Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007

Yesterday was a pretty long clinic day, so I didn't get a chance to make an entry. Hannah's counts were low as expected. Her hemoglobin was under 8, although not terribly bad at 7.61, but considering her history and where she is in her cycle, they wanted to transfuse her with blood. I was expecting this since Hannah has looked terrible in the last several days, with no color, very low energy and dark circles under her eyes. This meant a long day since they first have to "type and cross" the blood-meaning check Hannah's blood including the antibodies in her body, with donated blood that has the same blood type and antibodies. They mix the blood in the test tube first to be sure there is no reaction before giving it to Hannah. All this means it takes some time before the blood comes up for transfusion.

Her ANC (white count for infection) was only 73. Even though she was on the shots, her count was still very low. I can't imagine what it would have been without the Neupogen shots. It has gone as low as 8 during this chemo cycle previously, and she is still on the way down, so she is still on the shots. We just have to be very careful right now about germs. She is home from school again this week and not allowed in any crowded areas or high traffic areas. We will pretty much spend the week at home.

We return to clinic on Thursday, which will be day 11 of this cycle. That should be Hannah's low point in the cycle, and I would guess that she will have to have platelets, and possibly another blood transfusion also. I'm hoping for just platelets because they only take an hour to transfuse, compared the the blood which has to go in very slowly at a minimum of 3 hours.

In the midst of all this, Hannah fell and hurt her foot on Sunday at the horse show. Uncle Mike was visiting for a couple days, and Hannah came with him, Tod and Dave to see Colby in the show. She tripped right when she got there and hurt her foot. There are no noticeable signs of injury, but it has really bothered her since then. At first she couldn't put any weight on it at all. Now she is limping around, walking very gingerly. They looked at it yesterday and said it looks fine, but if it's not better by Thursday, she will have an x-ray. I think it's just sprained. These pictures are from the show, Hannah with Uncle Mike and Tod-he blends in with the blanket but he is in there, and with Colby-who got reserve champion at her show and Dave!

xoxo Kim