Clinic update

Maggie spent 6 hours in the clinic today getting a blood transfusion and bloodwork--it took a long time. Her platelets are in good shape, so no repeat of last week's drop just yet. She needed blood because her hemoglobin was below 8 (7.1) whereas last week she was at 8.3 and 8.7 for the two times that she was checked.

Her white count and ANC (which are important to track for our hope to see family and to travel for Thanksgiving) have more than dropped in half since Friday. Her ANC is at 380 (it was at 1,100 Friday). Dr. French would like to see it reach 500 for us to keep our holiday plans. So the question is whether or not Maggie is still dropping from the chemo 10 days ago, or if she has bottomed out. If she has already reached her bottom, it wouldn't take much recovery to reach 500. But if she is going to drop further for another day or two, then it will be hard to recover in time for Wednesday's pre-Thanksgiving blood count check. We're glad that she dropped more (for the sake of her chemo's effectiveness) and are now ready for it to bounce back so we can visit with our families' and eat some Turkey like old times. We'll keep you posted.

On another note--many of you know that Maggie has always enjoyed her books. Typically, she reaches for them when she wants to be read to, or else she stops fussing if we sit her on our lap and go through a big stack of her books. She loves to turn the pages, point at animals and talk to them. She has had the endurance and attention for 30 minutes of reading since she was very young. Well, this evening she pulled some new tricks. She was playing on the floor while Whitney and I sat near her on our couch. Then, she grabbed one of her books, held it up in the air towards us, carefully placed a longing look on her face, and verbally pleaded for us to read to her (well, she repeated some of her favorite syllables, "da, da, da" or "mmm, mmm, mmm."). It was impossible to resist. And very cute.

It is hard to communicate the emotional rollercoaster that we encounter on a daily basis as we often experience anxieties, worries, fear, regret, etc. But there are also very normal moments of joy that any parent would expect to encounter with a 13 month old. She is very sweet and is generally a very happy baby, despite all that she has to go through. We enjoy watching her learn new things and express herself in different ways. We just need to continue to hope and pray for her treatment to be successful and for her to stay free of relapse and infection.