Old friends and starting again

First and foremost, Ally is better. She has been fever free for a while now, and they are admitting her at 8:30 in the morning for the last methotrexate round. Even if she gets another low grade fever, she will still get admitted. These kids get fevers so much I guess they are used to it. I do feel a bit better that her body was allowed to recuperate a bit before she gets hit again. They almost started her on Monday, and I started thinking..what if she would have started and then gotten sick after she had the chemo. That would have been ugly. SEE? It can always be more miserable than it is. I guess I have to remember that. Additionally, I should note that they are only giving her 75% of the dose that they gave her last time. So hopefully that will be less toxic to her body and she will clear it out of her system before those evil mouth sores crop up again. She will be in-patient from Friday-Sunday. Hoping not until Monday.

So remember yesterday how I was saying I love visitors to break up the monotony? Well today I got the best surprise. We got a visitor all the way from Tampa Bay Florida! A good friend of our family's from our old neighborhood growing up..Gail McGovney. I swam with her daughter Jodi and she was also golfing buddies with my Mom. She called me up out of the blue and said she came into town to see a sick friend but also really wanted to see us. Of course, I just loved seeing her. We had a great visit and she knows pretty much everything we are going through because her husband Jon had multiple myeloma (another blood cancer). She was also an excellent source of motherly advice. So thank you Gail. You made my day. Here is Gail getting a manicure from Ally: (people come from far and wide to get their nails done) I thought Jodi might like to see her Mom since Jodi lives in Brooklyn!


I am also posting a picture of us with my birthday cake for this year. I neglected to post it before because I was too crabby about my birthday. My sister Melissa took over for my Mom and got me an awesome ice cream cake. We did try to make the day normal. Thanks Melissa.

with my littlest (and cheesiest) girl:

Finally, tonight was the first (exhibition) WSU basketball game of the season. Ally was feeling really good (three weeks since chemo!) and her ANC was very high (over 1000). We kind of know that it not going to happen very often throughout the season. The next round of chemo should keep her ANC low for a long time. I am guessing we won't be able to take her into an arena filled with 5000 people too often. So we took advantage and went over and watched our boys bring home a win. She loved sitting with her friends and then lo and behold a cheerleader asked them to go out onto the floor to do the chicken dance. She loved it. She said she was doing it whether her friends went or not. (not like the old Ally). Jerad caught this picture of them doing the chicken dance on the jumbotron...hard to see but they are right between the cheerleaders.
And here is the girl who has been to almost every game since she was born onto this earth. I can probably count on one hand the number of games she has missed in her eight years here. I was also very touched when I looked up and saw the head coach for the Raiders, and our friend Brad, wearing his Ally's Army bracelet during the game. Here he is all dressed up fancy in his suit, yet he kept his orange bracelet on in support for our girl. So many people, so many bracelets out there, we are blessed.
Please pray that Ally tolerates this chemo well and bounces back to her old self. Hoping the long days and nights at the hospital pass quickly also. On that note, I gotta go pack my bags again.

PS...Some of you asked....my friend Kim Grant is now on the school board. Wooooo Hoooo for Kim.