Munch, Munch...

Maggie is doing fairly well, overall. In the last two days or so, her mood has really picked up. Sleep is our biggest problem now, as she wakes up a lot during the night.

We went to a speech therapist at Children's yesterday for a feeding evaluation and it was quite informative. Since she hasn't eaten very well during much of her treatment, this was scheduled to evaluate her chewing, swallowing, etc. The appointment was well timed from a food input perspective, too--Maggie has been eating quite a bit (her appetite stimulant medicine must be kicking in). We learned about foods that are appropriate for the level of eating "skill" that she has (we were a little bit ahead of where we should be). We learned that she's chewing in the wrong place (with her front teeth instead of her molar ridges) but that she is doing well with drinking from a cup, which is a fairly advanced skill (involves putting your tongue in the right place, having good lip closure, etc.) We're going to have half hour appointments once a week to teach her and move her along with her chewing skills. One of the other things we learned is that the reason for her frequent wake-ups might be that she's still hungry (in the opinion of a specialist, which is nice to have). We had assumed that it was for comfort, or maybe just a habit. Also, it was very interesting to learn to identify some of the cues that she's been giving us and how to interpret them. So this was a very helpful day.

Monday we went to the clinic and Maggie had IV chemo (Methotrexate) and was sent home fairly quickly. Her counts have fallen in half with one week of her oral chemo plus two low doses of the Methotrexate (though her Platelets and Hemoglobin are on the rise, which is good). That's a pretty rapid fall--but it is more good than bad. Eventually, Dr. French may reduce her dose again if her counts get too low. It's good to know that Maggie is still sensitive to the chemo and that it is effectively dropping her white blood counts.

Today, Whitney takes Maggie to the hospital again (3 straight days!) for her monthly RSV virus vaccine. They seemed to have a several day effect on Maggie last month as she was crabby and less trusting. Hopefully we can avoid that this time since we have a little bit of positive momentum building.

Last thing--two little girls in different parts of the U.S., Alana and Lilly, are also fighting infant leukemia and are facing very difficult and discouraging times. Please say a prayer for them and for their families.