Final Four

Today culminated Sylvie's 4th round of chemotherapy! Hip Hip Hooray! It seems like only yesterday that this whole rollercoaster began. I don't want to say we're halfway through or anything like that but it is a very big milestone for us. Sylvie's counts are rebounding, yeay. To us the numbers with the adjacent letters H for HIGH, L for LOW and C for Critical are unnerving but all "normal" for a cancer kid.
WBC 2.8L
Hemoglobin 9.5L
Platelets 63L (but high considering her chemo)
Magnesium 1.8

Sylvie will be discharged tomorrow afternoon. Michael stayed home from the store today and will also stay home tomorrow or go in very late since he has to pick up mini-cupcakes from Ciao For Now (www.ciaofornow.net). This afternoon, we picked up more salmon and couscous for Sylvie after she ate all of mine last night. Never thought she's like chili-marinated salmon and cous cous with turmeric and curry! And potato chips.

This morning, Siobhan came up at 10:30 so that MIchael and I could slip out and talk to Dr. Valda again. We wanted to review Sylvie's surgery again and ask a few more questions. He knows we are also considering Dr. Dunn. They've spoken several times regarding Sylvie previously. I'll say one thing, Dr. Valda and Dr. Frederick Alexander are equally accomplished as surgeons as Dr. Dunn. They may not work on as many livers as Dr. Dunn but really, they are two of the best pediatric surgeons in the country. Dr. Alexander went to Columbia for med school, did his residency at Harvard and his surgery fellowship at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Until Dr. Valda told us, we did not know that Dr. Alexander is also a transplant surgeon. I kind of wished I knew that before!!!! In any case, we're pretty confident that Sylvie will stay put at HUMC unless the CT-scans reveal something more complicated or worse than we already know. I don't like correcting old blogs, but I know I previously used the phrase "simple liver resection" because that's what Dr. Harris said but make no mistake, this is not simple.

We will make the final decision tomorrow after we get back Sylvie's CT scan results. Dr. Valda will sit with the radiologists to look at the scans an identify the important stuff.

We thought Sylvie might be running a temperature this morning. The thermometer creeped up to 99.7 and her heart rate was very high which usually is a bad thing. But as quickly as it came, it went. Sylvie needs to take both Colace and Senna today to make sure she poops. The vincristine and the barium that she's getting tonight are like cement. I like that when Millie the nurses aide told nurse Danielle that Sylvie pooped yesterday, Danielle's response was, "No, it wasn't a poop, it was a shart." Who knew that "shart" was a technical medical word! If you don't know what it means, just think about it for a second.

Sylvie holds Carlos's hand when he's taking her vital signs. It's very cute. For the first two months she SCREAMED whenever he came into the room. He just passed his Cardiac exam for nursing at Bergen.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned Sylvie's new friend Jette, who is seven years old. Her wisdom reminds me of Samantha. They met in the Reuten outpatient clinic while making art projects with Siobhan. Jette made Sylvie a glittery Easter Egg and in the past month, has given Sylvie all sorts of Princess and My Little Pony presents. When they're both in-patients, they spend a lot of time together. It's very cute. Sylvie tries to be on better behavior around Jette, too. Jette asked me yesterday if Sylvie gets anesthesia when they put in the NG tube and I crinkled my nose when I told her the unfortunate nope.

Today's insights into the days and nights of Sylvie Hughes:
1). Sylvie asked if she could have a dinner party.
2). Sylvie speaks only in an urgent and demanding tone. It's enough to drive us insane.
3). Sylvie's learned how to adjust the bed.

At 10 pm tonight, the nurses are inserting the awful NG tube into Sylvie's nose in order to administer the barium for tomorrow's CT-Scans. Michael will take her. I did it in March. What a delightful experience. Michael's staying late so we can endure it together.