Today is brought to you by the letter B

And the number 1 ( We did A and 0 yesterday)

Yesterday, Monday, Jesse was admitted to hydrate over night in preparation for chemo today. We were in our room by 3pm. I wouldn’t let Jesse go to the playroom because I feel this is setting a dangerous precedent for later in the stay when she absolutely cannot go because of germ concern. Luckily we are in a room with double doors so I can blame it on being in a really special room.

At 5:30, we had dinner. Jesse unfortunately got sick. I am not sure if she ate too fast or if her stomach hurt. In clinic right before they hooked her up to Fred she complained about her stomach. But once we got upstairs, until she threw up, she seemed fine.

The only thing they had in her medicine draw was phengren. On getting that she was out like a light until 7:30am.

This morning she ate 3 bowls of cereal and 1 waffle. The child life experts came by bringing her a cardboard playhouse and a toy kitchen. The house we can take home, but the kitchen needs to stay for the other kids (fine with me because we have one at home 🙂 )

As I was setting up the kitchen and house, chemo began. First was the melphan for 20 minutes. Somewhere in this, Jesse threw up. Then she felt better.

Once the melphan finished, the carbplaten and etoposide began it’s 96 hour run. They are both going in her little body on the same CVL line. For the first hour they checked her blood pressure every 15 minutes. Jesse was miserable because she had to stay on the bed, and couldn’t help me put together the play kitchen.

The cardboard house Jesse can color and decorate. I placed the kitchen in the house. She spent the afternoon happily playing with it. In fact she never even noticed the TV was on.

Child Life from the clinic brought her playdough with several molds. We played with that for an hour. Around 5:30pm, Jesse started getting funny looks on her face. I grabbed the bucket to have with us. She mentioned being hungry, but I had a feeling that wasn’t really the case. I let her have gummies. She ate 2, and was done.

At 6pm, she was due to get zofran. But 10 minutes prior, her stomach decided that it needed relief. She didn’t throw up everything. The nurse gave her zofran and benedryl to help her feel better. By 6:30pm, Jesse was asleep.

She almost woke up to talk with Mike, Chris, and Mom via skype… but she was too exhausted.

It was great to talk with them via skype. Chris actually had a conversation with me! Usually she doesn’t. I think that it’s easier for her to talk to me when she can see me. I also gave her a tour of Jesse’s room. For her, the biggest thing is being included. I am sure at points she doesn’t feel that way.

She has been asking me if she can shave her head for weeks now. When I told Mike tonight that I talked with Child Life about it, she asked if she could shave her head right then. They feel that it is a great chance to learn a life lesson and feel included in what is going on. I am for it if it will help her to feel included. I just hope that she doesn’t equate Jesse’s hair being gone with special treatment. This might be a very important life lesson.