Izzy is 2!

11/11/11- Today was actually a pretty good day. Izzy had her appointment this morning with her pediatrician for her flu shot. It was great seeing Dr. Jara and everyone at Caring Pediatrics. This was her first time back there since being diagnosed. It was actually really comforting to speak to the doctor who has been taking care of Izzy since she was born.  Izzy did great, and had no reactions to the park. She spent most of the rest of the day at the park with her Aunt Ang, while Derreck and I spent the day working on the house with his parents. It’s really coming along nice and I can’t wait to get in there!

11/18/11- This week went pretty smooth. Monday morning we arrived at All Children’s at 6am for Izzy’s port revision surgery. When the surgeon came in she informed us that Izzy would not need to stay for 23 hours observation, and that we could probably go home shortly after the surgery! Everything went really smoothly and by 2pm we were on our way home!

Since Tuesday was her birthday, but she couldn’t be too active for a few days, we only had a few people over and did cake for her. She loved blowing out the candles! I think we re-lit them about 10 times so she could blow them out again!

Wednesday we were back at the Tampa clinic for her chemo. They were able to access her port quickly and easily. Her ANC counts (which show how strong her immune system is) are starting to drop, but everything else still looks pretty good! As always she did wonderful with her chemo! I’m just hoping we don’t follow the same pattern as the last two weeks and wind up with a fever 2 days after chemo! Izzy did get a nice little surprise while she was in the transfusion room for her chemo. Michelle from child life came in with a birthday present for her. It was a great distraction to what was going on and she loves her new baby doll! Our next appointment isn’t until after Thanksgiving! She goes in the 28^th for more chemo and the 30^th for her next lumbar puncture with chemo.

Here’s hoping we have a nice quiet hospital free week!

MUST HAVE SLEEP!

11/10/11- Exhaustion does not even touch what I feel right now. Here’s a quick re-cap of my last 48 hours: Yesterday I woke up at around 5am, because Izzy apparently didn’t receive the memo about the time change. Then I worked 9-11. After that I went over to work on the house, Came home to work 3-5, and then went to home depot for more paint, picked up Ang from school, and went back to the house to do some more work! Then around 8:30 last night Derreck, who was home with Izzy, called to let me know she was running a fever. He called the clinic and the doctor wanted us to bring her into the ER.

When Izzy and I got there, her temp was up to 104.9! Luckily her port cooperated and they were able to get a vein for a peripheral blood sample on the first try as well! (Thank you very much to our awesome nurses last night! They took wonderful care of Izzy!) Izzy was awesome. She didn’t cry once. She said ouch when she got accessed and when they drew her blood, but that was it! She really amazes me.  The doctor said everything looked good and her counts were fine. It seems that she just winds up with a fever 2 days after her IV Methatrexate each time. They gave her some Tylenol, a bag of IV fluids, and antibiotics, and released us at around 2:45 am.  I finally got to fall asleep somewhere around 4am.

Next thing I knew Angela was waking me up asking me what time I needed to leave for Izzy’s surgery consult. Somehow it was already 10am and our appt was for 11 (or so I thought!!!).  I’ve never gotten dressed and out the door faster in my life! When I was about 10 minutes away from the hospital I got a text from Derreck saying to call the clinic to reschedule my appointment! I called him up panicking, and to my horror, found out that my appointment was at 10, not 11!

Fortunately my mental breakdown was completely unnecessary because they still saw us anyway! We were even seen right away. The surgeon explained to us that they are going to go into the original incision and place a new stitch to anchor the port. She had looked through the notes from Izzy’s original surgery and the port was stitched down to begin with, which explains why we didn’t have trouble at first, but now all of a sudden it won’t stay still. The stitch must have come out or come loose since she’s growing so quickly at this age.  There is risk of infection and bleeding around the operation sight, but it’s better than the complications that could come from her port continuously flipping over. The good news is that if everything goes well, she will only need to be in the hospital for 23 hours of observation. The bad news is that surgery is scheduled for Monday, so she’s going to be in the hospital for at least part of her birthday.

I was at least smart enough to spend the rest of the day in Tampa so that I wouldn’t have to drive all the way back down tonight for the meeting at the Children’s Cancer Center at 6. I decided Izzy deserved to have some fun, so I took her to International Plaza to go run around and the Disney store there is awesome! They had a winter wonderland thing set up where Santa was, and she got to play in the fake snow. She loved it! The meeting at the CCC was great, as always. Izzy had a lot of fun, and I got a needed reminder that there are other people going through this too, and that it will eventually be better. I really am so thankful for everyone there!

And now here I am. Izzy is sound asleep after a very fun day! Time to get some rest! Now all I have to do is hope that I wake up and make it to her appointment tomorrow morning!