Merry Christmas!

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful support you’ve shown.  I hope that you are all able to spend time with your loved ones and enjoy this blessed time with each other.  From our family to yours, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

Going Home Today!

Isabella's counts have crept up enough for us to be discharged today! They "topped off" her platelets this morning and will be boosting her with some antibiotics soon and I will be driving in to bring her home shortly. The antibiotics will continue at home for a few days while she still has low white counts. We'll also go back into the City tomorrow for a blood transfusion (for low red cells), but at least we'll all be able to sleep in our own beds tonight!

Now the tricky part is to prevent her from spiking a fever or getting another infection during the holidays.

 

Update – 6:56pm

So we’re all home and settled in.  Here is a picture of Isabella from the hospital last night after she heard she was going home today.  Up until then, she hadn’t had much reason to smile so this was nice to catch.

Here we are at home playing Scrabble.

Update from the Hospital

So we are now through day 4 in the hospital. Isabella's blood culture test reveals that she does not have a bacterial infection, meaning that we do not have to do a standard course of 10 days of antibiotics. We're not sure what was causing her fevers, but it was most likely viral, and thankfully, she hasn't spiked a fever in over a day now. So our doctors now tell us that in order for us to be discharged, Isabella's white cell counts need to go up (otherwise, she would most likely get infected by something and be back again). The good news here is that her counts are creeping up ever so slightly, so we're hoping to only be here in the hospital for a couple more days.

Up until today, Isabella hadn't been eating much. She hasn't been vomiting, but she has felt nauseous and had little to no appetite. So Julianne and I decided that we would let her eat whatever she wants, regardless of the low-carb diet. Today, Isabella ate a good amount, including pancakes, pizza, and lugaw (which is a Filipino rice soup that my mom made), which we were encouraged by.

Unfortunately, we are noticing some worrisome symptoms from Isabella. She continues to be very weak physically and she can only walk a few steps at a time. She's also having problems chewing some foods so we're sticking with some of the softer foods. She is also having problems talking and communicating, and she's displaying much frustration from not being able to communicate how she is used to. Now we're not 100% sure whether these symptoms are due to chemo or to tumor progression - our doctors say it may be due to either and we just have to wait a few days to see if the symptoms subside.

So for now, we're still taking things one day at a time and we are looking forward to being home soon.