Speechless

Before I update on Chelsea's chemo treatment today, I have to brag. She is definitely using the "m" sound, something we've been working on for months. She's definitely using "maba" as a word for me now, and it wasn't just a fluke. I've seen her verbal language just blossom since we've been here at the hospital and it's the one happy thing I have while we're stuck here. She's been saying I Love you when she hugs you (it's sounds like "ah la lu" but it's always at the appropriate time and usually comes with a hug or kiss, so I know that's what she's saying. She also started trying to say milk tonight. She kept pointing to her milk and saying "muh". I was so excited I was speechless!

Chelsea has really done well today. It's as if the chemo is working and she feels better b/c her cancer is going away, but the chemo doesn't even make her sick or effect her at all. Her blasts (abnormal, immature white blood cells *cancer*) were down from 22% on Thursday to 3% today!!! There's a good chance that most of the cancer will be gone from her body after this first round, but unfortunately there's still some lingering undetected, so we will of course have to continue the chemotherapy regimen until the end. She ate so well today she was almost back to her old self. Not quite the quantity she used to eat, but I was thrilled to see all the food thrown about the floor when she was finished. That's my girl!

I saw just a couple of pimple looking things on her bottom today and asked the nurse about some Desitin and she said we could talk to the doctor when they come on rounds. I didn't really think anything of it, but they like to treat any little sign of diaper rash quickly b/c with the drugs she's on it can turn into something nasty pretty quickly. She also has some of the pimples on her face that we're watching it all very closely. It's likely a side effect of the chemo.

When the doctors did their rounds this morning they thought that Chelsea's chest looked okay where they have the IV line running but this afternoon I noticed it looked goopy, red and swollen. I even noticed it was warm to the touch. I told the nurse she shouldn't have trained me so well, now I'll be letting her know every time I notice anything out of the ordinary. She agreed that it looked bad and called the resident doctor whom had to talk to the attending...(do you see where this is going, ay yi yie!) Finally the attending made the decision to change the dressing again, do another culture (the cultures from 2 nights ago were still negative) and then she wanted to start a new antibiotic. So her dressing looks so much better tonight and I think we've got it all taken care of. Her nurse today is a great nurse, and she does the best job cleaning and dressing it.

Logan is coming to visit tomorrow with my mom. I think he's going to have a little talk about sissy with the child life coordinator. Ryan said he's having a really hard time with the situation and has been following his dad around the house for the last two days. They're sleeping together, so there's a habit that will be hard to break! I miss my baby boy though. The thought of being away from him all this time just breaks my heart, I'm so torn about what will be the best thing for him during this period. It's possible that he may be able to attend my MIL's preschool for both the am and pm sessions. The benefits: it's free, it's all day, it's consistent and it's with grandma. The drawbacks: he would have to be pulled from his new preschool (it would make for transition #3 this year), he would be exposed to a lot more "germs" and probably get sick more this winter, it would be a really long day for a very active 4 year old who's probably not cognitively prepared to be in school all day, and lastly, his selfish mommy isn't ready to send her baby to school all day. I know when I'm home between treatments with Chelsea I'll want to spend as much time with Logan as possible and that will be hard if he has to go to school. Really our only other option though is to shuffle him between grandparents and uncle Davy during the time I'm away from home. I never know where he is going to be the next day. I suppose the perfect situation would be to keep him at his preschool on T/Th morning and find a daycare that could take him on a very flexible schedule. It would be a consistent babysitter, but one that would be flexible and let me keep him at home when I'm home from Chelsea's treatments. To all my readers, will you please do me a favor and give me your ideas. What can we do with Logan to keep him in a stable environment throughout such an unstable period in our family's life?