Clinic Day, Month 11 Post Chemo

11 months – almost a year. It almost seems unbelievable. Has it been a whole year since Chelsea has been off of chemo? It still gives me goosebumps to think about how much our world has changed.

Each time we return to clinic, her doctor comments on how big she is getting and how fast she is changing. Today she made it over an hour to the hospital without an accident, then went potty when we arrived! I had her try to go again before we left, and she tinkled a little bit, then fell in the toilet. The public toilet. Ewwwww. I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t potty train your child in public restrooms.

We use EMLA cream to numb her arms before they draw labs. Just one trick we’ve learned since we don’t have our convenient tubies anymore. The nurses come in to draw her blood (yes, plural, it takes a few of us to restrain this kid) and Chelsea takes the turnquit from them, wraps it around her arm and starts feeling around for her vein. A skill most 3 year olds have yet to acquire. I always knew she was advanced for a preschooler.

Her checkup was good, oncology-wise. Today’s stats …
HGB – 14.9
WBC – 6.9
Platelets – 350

Unfortunately when they went to peek in her ears I noticed some dried up drainage running down her ear. I’m not sure how I missed that one. She does have some fluid and an infection brewing, so we were given antibiotic drops for that.

Her next visit will be the big ONE YEAR visit. They will do an echo and an EKG to check on her heart. The protocol she was on was a study hoping to lessen the toxicity of the chemo. They’ll keep a close eye on her heart and other organs. Hopefully, if the study was successful, she and the others who participated will not need heart or other transplants down the road. Some chemo drugs are particularly hard on the heart muscle of persons with Down syndrome. We're not even going to think about that. We KNOW Chelsea's got one big healthy heart!