Our Friday the 13th started with a bang: Ruby slept until just before 8. When the nurse came in, Ruby sat up, so I got up too. I walked over to her crib to kiss her Good Morning and when she stood up to come to me, her chemo tube stayed on the bed. It did not appear to have been unhooked for long, as there was only a small amount of toxic orange on her sheet, but we would still have to play detective and catch-up all the same. The team narrowed down the amount they thought she missed and recalculated her dosage rate so that she shouldn't miss a beat with her schedule. (This was after the evacuation of everything possibly touched by the chemo was totally removed, including the Unit Directors top shirt, which he wore while he personally changed out Ruby's sheets.)
Ruby has been a little less than her usual 100% energetic self today. More thumb sucking and cuddling with Mommy (not complaining!!). She still ate a good breakfast and an ok lunch, but was picky about what she did consume. Just as I've seen before, she will bounce in and out of the good and bad; one minute she'll have her head on my lap, sucking her thumb, and then she'll pop up with a smile and start talking. Our days have been spent doing speech, visits from nurse or doc, taking a few laps around the unit while catching riding on our chemo 'pole', doing OT, playroom on the unit, more laps, and more speech :)
Plenty of time in this round still for hair loss, but it's amazing to me that Ruby's hair seems to be filling in a little from when she lost so much during Round 2. It got so so thin and some of it short, but now there seems to be more short hairs in the place of some of the bald spots that were there just weeks ago. Crazy how her body still has the ability to grow with such strong medication in her system!
The team still agrees that she will be finished mid-afternoon on Sunday, and discharged shortly after. (Yes, I ask the SAME question every day to make sure it's the same answer!) Once home, she'll have those blood draws by the home nurse, giving us results within 24 hours so that we know if we need to keep her home from school/church (low ANC) or bring her to the clinic for a transfusion (low platelets or hemoglobin). The tricky part will be both Thanksgiving and Christmas. As the schedule stands now, she will not be receiving chemo for either, but her counts should be at their lowest those weeks. That means the random fever would mean an admission. Prayers for healthy healthy Ruby anti-germs those weeks, please!!
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