Monday, June 4, 2007

Unfortunately the weekend wasn't great for Hannah. She is not eating since this last round of chemo. It's a combination of the chemo, her type of tumor, and the sores she now has inside her throat (mucositis). The medicine for the mucositis isn't very pleasant, she has to swish and swallow it. She did it once and that's it. She can't even open her mouth all the way now because it hurts so badly, but still she won't take it again.

She is eating so little that the doctor today prescribed an appetite stimulant to help her. If this doesn't work, she will have an NG tube (common for medullo kids) which is the tube that goes down her nose to her stomach, and she gets fed that way. If it sounds bad, it is.

We gave her one dose of the medicine today, and maybe it's helping, or maybe it's my imagination, because for dinner with Dave she finally ate four bites of apple, four bites of peanut butter out of the jar (really good), 2 pieces of bacon, 1 piece of toast and some Hawaiian Punch and then 1/2 of a cupcake for dessert later. That's more than she has eaten in the last 3 days combined. I can't imagine the medicine is helping already, but as long as she keeps eating like that I don't care.

She isn't back in school, because her counts are on their way down, and she isn't in physical therapy again because of her counts, and thus very low energy.

I have been giving her the daily Neupogen shots at home, and so far so good. It's going better than I had imagined, and neither of us have gotten hurt yet, so that's good. Of course, she doesn't like them, but those great bandaids have REALLY helped. She picks one out before hand and then carefully places it on after by herself. Her latest were some great ones from Uncle Mike and Mrs. Graeb. Thanks!

xoKim