really think we will make chemo next week seeing as how she should have another week of shots if the trend holds. Plus, the doctor said the heart protectant they used last cycle can also cause her blood counts to remain lower longer. Oh well, only one more cycle. PTL!!!

Cellulitis...and a fever

Summer ran a temperature this weekend. She slept most of the day yesterday, but I wasn't too concerned because she didn't have any complaints other than belly pain. Plus, she was already on an antibiotic, Levoquin. This morning she still had a fever, 101.8, so I was getting her showered so we could come into the clinic. When I took off her shirt, I noticed her port was really red. Panic set it. I thought her port was infected which would mean probably two surgeries. When I got here, they looked at it and determined it was cellulitis which a skin infection. PTL! She also has a spot on her leg where she gets her shots. She is hooked up to antibiotics now and will be admitted to the hospital later today. She also has some mouth sores which just sort of crept up on us. I cried when I saw them. Boo, boo, boo!!! Poor little girl.

Yesterday we only left the house to go see the church which was on fire. I heard from a friend via text message. I had to go see it and it was a sad sight. Such a beautiful church, smoke pouring out the windows and flames shooting out the roof. We didn't even get to go yesterday and now we won't get another chance. I guess everything happens for a reason.

Please pray that Summer will recover quickly from the infection and not be in too much pain. She is such a strong girl, but she does not deserve to have to prove it.

Blood today

Summer got blood today. Her platelets are still above 70,000 so she didn't need more of those. She hasn't ran a fever since yesterday evening so I am hoping we will get to go home tomorrow. Of course, I'm not getting my hopes set too high.

Tre came and spent most of the day with her. They had a good time watching a movie and coloring. My mom got off work a little early and came by to spend some time with her too. I am so lucky to have those two in my life and so is Summer.

It has been a rather uneventful day which is nice. After Mom & Tre left, Summer and I watched Barney's "Night Before Christmas" video that I brought from home. We had a slight dispute over whether or not Baby Bop and BJ are dinosaurs so we called her cousin Leah to see what she thought. I think Summer was really just being silly by not believing it, but whatever floats her boat is fine with me. She really is a silly little girl at times. I guess she gets it from me (or my mom). Clint is definitely more serious than us. She is currently sitting on the bed coloring with a blanket over her head, talking to the crayons. LOL

Her belly has been hurting her today which is not unusual. She hasn't eaten too much today- french fries, nutty bars and chicken noodle soup. Oh, and two bites of cheese stick. It's better than nothing though so I'm not complaining. Wish I could lose my appetite for a few days....then again if it takes cancer for that to happen, I'd rather not.

Gotta love talking dogs! ***UPDATED***

Martha is my favorite! :p That is the cartoon Summer is watching right now. What's so great about a talking dog you might say? Well, this dog teaches vocabulary words. Like today, add and subtract. It is pretty cool and overall bearable to sit through once or twice a week. For me, that is. Summer could watch it everyday. She has really been missing "The Big Comfy Couch" and I need to go online and see if I can find it. I don't really like surfing the web though. There are just TOO many things on it and it can suck you in for hours. With Summer, I just don't have hours to sit at a computer. We are talking minutes people. LOL

We are off to the clinic this morning for a finger prick and count check. Hopefully, she will not need blood or platelets and her white blood count will be above 1. It has been around 0 or 0.2 for over a week, the highest it got was .4.

She looks better than she did yesterday and is actually sitting up watching the cartoon instead of laying down in the fetal position. She often sleeps in that position now.

Ok, so I don't know what I've started, but last night I tried to sleep in my bed. Let me just say that I woke up in Summer's room. She begged and pleaded for me to sleep "all night" in her bed. I didn't want to start something and never be able to sleep in my bed again so I didn't fully agree. I told her I would stay in there some. So, every time she woke up alone, I was beckoned. "Mommy, I need you." or "M-O-M-M-Y!"....boo-hoo-hoo. When I finally gave up and decided to stay in there (which was after Daddy closed our door and woke her up, I'm sure), she seemed to sleep for longer periods and only stirred instead of fully waking and sitting up in bed like before. BTW - She did complain of belly pain several times during the night. :(

She still did not want to eat or drink this morning, so I gave her a Zophran. Then I fixed her some apple juice. Well, actually I just grabbed the cup from yesterday from the fridge. It was half-full. When I set it down, Summer started complaining there wasn't enough in it. I was thinking she just tricked herself into drinking more apple juice, but went along with her desire for more juice. She just asked me if she had to drink it all, and I told her to drink it to the 3. Then she said, "I think I can drink it all." Oh me. It looks like it is going to be an interesting day. I really hope we are out of the clinic before noon. If her counts are up, there is a trip to Chuck E Cheese in our future!!!



*********UPDATE*********

Her counts are still at zero. Her platelets were only 11,000 so she is getting 250 ml of them right now. That is the second time this week she has gotten that much. Looks like chemo will be delayed until her counts come back up. The doctor also mentioned we might need to look into other feeding methods aka feeding tube / g tube. Boo! Let's hope she puts some weight back on this weekend. As the cycles progress, it is normal for it to take longer to come back up because the drugs have a cumulative effect. Please pray she is able to get back up to around 32 or 33 pounds. Today she was at 29.6 pounds which altogether isn't too bad. She took all her meds yesterday and today so we are back on track with them (Neupogen shot, Zyrtec, Zantac, Miralax, Zophran, probiotics). Gotta run it is almost time to deaccess the port.... :( The best of the day is still ahead. Not sure what we will do, but it won't be Chuck E Cheese.

Sleepover in Summer's room

Summer and I had a sleepover in her room last night. I thought it might be easier than hopping out of the bed a million times and going into her room to calm her. It was easier since I was right there and she often went right back to sleep, but her bed is not nearly as comfortable as mine. I think I will start off in my own bed tonight. She did wake several times to pee and to complain of her belly hurting.

I am really hoping she will feel better soon. It seems like she wants too, but she doesn't so far. Of course, she has become a littlewhiny little girl lately. All she wants to do is lay on Mommy. LOL Well, it's not really funny. I am enjoying her warm and snuggly body, but when you have to carry her to the bathroom with you and let her sit on your lap while you pee, it might be a bit too much Mommy lap time. :p

She is still not eating very much. My mom has suggested I make her work for her lap time. Well, not work, but eat. I am going to try this today, if necessary, but hopefully she will just want to eat on her own. I REALLY do NOT want to end up back in the hospital before Monday. That is soon enough for me. That being said, she HAS to eat today. She has been on Zophran since Sunday pretty much around the clock. We have never given it at home before since it is not a cheap drug, like Benadryl. But, since her nausea seems to be lasting longer than before, I decided to get a prescription for home. Thankfully, it comes in a tablet form that dissolves on her tongue. I am also grateful that Summer does not hate taking it. Once I get her mouth open, lol, she doesn't complain about taking it. I heard it has a strong aftertaste, but it doesn't seem to bother her. I think it is actually easier for her to take than the grape Benadryl tablets.

I also got her Zantac in her yesterday via one spoon of lemon yogurt. And, that's all she ate of that. She told me she couldn't take it and that I needed to get a throw up bag. So, I told her if she needed to throw up she could, but she was going to try to take it. After a little coaxing, she did. She did gag, but still managed to keep it down after taking a few sips of apple juice.

The rest of her diet yesterday included about 5 bites of an ice cream sandwich, 1/2 a fudge round, a little broth, 3 sips chocolate milk, 2 ounces of water, and about 6 ounces of apple juice. Not much, but hopefully enough. I am keeping a close eye on her so she doesn't get too dehydrated.

I know the light is just around the corner. We just have to keep looking for it and try to do it with a smile on our face. That is not something that is easy to get Summer to do right now either. She seems very sad and miserable. I told her if she smiles, it will make her feel a little better. Still no smiles. She always was one to want instant results and if they aren't, then "it doesn't work." Please pray that God will lift both of our spirits.

Mouth sores are no fun!

We are home. Summer hasn't had a temperature in over 48 hours so we were good to go even though she is still only eating chicken noodle broth and icing. She did have a couple of bites of yogurt with her allergy med mixed in this morning, but it was not a happy couple of bites. When we got home, she told me her belly was hurting so I gave her some Benadryl. She watched Barney then Veggie Tales then took a nap. We will probably stay at home the rest of the day. I am cooking dinner and we may ride the bikes later if she feels like getting out. If not, we I will be cleaning her room.

Her mouth and belly still hurt. She started swishing again last night when I realized how bad the mouth sores were hurting her. I looked in her mouth and all I can say is "YIKES!!!!" I hope they clear soon so she can eat more foods. She tried a hot dog yesterday, but couldn't eat it. She even got to where the icing hurt her mouth. To top it all off, she COULDN'T suck her thumb. Misery. It must have been hurting pretty bad because that thumb has been in her mouth all week! She got some morphine for that pain last night and then drank a lot of broth....like 3 cans worth. Yay for morphine!

She is not feeling well right now. Complaining of belly pain, but watching cartoon on the couch. I have a couple of fun crafts when she is up to it, but today will probably not be the day. We are back to the clinic tomorrow for the last chemo for cycle 5. Then we will hopefully have the rest of the week to "party like rock stars." LOL Next week we are back in for cycle 6. Unlike most, I can't wait for this summer to be over. That means we will be just about done with chemo which is where we all want to be.

Platelets today, blood tomorrow

We are at the clinic now waiting on platelets. Her white count is .2, platelets are 17,000 and hemoglobin is 7.?. So, she will need blood too. They are going to wait and give that to her tomorrow though so she doesn't get too much fluids going in. That is fine with me because it takes about 3 1/2 hours to get blood and only about 30 minutes for the platelets. Of course, that is when they get here.

So far still no fever. She is starting to get nauseous I think. Last night she had a bite of chicken noodle and gagged it right back out. Today she is hungry, but she says her belly hurts really, really bad. She keeps trying a bite of different foods, but nothing seems to be good enough to keep her eating it. One bite is usually all she will eat. Except for M&Ms. She has had that along with 1/3 of a Pop-tart today. I am thinking it is nausea and not actual pain. Her belly has been hurting less than usual, so that is good. Maybe we have a good medicine regimen going for that. She is still on Zyrtec for allergies and Zantac for belly pain. I give the latter to her in lemon yogurt every morning, along with probiotics. She is also on 1/2 a serving of Miralax a day. I have not been giving her the Doc-o-lace they put her on last week to help soften her stool. I think the Miralax is doing a good job and she can't swallow the co-lace pills anyway. The shots are still going too. Looks like we will probably be on them until next week at least. She still doesn't like them too much.

She is in her "infusion room" now watching Barney. It is one she hasn't seen before, if you can believe that. She has now added it to her Christmas list. Oh yeah, she's already got a list for Santa started. LOL So far we have "Fly me to the moon," "Alvin & the Chipmunks," and now Barney "Round and round we go" on it. I can only imagine how big the list will be by December. :) I am thinking there is something else I am leaving off, but I will wait for her to remind me. We have also watched "Alvin & the Chipmunks" at the clinic this morning. I am hoping the platelets get here soon so we can get out of this place and go see my aunt. She is hanging at the pool today and we might just join her. Summer won't be able to swim though because they are leaving her port accessed since she has to come back for blood tomorrow. Right now she is fine with that because, as you know, she doesn't like for it to be deaccessed.

Tonight she is going to play with her cousins while I go play Bunco. I hope she is feeling up to that visit since she is kind of on the puny side now. They usually perk her right up, so I am sure she will enjoy it even if she isn't feeling great. I am hoping she does not get a fever this cycle, but if she is I hope she gets it soon. We are supposed to go to Lake Winnie with Lana's Love on Sunday. She hasn't been since she was a baby and I think she will really enjoy it. Of course, that might be too much to ask. We have had a rather uneventful past two weeks. However it turns out though, we will deal.

I want to take a minute to thank all of my faithful commenter's. I really do appreciate all your support, kind words and virtual hugs. You guys always lift me up when I am down and just knowing you are there rooting us on is nice. I am also grateful to those of you who pray for us. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful support system. Thank you all!

Logic Works

Summer is still not feeling good. Last night she emptied her stomach (those words just makes me smile) twice. Once around 1:45 a.m. and again around 2:30. Summer moved to our bed after the first time and luckily made it out of the bed before the second time. We moved to the couch at some point after that where we slept until about 8:00 a.m. Surprisingly, I slept pretty good snuggled up next to her unable to toss. I did move to the love seat once it was daylight so I could give my other side its turn. LOL

She is still laying on the couch. She has drank a glass of green tea (with fiber & probiotics) so far today. Yesterday all she had was two glasses of green tea and a cup or so of ice. I told her she needed to take a Benadryl, but she refused. I explained to her that it would help her to not feel like she was going to throw up (I hope). She still refused saying she didn't like it anymore....it used to be her favorite. But, when you are nauseous from chemo, your favorites are sometimes your worst enemies. :( Anyways, she finally sat up about an hour after I offered it and said I'll take it. She still hasn't taken her belly or allergy meds. But, I know if I force them, she will probably just throw up which is so NOT what we need right now.

The shots are back on. Today's shot seemed to take forever. Clint administered it while I held Summer who wasn't "ready yet." This is only #2 of this cycle. Last time she had these meds, she was on the shots for 16 days. It is shorter for the odd # cycles. I hope her counts start going up soon. She already looks like they are really low. She is kind of a pale yellow color with dark circles. It sounds worse than it looks, but when she is just laying there, sometimes I just get lost in her face. That is why I also know that she has 3 eyelashes on the right and 8 on the left. They are hanging on for dear life it seems too.

She is half way through her chemo treatments with only 4 cycles remaining. That is assuming it does not come back. I read that her type of cancer (rhabdoid) usually comes back within the first two years if it is going to. I really don't want to start thinking about that, but I can't help it at times. I think she will be having a scan soon, but not sure exactly when that is. I haven't actually heard that she is getting scans from a doctor, but according to her road map she is due a CT after the 4th cycle of chemo. It is crazy that it has been just over three months since we started this whole saga. Now we are just living life day to day, never knowing if she will be sick or well. It's a good thing no one ever told me life was fair....I'd be really mad at them right now.

Please pray that she will get her appetite back. I am scared we will be going inpatient soon if she does not start taking more in her mouth than she loses from it. We go back to clinic tomorrow for counts which I'm pretty sure will be none. They will also see if she needs any blood or platelets. Her counts aren't supposed to bottom out until mid to late week, but I have a feeling they are pretty close to there now.

X-ray says: There is no poop!

I am not sure how it happened, but Friday she was full it and today she is not. Maybe God made the poop magically disappear. Too bad he didn't do the same for the belly pain. The doctor says that maybe she is just saying her belly hurts for attention. I don't know about that, but it could be that she is saying it out of habit. I do know that she won't eat and she says it is because her belly hurts. I told the doctor this has been going on for weeks, maybe even months. So, maybe he will do some further investigation. I'm not going to hold my breath though.



We got some other good news. We may be going home tomorrow. Her white blood counts are starting to rise. Even though she was running a fever early this morning, 100.7, we may still get to go if it stays low and does not shoot up again. Her hemoglobin was 7.3 today so she is getting blood soon. I hope we do not have to stay in the room for that because Ms. Ashley is trying to get all the two & three year old patients together so we can meet each other. There is another new two year old patient this week. I have already met the one from last week, but Summer has not.



She is doing a little better today. Still refusing food, but I think the news of going home has lifted both of our spirits, even though she usually says she doesn't want to go home when they say we can. I'm sure she'll be saying that tomorrow when it comes time to deaccess her port. LOL

We got a new camera over the weekend and Summer has been snapping pics like crazy. She has taken almost 200 pics of random things in the room. I am sure I will delete 90% of them, but I'm sure she won't care as long as she gets to keep using the camera. It is just the right size for her which is not why we bought it, but it was nice it turned out that way. Hopefully, it will last us a while and serve the whole family well. I really love that it is so small and portable. No more lugging the big camera to the park! I'm hoping we will get to go there sometime this week.

She doesn't like the flash so I had her close her eyes this morning for this shot.
Daddy takes a little nap, but Summer wakes him by tickling his feet. :)
One of the rare occasions she has eaten during our stay at the hospital.Paw-Paw smiles big for the camera, sporting his new mustache.Daddy says "peace" before he leaves
So far I am not impressed with the quality of the pics, but the lighting in the room is pretty bad and most times the lights are off. I hope they turn out better when we get out of here. We really didn't test the cameras at the store, we just bought the one the guy recommended which was about the same price as the others (Nikon CoolPix S220). You live and learn.....well, hopefully you learn. Maybe you just keep living in ignorance. :p

Still no poop!

Summer had a fever of 101.6 an hour or so ago, so I am not sure if that means we are in for another 48, but it might. :( She still has not pooped. Getting her to take her stool softener is still rough. I really wish she would just take it, but it seems like most of the time we end up in a stand off. Her refusing and me telling her she will take it. It can get pretty ugly and that upsets me. I wonder if this will ever get easier for her. I have tried explaining to her we have to do what the doctor says, but sometimes she still doesn't want to. She doesn't think the medicine is working because she still hasn't pooped. If she does not see immediate results when I tell her what a medicine is for, she assumes it isn't going to work so why take it. She is really smart, but of course not smarter than the docs prescribing the meds. I just wish they could figure out a way to get the poop out. They don't want to mess with her butt at all because oncology kids don't heal very well since their immune system is shot. So, the risk of going that route is too great. Tomorrow I am hoping to get with a Dr. to see if there is anything else we can try. They did another x-ray of her belly today, but we won't get the results until tomorrow because their is no pediatric radiologist on the weekends. In the meantime, the belly pain continues.

She is wanting to eat, but I think her mouth sores are hurting her....along with her belly. She will take a bite of something and then say, "My belly hurts." I also noticed her wince a little like she was in pain when she tried to chew up a frosted mini-wheat. :( Despite the new reward/sticker chart I made the other day, we are still not getting 4 swishes a day in. We are doing better though.

She is still on the shots because her numbers are still low. Today she had to have platelets because they were only 13,000. They wait until they are below 19,000 to them to her. I found out a normal person has 130,000-400,000. Thankfully, it is a painless process. Her hemoglobin was above 10, so no blood was needed. They usually wait until it drops below 8 to give her a transfusion.

We had a nice picnic lunch outside today despite the heat. Summer didn't eat much, but she did ask for a hot dog and cheese sticks. She tried both, but only ate a few bites.

This trip to the hospital has been no fun. She has rarely felt like playing and I have been down in the dumps myself. Where did the fun mommy go????

The last thing I wanted to mention is that her beautiful, long eyelashes are about half gone. She has been rubbing her eyes a lot again today. I'm not sure if the eyelashes are getting in them or what, but wet washrags are her friend.

Please continue to keep us both in your prayers. Pray that God will give us the strength to continue on fighting the good fight. There are lots of frustrating moments where I'm sure Summer and I both just want to throw our hands up in the air and give up, but that is not an option. We will beat this thing. We have to.


P.S. I finally did win at Spider Solitaire. Longest winning streak: 1 Longest losing streak: 32 :D

Started out rough, but ending on a nice note

Today I got a nice break after a rough morning. Summer put up a fuss when it came time to take her meds, in particular the liquid Doc-o-lace. The first time she ended spitting it out and it got in her eye. She also bumped her head during the struggle and has small knot and bruise to show for it. After we were both worked up into a tizzy, I left the room for a few minutes to try to calm myself and allow her to calm herself. By the time the nurse brought her more, she was ready to try again. Well, she wanted me to put in her Sprite so she could drink it with that. But, then after tasting that, she decided she just wanted the new Sprite that hadn't been opened yet. LOL I finally got her to drink it and after that I left because my dad was here to take over. Thankfully, she did not seem to mind I was leaving. My mom relieved him around noon. I later Summer was not very playful for either one of them, but I'm sure she did enjoy their visits.

She did almost get a little jolly this afternoon, dancing around the room listening to her Ipod. It was cute and so awesome to see her perky and smiling. Her toys are still in her toy box which is unusual for us to have been here four days and not have them spread all over. She has colored some, but no major playing. Book reading has also been an activity of choice.

Her temperature is gone for now. I think it got up to 100.7 today, maybe a little higher. The nurse weighed her a while ago and she is down to 30.1 lbs. That is no surprise since she is still not really eating. She did eat about 1/3 of a thing of lemon yogurt and about 4 bites of chili this afternoon. She tried a grape, but ended up spitting it out. She says her belly hurts after she eat a few bites of whatever, so I am guessing she will not be eating much until we get all this poop out of her. So far it is pretty much all liquid coming out, but not nearly enough in my opinion. Sorry for grossing you out....

I am feeling like I am jinxing myself every time I write so I am scared to say anything that would even slightly prognosticate the future. I recall writing last week how this cycle was not as bad as the first, and it hasn't been at least nausea wise. The fever is the major issue. The first cycle we were in the hospital almost a week for a fever. We have been in 4 days so far this cycle.....

Summer is whining in the bed. Her belly is hurting and she wants me in the there with her. Problem is, I'm not sleepy. Maybe I'll just move over there and that will settle her enough so she can rest peacefully. This couch is making my rear a little sore anyway. I'll be playing Spider Solitaire until I feel I call sleep. I still haven't won a game and I've played at least 25 in the past two days. I must really love a good challenge!

Nap time

Summer just fell asleep on the couch beside me. She has been up pretty much all day, but is still not doing much. We read some books this morning before I went to workout. When I got back from the gym, a nurse came in and said she was here to take her to x-ray. I was completely confused and called the nurse to see if they were taking the right person. Sure enough, they were. The doctor ordered an x-ray since Summer has been coughing. The only time I have noticed a cough is when she gets upset about taking meds or something similar. Then she will cough and sometimes end up throwing up, but sometimes not. So, I guess that is why they did the x-ray. I still haven't heard anything about the results, but I am curious to see if they saw anything in her lungs.

She has been complaining of belly pain all day. It is still above her incision, in the middle of her belly. I assume this is where her stomach is. I told her to try some yogurt or chocolate milk and maybe that would help. Not sure if it really would, but she does need any calories I can get into her. Anyway, she took one sip of chocolate milk and told me it didn't work. That was the end of that. :) I tried to explain to her it wasn't going to help right away, but she didn't seem to care about my explanation. All she knew was her belly still hurt and she was done with the milk. :( Before we were even aware she had cancer, she occasionally complained of belly pain too. The doctors never really seemed concerned then when I told them before, so I am guessing it might just be something she will have to live with. That is, unless one of the doctors decides to explore the cause of the pain further. Even then, it might not be fixable.

She wanted me to bring her some grapes when I came back from taking a shower, but the store did not have any seedless grapes. I did get her a big cookie from Panera which she said she would eat later. She was so excited to see it. She said it was the best cookie ever and compared it to the size of her head. Go me!!! She did take two or three small bites of it, but then put it up for later. I just hope I don't end up eating it first. LOL

I was hoping she would feel up to going out to the rooftop garden today, but she just said she didn't "feel very well." I am not really looking forward to another lonely Friday night in the hospital, but it may end up being just that. If she doesn't get to feeling better, she will probably end up sleeping through it and I will play Spider Solitaire a hundred times and never win. Oh well, at least I do have Spider Solitaire. When I get tired of losing, I switch to another game, but I always find my way back to SS. It is the challenge that I enjoy. Maybe tonight will be my lucky night and I'll have an actual win or two. :)