Week 20 - Round Four Is Almost Sayonara

Chelsea's ANC (ANC represents her baby white cells that haven't matured yet) is 143 today which means she's getting closer to Round Four being over (once it's over 200 for two days, they'll send her home). This past week has been really rough and poor Chelsea has had it. Whereas previous stays, Chelsea just adjusted to her surroundings, I truly believe this round, Chelsea knows home now and wants to be back there. She also misses her brother very much. Any time Brian or I call her when we're the one home, the first thing she says when she gets on the phone is Chris.

So we had a complete scare last Wednesday as Chelsea's broviac tube just slipped out (this is the tube in her chest placed so they can admister the chemo and all medicines). This could have been a life threatening emergency and we were very lucky that no serious complications arose from it. That said, from that point on, Chelsea did endure a lot of more minor problems (i say minor as compared to what it could have been). She began having fevers and was absolutely miserable. At first she had a bacterial infection which was treated within a day with antibiotics but since the fever continued, after three days she was back on the nasty antifungal medicine which gives her the shakes (they call it vigoring) to fight a potential fungal infection (until her immune system comes back, a fungus would not show properly on tests so they have to combat the problem just in case). The vigoring is a painful event and to combat this nasty side effect, she's given demerol (not sure how this is spelled). Last nite, she needed three different doses of it to help her. At the same time, she's been receiving some doses of Oxycotin because she's been miserable and we suspect that her intestinal lininig is burning up her insides but since she can't explain to us what's wrong, the oxycotin seems to help take the edge off. Last, Chelsea developed a rash all over her body so we had meetings with both the Infectious Diseases and Dermatology departments to see if it was a concern. This hospital is always on the "better be safe than sorry" attitude so they did a biopsy of her skin to see if the rash was a reaction from something more serious. I always go back and forth with Dermatology on this because they did a biopsy of her hand in the first round which turned out to be nothing and now she'll now have a scar on her hand for the rest of her life. Then in the first stay they had wanted to do a biopsy of her vaginal area because she had a bad infection down there but that's where we drew the line. Can we say ouch! This time we would have asked them to wait a day or so before biopsying her leg, but since she was so out of sorts, we didn't want to take chances. I wish we had waited because the next day, her cell counts started to return and the rash was gone so now she'll have yet another battle scar on her body. But atleast it turned out to be nothing. So to summarize, it's been an eventful fourth round!

Today is the first day I've seen glimpses of the old Chelsea. I'm looking forward to us taking her home again. Each time we leave the hospital for our week long stay, Chelsea's eyes light up in the garage when she feels the outdoor air and sees cars. Each time we step out of the elevator in to the fresh air (or as fresh air as they could have in garages), it's like seeing a child believe in Santa for the first time. It's pretty amazing and I expect that moment is only a few days away now. And I'm excited because now that Chelsea will have no broviac tube when she's home (will be reinserted when we return for Round Five), we can take her to the pool or beach. Her being around germs won't be as big as a concern as it was when she had the open line. And like Brian had posted earlier, the best part is we'll all be home to take Christopher to his first day of kindergarten.