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Well, we all spent the day at home, knee deep in kleenex and boogies.  Benjamin’s poor nose is running like crazy.  He seems to be doing pretty well, although he was definitely worse today than yesterday.  Tomorrow will probably be worse, as that is the way RSV works.  Right now, motrin is our friend.  Poor guy…he plays so hard and that makes him cough.  He then gets mad because the coughing has disrupted his play;-).

Allyson still has her cough.  A little more of the “sass” is coming back, so she must be feeling a little better. - Her little legs just don’t have anything in them.  She was sitting on her pink chair…I don’t know if she tried to get up, or what happened, but her legs just gave out on her as she scooted her rear end to the end of the chair.  She ended up face planting right onto the floor; she couldn’t hold herself up.  I rushed over to pick her up and she said, “I OK Mommy!”  What  great kid! - As soon as the chemo build-up wears off, her legs will be better.

We did not have chemo today at the doctor’s office.  We are giving her half of a pill in the evening right now instead.  We don’t have to go in for anything until Tuesday.  She sees the burn specialist to check her foot (it looks good by the way), and she has blood work done.

Tomorrow we are hanging out at home again.  We don’t want to get anyone sick.

Happy Valentines Day!

The results are in…..Dr. Rob called and we are in remission! (This does not mean she is cured or that we are finished with treamtment…we still have two years and five months to go.) This means he did not see leukemic cells in her bone marrow - the chemo is doing its job. He also said that he is starting to see new growth. That was the best news that we could have heard. We can now move into phase two of her chemotherapy which will last until mid-August.

Allyson had a pretty good day. She and Lisa made many Valentines cards. This afternoon Lisa drove Allyson to her school, Tita’s, Aunt Kay ,Uncle Craig, Julia, and Trevor’s house, and Miss Linda and Miss Gerry’s to delivery her Valentines. Allyson loved doing this; Lisa said she got the biggest smile.

It has been confirmed that Benjamin has RSV. It looks like we caught it right when it was starting which means that the worst is yet to come. RSV gets worse before it gets better. We are giving Benjamin breathing treatments every 4 hours. The good thing is that for the most part he will just sit and let you do this. We will see what tomorrow brings for us…

Ok, at some point we would just like to have no luck at all. Why do I say this?  Well,  because of all things to have happen…Benjamin has RSV. (Brad’s commentary;-)

During Benjamin’s bath this evening, Brad noticed he was wheezing.  I noticed it as well.  So, off the two of us went to the Pediatric Urgent Care where they confirmed (as much as they could without having test results) that he has RSV. - They ran the test…we’ll know for sure by Friday.  Benjamin got two breathing treatments (albuterol…for those of you who are unfamiliar with this lovely drug, it makes kids hyper) before we were sent home.  Over the next several days, we have to continue the breathing treatments every four hours.  When we got home (around 9:00 at night), Benjamin was in full play mode because of the albuterol.  I picked him up, two legoes in hand, and rocked him until he went to “sleep”.  He is sort of sleeping now, but he not fully asleep.  I think we’re in for a long night.

Of course, we are concerned about Benjamin, but we are also concerned about Allyson because of her fragile immune system and how respiratory illnesses seem to really hit her pretty  hard.  She is probably already infected anyway, so there isn’t much we can do for her.  Her cough is probably due to RSV.  (If you remember, Allyson was hospitalized with RSV last winter for nine days.)  They say if she does have RSV, it won’t be as bad as it was before, thankfully.  Right now, all we can do is watch her as well.  We gave her a breathing treatment tonight also because she coughed so much last night.

Besides her cough, Allyson had a pretty good day.  She ate several times today (are you surprised?).  We made several valentines for people at her school.  Hopefully we can get them dropped off some time tomorrow.  We’ll have to see what the new day brings us.  RSV gets worse before it gets better…

No news yet on her test results.  I called into the office this afternoon, but they didn’t have the results yet.  Dr. Rob will call us tomorrow with what I am sure will be good news.

Pray we all get at least a little sleep tonight and over the next few days…

Today was a kind of difficult for us…Allyson absolutely knows when we are headed to the hospital for treatment.  She cried this morning when we put on her coat.  She knows…

Once we got there, she was all out of sorts.  She didn’t want them to do anything to her.  She was upset, more so than usual.  She let the docs and nurses do what they needed to do, but she was not at all happy about it (can you blame her?)  It is always hard for Brad and I to leave her in the hospital room when she’s all drugged up.  We have every confidence in everyone there, but there is just something about leaving your baby in such a vulnerable position.  -  Once she woke up from her procedures, she ate LOTS of spaghetti, and we were on our way home.

Miss Chris, the physical therapist Allyson has had since she was born, dropped by this afternoon on her way home from work with Valentine treats for the kids.  It was very nice to see her.  Allyson was a little out of it, but I know she was glad to see Miss Chris.

The hair…she now has a few bald spots on top of her head and the rest is very thin…that’s all I’ll say about that…

Keep your fingers crossed for good test results!

BTW…My mom would have been 68 years old today…

Until tomorrow…

Allyson woke up perky this morning. That hasn’t happened in quite some time. My guess is that the 3a.m. potty run and the 4a.m. cup of yogurt might have had something to do with it…She woke up at three and had to use the potty. We all went back to bed, and I heard this little pixie voice say, “Mommy, I hungry.” I tried to put her off saying it was still time to sleep, but I could hear her rumbling around in her bed. I knew she was still awake. Again, I heard, “Mommy, I hungry.” We decided that spaghetti (which is what she asked for) probably wasn’t a good idea in the middle of the night, so we picked yogurt instead.

We got up, and when she was finished with breakfast, the two of us jumped into the car to get gas, coffee, and a bagel for me. She was so excited to get out of the house. She had a huge smile on her face. We played for a while (surprise, surprise, no stickers today!), ate lunch, and then she even took a nap.

Tomorrow is a busy day. We have to be a the docs bright and early. Then, it is over to the hospital for the bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap (and a bit of chemo as well). We’re hoping for good news from these tests. If we get the good word, we can move to the next phase of treatment. - Keep your fingers crossed.

Benjamin was very cute this evening. He ducked and walked between my legs several times tonight. He thought that was absolutely hilarious. When I ask for a hug now, he puts his head on my shoulder and then pops it up and grins at me. He loves it when I make a big deal out of that, thank him for the hug, and tell him what a good boy he is. He eats that up!

Keep little Ally in your thoughts and prayers as she goes through her procedures tomorrow.