Chopped Liver

Cute photo of Sylvie and Samantha making funny faces Monday night.

What does it mean when the nurse comes in to give Sylvie her G-CSF shot (i.e. Neupogen. Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor, a growth factor that stimulates the bone marrow to make more white blood cells) and I interject and offer to do it myself?

Sylvie was in great spirits today and I think Dr. Halpern was tickled pink when he sneak-attack tickled Sylvie and she erupted into giggles at least three times. Tickling is a great way to feel her tummy! Dr. Halpern was amazed by how Sylvie has been responding to chemo and said that if you did a physical exam of her abdomen, you would not be able to feel anything abnormal. Pretty incredible that there's still a ticking time bomb inside.

The team didn't seem to be able to tell me when Sylvie would a). have surgery or b). go home and we danced around in circles a few times.  To make a long story short, ultimately Sylvie's blood counts are too low do do anything including going home.

I talked to Dr. Harris later in the day who had spoken with Dr. Dunn who indicated that Sylvie does NOT need a liver transplant!
This is GREAT news! Dr. Harris and Dr. Valda (head of pediatric & adolescent surgery at HUMC) talked further as well. The current plan is for Sylvie to have repeat CT-scans after the 4th round of chemo and surgery 3 weeks later.

Interesting facts, Dr. Valda worked on the successful separation of siamese twins in 2000 who shared a liver! Dr. Harris himself underwent a liver transplant less than 4 years ago (and talked about it on the Today Show with Katie Couric, too).

Tomorrow, Sylvie has an action-packed day complete with an audiogram to see if the Cisplatin has affected her hearing as well as an EKG and Echocardiogram with Dr. Josh Dyme. He's pretty awesome. I ran into him once in the parking garage and he told me that he's been following up on Sylvie's prognosis which I thought was pretty cool.  

I will be bringing my yoga mat into the hosp and sneaking off to the 'family locker room' when I have a moment to myself although I might just fall asleep on it.

Looking forward to going to sleep before 9 pm.