Surprise hospital visit

It has been a little bit of a crappy day. Ally did get up and go to school. We noticed this morning that our typically pale girl was looking REALLY pale. She ended up calling me by 750 am (school starts at 745) and was weepy and her belly hurt again. Again, her school helpers thought she was homesick. I tried to calm her down, but didn't really do it. The nurse called me back about 15 minutes later and said she went back to class ok. Mrs Hamilton sent me an update that she did pretty good this morning at school and recess.

Because of the paleness and also our general intuition, we decided to call the clinic and just have her blood drawn today. On Friday, her hemoglobin was at 8. Usually when it is at 8 they give her blood. Actually, I think they always have. Well they didn't on Friday, but said to wait until this Friday. We pretty much knew she needed blood and better to make her feel better sooner than later. I stopped by school, pulled her out of recess and put her emla cream on. Jerad picked her up from school about noon and headed to the clinic. Her hemoglobin was 6.1!!!!! Last weekend, they told us anything below 7 was cause for worry. Geez. So she needed not one unit, but two units of blood. The doctor assured me this was typical. She just seems to be getting blood a lot lately.

We noticed they were infusing the blood into her at a very fast rate. Usually it takes 3 or 4 hours to do one bag, and they did two bags in a little over two hours. Not sure why, and looking back we probably should have asked. Jackie came over to stay with E and C and I went down to relieve Jerad as he had a work meeting. Soon after he left, she started getting real shaky and crying a lot. Asking for her Daddy (of course) Maybe I should say yelling for her Daddy. Which also made me feel quite worthless at that point. (why does she always want the parent that is not there?) Pretty soon she was vomiting uncontrollably and I got worried. I got my anti nausea drug out of my purse to give her and in my rush spilled all ten of the pills all over the germy floor. Things were just not going well for us. So then we had to wait 20 minutes for them to "tube" up a Zofran pill from the pharmacy, the whole time she is crying about wanting to go home. We are kinda wondering now if the blood was infused too fast or what the deal was. She hasn't had chemo in five days. I got her home about 7pm and she seemed to perk right up. She seems better now.

We also found out her ANC is 130 (very low) which means she is susceptible to infection. I asked the dr...are you sure, sure you want me sending her to school. He keeps saying YES. Absolutely yes. I think his exact words were that after this is all over, her life must go on. So it is best to keep her going. He says most chance for serious infection comes from within her...and unless chicken pox is going around the school she would be able to fight anything there off. I told him about one of my leukemia friends that I met from New Jersey...her doctors don't recommend school during the intense phase. He said it is a difference in opinion..some docs are ultra conservative and some are not. He said, unless you put her in a bubble and only feed her sterilized food, she is going to be subject to the germs anyway. The germs will still enter into her environment on us, food, etc. And we all know that I can't do the bubble and boil all her food. So I guess when I start worrying can you all just remind me of this????

Please remember that the blood drive where you can earn credit for Ally's Army is this weekend. I have talked to several people that are doing it! I need to go sign up myself! Again, the details are:

Friday August 28th & Saturday the 29th at Community Blood Center (349 South Main Street downtown Dayton)
Each registered team member who donates during those two days will receive a $25.00 credit to your team!
Reservations STRONGLY recommended either call 800-388-give (4483) to make an appointment or log onto www.donortime.com Space is limited.
You can also register to win a Honda Civic as part of CBC’s promotion “Do Your Civic Duty”
Hours are 7am-4pm Friday and 7am-12pm Saturday

Please continue to pray that Ally has normal days and stays free of all germs!