11 Days

So, we spent the last 11 days in the hospital, the longest stay for us so far. After a week of zero counts Sierra's ANC finally started going up on Thursday and by Saturday was over 2700.  The hardest part of the stay was the amount of mouth pain Sierra had. She basically didn't smile for over a week because it was too painful, it is so hard to see her that way since she has always been so happy.  Once her counts started going up, her mouth was able to heal. At first she was in more pain because she finally had an immune system fighting all of the infection in her mouth, so they put her on a morphine drip to help with the pain. She had a button for breakthrough pain, and was using it quite a bit on Thursday and Friday, but by Saturday wasn't needing as much pain meds so they started weaning her from the continuous flow to oral morphine. She is still on IV nutrition, which I am getting pretty good at changing out, and I will probably be on my own with it after tomorrow. We are looking into doing a feeding tube through her nose though for the next month or so, it is much better to have nutrition actually going through the gut, should know more about that on Wednesday at her next appointment.
Thursday night the whole family was able to spend some time together at a movie night put on by Bikers Fighting Cancer, it is a group that rides motorcycles around raising money to fight childhood cancer. they provided pizza and we watched We Bought a Zoo. It was a fun time and Sierra enjoyed herself, though she didn't eat anything. This morning she ate a few bites of yogurt, a piece of apple, and a few bites of some bread one of the gals from church brought over to us, so not much, but she is making progress. Right now Sierra is on track to go back on Wednesday for her 3rd dose of Methotrexate, and then the following week for another dose. At this point we are counting on staying on schedule with her chemo, we don't want any delays in her pre-surgery chemo if we can avoid it. It is kind of a bummer to have to plan to go back to the hospital in only 2 more days, but we know we have to do it, so we just suck it up and try to squeeze as much family time into the next few days as possible.

She was so happy to get this stuffed bat, but in too much pain to smile about it. Art is one of her favorite things, they have lots of fun projects in the playroom.

She had to have an IV put in her hand because she had too many medications, along with her IV nutrition and morphine to have all of them going through her port, she wouldn't use her hand at all, they removed it after a few days when the vein blew(they wanted to put in a new one, but Dave said no since she was going home soon and would take meds by mouth if needed)

Her amazing pump pole, the most she has ever had, 5 at once.

Sierra had a visit from a therapy dog, Maya.

Her first smile in days(Maya had farted).

 Painting Tom, the janitors, nails, she has the staff wrapped around her finger:)

We picked up "Chubby" Bear to surprise her on Saturday morning, she was so thrilled, I think he will have to go back to the hospital with us every time now.

Her first head tattoo, rocking the patriotic look. I am going to have to stock up now.

I am so happy to see that sweet smile again, love this girl so much.

Zonked out on the floor with Chubby.

I wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who has helped us out with watching the other 2 kids or making meals, visiting Sierra and praying for us. We appreciate the support so much.