A Fall

Sierra did amazing this round of chemo. She has been eating  and hasn't been dealing with nausea at all so far. Of course, this chemo does have a tendency to cause late onset nausea at around 5 days past chemo, so we will keep a close eye on her and hope that her anti nausea meds will be enough. We are expecting that her counts will drop around the weekend, and that she will be back in the hospital with a fever for about a week, that is just kind of how things go for her.

Now for the bummer news. Sierra had a great day on Saturday, didn' need any pain medication at all for her leg, and was handling the chemo well. After her 4 hours of being on the chemo drip and having to pee every hour, per protocol, we were very tired. We laid down to go to bed around 11:30, and I heard her nurse come in a short time after to take her to the bathroom once again. I was in a light sleep mode, and dozing when I heard Sierra scream. I instantly shot out of bed and ran over to her, she was in the nurses arms at that point, with a bloody nose. She had fallen when getting out of bed and hit her face on the bedside commode, she landed on her good knee, but also hit her left foot. She was freaking out, of course, and so was I. I felt so guilty for not getting up to help her go to the bathroom. There was probably nothing I could have done anyway, since she is so independent and generally gets in and out of bed on her own, but I feel maybe I would have known to help her that time, mothers intuition and all. After the fall she was in so much pain, mainly in her left foot, so she needed some oxy and I had to sit beside her head and let her cling to my hand until she fell asleep. Then I couldn't go to sleep because I was afraid she would need me, so I sat up for 2 hrs worrying about her until her next potty break. After that I was able to sleep, and Sierra was very adamant about waking me each time she had to use the bathroom. Sunday they did an xray to be sure she didn't have any breaks or fractures, and she doesn't. So we are just dealing with some bruising, maybe a sprain, and we are keeping it wrapped which is more comfortable for her.


On a better note, we are finally in the works for her prosthesis. We will be heading to Portland at the end of August to meet with the surgeon who did her rotationplasty. Once we have seen him, and he is happy with her healing, she will be molded for her prosthesis. We get to do a few things kind of jammed into only a couple days. So they will mold her, and make a check socket, which is basically a mock up of the socket she will eventually have, but it is made with clear material, so that the fit can be really perfect for her, they call it the glass slipper. Once this is completed, they will start making her temporary leg, which we will have to travel back for sometime near the beginning of October(guessing on that one).  So it is looking like 2 months at this point until she will have a leg to start working on. Portland will leave her leg unfinished until she has completed all of her chemo regimen, then she will go to Portland for a few weeks of intense physical therapy to get her working well with her leg, and making sure she gets the best gait possible, after that they will finish it off and allow her to choose how it looks when it is all done.

Sierra got her wheelchair at the end of July. She sits a bit crooked in it at this point, because she doesn't want to put much weight down on her left side, but she is starting to straighten out, especially now that she isn' so wrapped up with bandages. And she got a cute stuffed camel, she picked it out from the gift shop and named her Camille:)