Sunday, July 29, 2007

Hannah has been doing well, keeping busy with her tutoring, horseback riding, putt-putt golfing (once with Grandma and once with Grandpa) and now fishing. Her nausea from this last round is in check, and her energy level is pretty good. She has not taken a nap all week, and is doing a good job keeping up with her sister and everyone. She continues to get the daily shots and tomorrow we go to clinic to check her counts. She still fights the daily shots, but it has gotten a tad bit better, with less screaming, less delay and more theatrics then actual pain. I am assuming that we will have to continue the shots for a while longer, since her nadir (low point) is usually about 14 days out (they count it from the beginning of chemo, so that would be this coming Thursday). We'll see. I am purposely NOT packing a bag, so as not to jinx us into being admitted for any reason.

On Saturday, she started complaining of "noise" in her ears. I headed right away to the computer, to discover that tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, is a common side effect of cisplatinum (her chemo drug last week.) The focus of cisplatin is it's toxicity to the kidneys, hearing, neuro issues and blood levels. I had not yet read about tinnitus. Most information says it is common, and most often not permanent. Believe it or not, only 7% of people experience tinnitus from cisplatin. Again, Hannah is in that small percentage of people who get the uncommon reaction. I have already emailed her oncologist, to give him a heads up before our meeting tomorrow.

Here is a picture of Hannah in her garden. Notice the beautiful sign behind her "Garden of Hope" that was made for her by her friend Savannah's dad. Flowers are planted in front of it from the fundraiser back in April, and will bloom again in the spring. Hannah's sunflowers that we planted are blooming and beautiful. She had a strawberry to pick on her strawberry plant, and her other flowers are blooming and pretty. She enjoys picking the tomatoes in the garden with me, and they are just beginning to ripen.

For those of you that don't know, Hannah loves to fish. She and Dave and Colby went out today in the boat, after 2 days of trying, but the tide was too low in the creek to get the boat out. After a few hours, they came back with news of ONE FISH. Hannah caught a fish, a pretty big one, but Dad and Colby had nothing. Hannah still talks about the big catfish she caught at our family reunion last year at Aunt Susie's house when fishing with her cousins and sister (remember that Logan and Noah?)

Grandma and Grandpa left today to go back home. Hannah asked when we could go to their house again (she likes to go in the summer especially for all of that swimming in Mr. Tom and Mrs. Debbie's pool). I am hoping we will be able to go at Christmas time, chemo will be done and maybe things will settle down a bit then. One last photo, here are the girls with Grandma playing putt putt golf on a very hot day!xoxo Kim