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Yes it is true. Our girl Ally is home from the hospital. Her ANC was still zero this morning, but the doctor said she could be released. She went from a mere 300 white blood cells to 500 white blood cells...still almost nothing, but it was proof that that her body was at least making the cells again. That rationale was combined with the fact that she had been fever free and also was being her normal perky self. They do want her to eat too. The protein levels in her body were too low. So when her nutritionist came to speak to her she said the only thing she wanted was one of her Pa's steaks. Steak is good. Steak is protein. So Jerad arranged for someone from Synergy to bring Ally a steak from Longhorn for lunch. And she wolfed it down! A good start. I also promptly ran to the store and picked up three more steaks to cook over the weekend.

Ally arrived home about 5pm. It seems like it takes forever to get out of there and they also had to pump her up with several more antibiotics before leaving. We were so anxious to all be together again. Ally was in really good spirits. We even had dinner together...no matter that it was just pizza. I got my toenails done by the queen nail painter. And the kids seemed quite happy to have a kiss from BOTH of their parents tonight before bed. That hasn't happened since Monday.

She goes back in on Tuesday morning to see if her ANC number has risen...and then again on Thursday. It has to hit 750 for her to start the next round of chemo. If it does, she will again be inpatient in the hospital on Friday...through to about Monday and hopefully not longer. We better enjoy our time together now before that hits again. We plan on trying to make a trip up to our family lakehouse at St Mary's on Saturday. Just staying a day, but we haven't been there all summer. The last time we went was Memorial Day Weekend. Ally was diagnosed 2 days after we got back. My how things can change in the blink of an eye. And then we blinked again, and summer was gone.

I wanted to post a great little story about my friend Erin Cobb who is a photographer from Alabama. She has a following of people (she is a fellow blogger) and she always has people asking her questions but doesn't have much time to answer them. So she did a fundraiser for Ally's Light the Night Walk where she offered to answer three questions for $10. She ended this fundraising initiative on August 31st. You may have noticed a donation into your Light the Night account today. She donated an amazing $800 to the Ally's Army team!!!! That is a lot of questions that she answered and a lot of time that she has invested. All in honor of our girl Ally. Thank you Erin and also thank you to all the people who took her up on her offer. Just another small example of everyone coming together to make a difference.

The Barnett family will be peacefully sleeping in our own beds tonight. Five people under one roof. Hooray.