If you've already realized that my lack of posting usually coincides with me being too busy with our family, leading a more or less "normal" life, than this post would signify that something is up. In a world where I can't find time for all sorts of things I'd like to do, cancer can make our whole family, and then some, come to a complete stop. On Friday, we enjoyed a nice meal with the kids, two Aunties and one very cute little cousin. We stayed up later than we should have, and then, just over an hour after we had shut our eyes, little Ms. Victoria walks to my bedside complaining about her bobo. I picked her up and instantly knew she had a fever. That's when normal life stops and cancer life takes over. We immediately go through the drill of temperature checks, getting dressed, packing bags, paging oncologists, packing food and making sure we have everything. The whole house wakes up. It doesn't matter that it's 2 am. Sometimes you go in, have blood work done and you are well enough to leave. We knew that this time there was no chance that the emerg. doctor would send her back home.
For the past 4 weeks Victoria has been neutropenic. Her immune system has been somewhere between 0.0-0.2. There is no obvious reason for this. Because of her low counts, most of her chemo has been on hold for this whole time. She missed out on traveling to see some family for Thanksgiving, she missed the start of her music classes and she could not participate in the Light the Night walk our families fund-raised for, in honour of her. She has required another transfusion. As per the protocol, after 4 weeks they had to do a bone marrow aspiration to get a better idea of what's going on. This just took place on Thursday. Jeff and I spent Thursday with knots in our stomachs and worry on our minds. I think I spent half of the day holding my breath. The preliminary results we were given that day were reassuring. From what they could immediately tell, there was nothing alarming going on. The oncologist said it looks like she has "tired" bone marrow - it's not producing much and needs more time to recover from the effects of the chemotherapy. The bone marrow sample is undergoing further analysis, some at CHEO and some at the Ottawa General. We should have the results later this week.
Despite how bad Victoria looks on paper, she is otherwise fine. We were shocked one month ago when we first heard how low her neutrophils were and that she needed a transfusion. She has amazing energy and a fantastic appetite. You should see her play, fight and roll all over the floor with Jake. Her hair is really growing in and she looks great. Even if it can be very misleading, seeing her like this helps us to not worry.
Back to early Saturday morning: After spending a few hours waiting around in emergency, she was admitted due to her fever, non-existent neutrophils and a couple of very red spots on her legs/bum. In a strange deja vu, exactly 11 months to the day, we were admitted onto a non-oncology wing and discussions about her spots ensued. Last year, they questioned whether or not her spots were chicken pox and they kept us on that dreary wing for 7 days while she was frequently biopsied in hopes of, unsuccessfully, fully figuring out what was going on. This time, they swabbed her sores, the infectious disease doctor decided that it did not look like chicken pox and then they transferred us to our home away from home, 4 North.
It seems her sores are from a bacterial infection. She had already been started on antibiotics when we arrived and they don't appear to be getting any worse. Her temperature has been normal since early Saturday. For now, we just have to wait. We are waiting for those bone marrow tests. We will probably have to been in the hospital until her counts go up or until she completes 10 days of antibiotics. Her last admission was in August and we had to wait it out until the 10 days. We will play Lego, make puzzles, watch a lot of cartoons and make way too many Halloween crafts.
