Got Blood?

My mom, who I love, has asked me a few times if Sylvie has any blood "on tap" at the blood bank. I keep telling her to not say "on tap" because the sound of it makes my skin crawl. Having read 12 vampire books since January and at least a dozen previously, I imagine two things:
1). The Got Milk? ads but with Got Blood? instead and Sylvie with a blood moustache.
2). A dingy bar with lots of different beers on tap, on of them for A+ blood.

I will say that the blood she received today was definitely from a directed donor, so thank you whomever it belonged to! Ironically, my niece Jackie was trying to donate blood again today but her hemoglobin was too low to donate (12.3). Sylvie's hemoglobin this morning was only 6.1 which I believe may be lower than it was when this whole cancer thing was diagnosed 6 weeks ago.

After an exciting Sunday filled with family, friends and making dyed Princess eggs, today was major let down. We arrived at the outpatient oncology and hematology clinic at 10 am and Sylvie was NOT a happy princess! It started off okay when Carmen weighed Sylvie and she was 23.6 lbs (up from 23.1 last Thursday). A small triumph. We went across the hall for the lab technician to draw blood and the pre-requisite Dora and Hello Kitty Band-Aids. I asked them to check Sylvie's magnesium level since she upchucked it several times last week. From there, we went to the play room and read books for a while. A short time later, Annette, the advance practice nurse, dropped by to confirm that Sylvie needed blood. They asked if I had put Emla numbing cream on Sylvie and I had not because they never told me to do so although I brought it thinking we could apply it as needed once we were checked in. I was a tad upset because now they were going to stick a pin right through her chest without anesthesia. Good thing they checked her mag level because it's half of what it should be. See-- Mom's know best! That being said, now we have to double her magnesium supplement which means giving her either 4 ml 4x daily or the "preferred" 2 ml 8x daily. If I had to administer magnesium every 3 hours in addition to all the other fun stuff, I might shoot myself.

Once Sylvie had her pre-transfusion Benadryl, she passed out on my chest and I got to read about half of "My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands" by Chelsea Handler, eat an entire Toblerone chocolate bar and drink some Chai. Naptime ended when the nurse, Suzanne, started the blood and Sylvie went apeshit. I mean nuts. Sylvie was totally inconsolable. I imagined Dr. Steele and the nurses outside laughing at me. Finally Siobhan from Child Life came in with Princess, Dora and Barbie movies. After nearly 20 minutes of insanity, we settled into "Barbie and the Magic Pegasus."

Just when I thought that doubling Sylvie's magnesium was challenging, one of the scheduling peeps tracked me down to talk to me about Sylvie's CT-scans on Thursday-- Abdomen, Pelvis, Chest-- which of course, I knew nothing about.

I guess the good news is that Sylvie's chemo on Thursday wraps up Round Two. And Team Sylvie is so thrilled with her tumor shrinkage that they are eager to do new scans. It poses a logistical nightmare though. I'm sure most of you have had a CT-scan with contrast where you have to drink barium and get an IV during the procedure. Now imagine doing this on an almost-three year old who is not eating or drinking anything and has an IV port in her chest. I was handed a gigantic bottle of apple-flavored barium with "easy" yet IMPOSSIBLE instructions and was totally bewildered. The average adult would gag drinking so much of it. On the bright side, thank goodness it's not an enema. I would have to draw the line there. That is one thing you will not catch Michael or me doing. I think Sylvie would bite off our fingers. Just for giggles, here's our schedule Wednesday night through Thursday. I am reminded by the proverb "You are never given more than you can handle":

Weds:
9 pm- Run barium through ND pump for 3 hours at nearly double the current speed.

Thurs:
4 am- 7 am. Repeat
6:45 am. Apply Emla cream and Glad Press 'N' Seal to Sylvie's chest
7:15 am. Leave for Children's building
7:30/7:45 am. Nurses access Sylvie's port
8:00 am. Get back in car and drive over to main hospital building.
8:15 am. Check in to radiology department and start IV.
8:30 am . THREE CT-Scans.
9:30 am. Drive back over to Children's builiding
10:00 am. Check in for chemo

OK looking at this, Michael and I have decided the family Hughes is not capable of pulling this off. Stay tuned.

In ode to the 15 year anniversary of the movie "Reality Bites," I'm listening to the soundtrack. Highlights including Juliana Hatfield, World Party and the Indians. Lowlights include Dinosaur Jr. although Michael absolutely loves J. Mascis and is mad I wrote that. I'm officially giving Michael slack because Mascis's new record entirely benefits an Indian not-for-profit organization and has a song called "Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” which is a Sanskrit mantra meaning “May All the Beings in all the Worlds Be Happy” and that's not such a bad thing afterall.