All Good

Things continue to go well here in the Bixler house. We made it back to Dayton last night at a record time due to no vomit or poo stops. It seems that whenever we get in the car, Maggie decides she has to make a mess of some sort, either by choking on food and then eventually vomiting, or by having diarrhea. Thankfully though, she was very content watching her Backyardigans on the dvd player (along with some other helpful movies). It's nice to be home, but I do really enjoy my time at my parents because of the help in entertaining Maggie.

Monday's are always "hold-my-breath" days. It is lab draw day. Though I don't necessarily have any reason to worry, I still get quite anxious awaiting Maggie's blood counts. If her lab results are good, I always feel like I can breathe and enjoy myself for the rest of the week. Then it starts all over the next week.

Today proved that I can enjoy myself again for the week. Maggie's labs all looked good, except for her stubborn prealbumin (this measures her protein/nutritional status). Her number has to be in the 20's before they will consider taking Maggie off of TPN. Her number today was 17.5. It just won't budge, though sometimes it does get lower. We are beginning to think that this number just might indeed be measuring inflammation in her body, as everything else looks good. Maggie was weighed today and is up to 26 lbs. 13 oz. Wow! She even grew a bit, if her height that was taken was accurate. She is up to 32 inches. I am hoping this is the case because it means that her body is finally nourished enough to begin catching up (and the lower doses of chemo are allowing her to do a bit of growing as well).

Along with Maggie's prealbumin needing to be in the 20's, her diarrhea also needs to be making improvements. And while it is improving, it unfortunately has not gone away. For the most part, Maggie wakes up in the morning and immediately sits on her potty and goes poo. She is content to sit there a good 30 minutes or more while watching her dvd player. This new routine that we are in allows for less messes during the day. There are days, most often after she takes her oral chemo, Methotrexate, that she will go 3 or 4 times, but those days are more rare. Though it is still diarrhea (and I don't expect to see it get better until she is off treatment), it is a lot easier to deal with 1-3 episodes versus our 15-20 that we were cleaning up 3 months ago.

So, the amount of time Maggie will be on TPN is still up in the air. We go in next Monday for a spinal tap, chemo, and the start of steroids. They also intend on increasing her chemo, Vincristine, and seeing how her body responds. Three months ago she had some toxicity to the Vincristine, which caused her to lose her fine motor skills, lay limp, and fall over when crawling. It was a very tough experience that I don't want to re-live ever again.

Please continue to pray for Maggie, that her cancer is completely gone and she is completely healed. Also, pray for all the children and their families who are going through these same battles.