Admitted

If you hadn't already guessed, yes we were admitted yesterday. You should have heard the cheers when we got her labs back, 1035!!! You would have though we had just won the lottery or something. So it took some time, but after arriving at the hospital at 8:30 we were admitted on 4 Henson around 12:15. Grandpa Eric accompanied me on the trip and by the time we got a room we were both starving, so he ran down to the cafeteria to get us some fuel for the rest of the day. Boy did we need it! Chemo started at 1:30. Chelsea had actually fallen asleep on my lap before they hooked her up, she was so pooped. She slept for the first half of the 3 our infusion. Because we are part of a study, they are taking lots of labs following the first dose of Ara-C (her chemo drug name). Labs had to be drawn right before starting, 30 minutes prior to the end of the dose, then following the dose at 5, 10, 15, 30 and 60 minutes! Our nurse was one busy woman yesterday afternoon. Fortunately they get the blood from her Hickman, so it's painless to Chelsea, just a little annoying! They also drew labs 4 and 8 hours after the end of the dose. She is getting an extremely high dose of this drug during this round, 100 mg in each of the 4 doses. Last round there was a little Ara-C, but it was only 6mg spread throughout 4 days. Grandpa was reading the side effects of Ara-C and noticed that sometimes kids get rashes with it...hmmmm...that really got us thinking about her last rash. Could it have been a side effect of the Ara-C, and if it was, imagine how much worse it could get this time with such an extreme dose. We've been keeping a close eye on her, and she did start to look splotchy last night, but this morning her legs and tummy look better. She does have the rash on her neck now though. Since it hasn't ever seemed to bother her, I don't think it's anything to get overly concerned about, just something to watch for. This drug also causes severe conjunctivitis, so she receives eye drops every 3 hours to prevent any problems. She's not a big fan of eye drops! They rotate, one of the eye drops she gets every 6 hours is medicated and may sting a little bit, and the other is just saline given every 6 hours. They rotate the two so she's getting drops every 3 hours.

She slept well last night considering the action going on around her. We used a weighted blanket we're borrowing from TARC and Ryan and I agreed that it seemed to help her sleep a lot more peacefully...when they weren't messing with her. Take a look at our night!!!
9:00 Chelsea to bed
10:30 eye drops (so mean to do to a sleeping baby!)
12:30 draw blood
1:00 zofran (anti nausea)
1:30 eye drops and begin dose #2 of Ara-C, chemo
4:30 unhook chemo, flush her lines, eye drops
7:00 zofran
7:30 eye drops
8:00 nurse checks in but promises not to wake sleeping baby
8:30 care assistant wants to check vitals...um, I don't think so, I'll let you know when Chelsea wakes up.
9:00 nurse practitioner checks in and takes a peak, Chelsea looks great, but we notice rash on neck...hmmm...
9:15 my sunshine arises!

So, it was a pretty foggy night for me, I'm a little loopy today. It's harder to fall asleep after each awakening when you're sleeping on a cold hard floor ... not that I'm complaining though, anything for my baby! The Ronald McDonald house was completely full (both houses) so Ryan slept on the sofa couch and I slept on the floor. Thank God I brought my 1 inch thick foam pad and a couple of blankets, ha!!! It was just like sleeping on concrete. Really it's okay though b/c I was up helping give eye drops and settling her back down most of the night anyways. I may go buy an air mattress today though...any extra padding would help!

Chelsea is obviously tiring from the chemo, she just kind of looks like she doesn't feel good, not quite her usual self. She's not really fussy, or crying at all, just sleepy. She didn't eat breakfast well at all, I think she's got some nausea going on. This morning she started acting like she was going to throw up, it was more like the dry heaves, and she spit a little bit into a bucket. It scared her more than anything. Poor baby. Daddy's working on getting some lunch in her right now, then we'll lay her down for a nap and start the 3rd dose of Ara-C. After this we'll have the last dose at 1:30am, or will it be 12:30am??? Daylight savings, you figure that one out! She'll then get a shot in the leg first thing in the morning and an hour after that we'll be free to go home! Of course we have to return next Friday bright and early for the long haul.