Week 10

It has been a while since I have written.  There is much to catch up on.  Over the course of these last two weeks.  Jasmine has been in good health for the most part.  Her counts are good and she is do for another long treatment this week.  Last week David brought her to a local lab for her blood draw.  The weeks we don't go for treatment we go for local blood draws to check on her counts.  Its a relief to know that we don't have to do the extended travel with her or even have to get a small chemo treatment in between.  It seems like things are looking up in that department.  I have noticed one other thing about the chemo side effects.  Now that her peeling is calming down I noticed that she is bruising so easily.  Every bump looks like serious trauma.  Her legs are covered in marks.  Her shins have black and blues, and most recently her head.  I walk around with her and I definitely have not been getting the mother of the year look.  They stare at her in general and then scrutinize the bruises.  Its super special when she goes into a full fledged tantrum, which has been more going on more often. With us not being able to catch her "fall outs", as we like to call, them doesn't help with the prevention of injury.  However, this is the life of a three year old at their best.  Kicking, screaming and throwing herself on the floor like the world is coming to an end.  Sometimes David and I have just watched her and let her do her thing for a good 5 minutes.  When it was all over and she realized no one was going to come and stop her, comfort her, or pay attention, she came back smiling as if nothing happened.  Weird....I'll never understand it.  
Then of course there has been the series of events that have led us to our present situation. The deck starts to fall apart in the back of the house and David and I began to argue about that.  We finished adding a couple of more yards to the dog fence and argued about that and the deck.  I threw a couple of more nails into the railings that were falling out.  We talked about having to replace it sometime next year but it started to come apart before the winter.  Maintenance waits for no one was the point of my argument.  You can't expect the house to take care of you if you don't take care of it.  Speaking of maintenance...I have put all that I have to help maintain my vehicle.  I had to put it in the shop for repairs for hoses, leaks, etc.  This has to be the second major thing in the last 3 months.  So I traded the good old Santa Fe for a used civic.  I got a good deal on my trade in.  I didn't even think I would get that much for it but I did.  Unfortunately, life happens and now I have a car payment again.  In this same window of getting the Santa Fe back from repairs, David's car unexpectedly has to go the shop as well.  His was just as bad as mine.   The cars are old and we knew were buying time. At least now we have one reliable vehicle.  I lost my 4wd for a more reliable, non gas guzzling vehicle. This was what I was looking for.  It was hard to give up my dream car for the civic.  Yes!....don't make fun....The Santa Fe was my dream car.  It was the car I wanted, set out to get and I got it.  I know better than to set the bar out of my range of reach.  Thanks to some 17 year old kid who wasn't paying attention and slammed into my ford escort, I got it. 
Now, to put the icing on the cake.  One of dogs needs to go the vet for emergent visit.  He's limping and not acting right.  I think he might have torn a ligament, or might even have a herniated disc.  Can we say surgery?    I hope that this is not the case put am doubtful that it is just a sprain.  It has been a couple of days now and I thought it would have healed some by now.  No luck.   David will have to take him to the vet if I can get him in.  It's not his most favorite task but I think he knows that he is hurt pretty bad.  


Later in the week...
The dog checked out fine.  Thank God. He's 9 now and he's no spring chicken.  He's slightly overweight and playing with an energetic 10yr dog full of muscle.  I wish I could tell them to chill out but it would only last but so long.  
Jasmine's treatment went so much better. She was happy going to clinic and was very chatty. It wasn't until lunch time that she began getting fussy.  We had been there the whole day and waiting for Jasmine to be sedated for her CT. As it turns out, anesthesia didn't have her on their schedule.  They were going to try to get us squeezed in but that would postpone our chemo time.  With this in mind, I asked if they could use a papoose to hold her but realized her arms would have to be up and out of it for the CT of her chest.  The child life specialist came by with pictures of the CT machine, a coloring book about it and even a lego model of the machine with a lego guy laying in it.  I explained to her that Jasmine is autistic and doesn't process things in the same way.  I can't just tell her, "Oh Jasmine look at these pictures of this machine.  Do you want to try? There is nothing to be afraid of".  I would be luck to get the one on one contact to even get her attention.  She said they have something new that might work.  They had a puffer blanket.  It was an air filled blanket that conformed to the body and would work almost the same.  I decided this would probably work fine and she suggested the DVD player also.  I had a good feeling about this.  When she went in she was already absorbed by her Dora DVD and we got her shirt off without disturbing her focus.  We layed her on the blanket and kept the DVD in her face the whole time.  When she went in I held her hands on the DVD player and it worked.  She never fussed once.  This whole process put us ahead of schedule. Awesome!...no exactly.  Unfortunately they weren't ready for us upstairs  on the floor.  They managed to get us a room in a decent amount of time but the  problem turned out to be Jasmine's bladder.  Because she was NPO for the sedation that never happened, she had no urine output.  Even after prehydration fluid were administered by IV, she still was very slow with the output.  We didn't start her chemo until 10:30 pm.  She refused to drink or eat her favorite things even at lunch so there was nothing we could have done to help this.  We just had to let things take their course.  
We decided to try a new anti nausea medicine used on transplant patients but just started to be used with chemo patients.  We were hoping that this was going to be the one.  It worked beautifully.  We were so relieved and wish we had started this weeks ago.  This was what they called a last and final alternative.  At least now we could control her sickness better.  Jasmine still refused to eat or drink anything but that was okay.  We had IV fluid for now and would make up for lost time at home.  Jasmine was able to walk around for most of her treatment.  We took her to the art room to do some art but she started playing with their cool toys.  She played with the new dollhouse they got. ;)  So nice to know.  We tried some craft projects but she was more into finding the scissors on the table.  Nothing slows this girl down or her eyes. We were chasing her with the IV pole all around the room.  We definitely needed a longer line at her rate. They had a non profit organization called Flashes of Hope there to take pictures of cancer patients.  They were giving us a photo session, a bunch of photo prints and a CD of all the images for free.  I thought way not.  We took her down and she was thrilled to get out of the room again.  She was very shy and its really hard to make her smile while she's there.  She's all smiles when we have her coat on and she knows we are leaving.  I don't blame her but the session went okay.  It was slow going at first but then she managed to crack a smile every now and then.  Priceless.  So in 2 months we would have photos of what was almost the half way mark in Jasmine's treatment.  
Upon completion of her chemo, we had the drive ahead of us.  It had snowed 1-2 inches in DC and had been 3-5 in at home.  The temperature was supposed to drop into the teens again. They tried to push her chemo up a couple of hours to help us get out Thursday evening instead of Friday morning.  Jasmine's oncologist tried to see if they would let us out a couple of hours earlier than 7:30.  She got turned down by the pharmacy but suggested for next time for them to show us how to administer her neulasta shot.  Next time we would just be able to leave earlier.  Things seemed to be getting better and better with each visit now.  All we had to worry about at this point was the weather. We took it slow on our way out because it was icy out.   DC doesn't do such a great job with treating the roads or clearing it.  I was glad we on our way out of DC because it was easier to get to the highway from the hospital.  It seemed a lot longer to get to the hospital within the city.  We got to the highway and I irritated those around me with my 55 miles an hour in a 65-70 mph zone.  Oh well, I wanted to see tomorrow and wanted my family to also.  Surprisingly enough it took us about 4 hours to get home and we didn't really encounter any problems until we got about 10 miles from home.   As I took it slow on the off ramp of our exit, the light had just turned green.  I knew it would probably change by the time I got to it as it always did, but it didn't.  I kept my speed steady all the way and was getting ready to turn when someone was about to blow the red light.  I saw from the corner of my eye that they were coming fast and I broke.  They broke shortly after I did but were way over the line.  Luckily, there was no ice for either one of us and glad I kept my speed slow and steady up the ramp.  The rest of the trip was uneventful and pretty clear until we had to turn off the main road and onto our road.  VDOT was sitting at the corner there. The road had not been plowed or treated.  I proceeded because it didn't look like there were going that way at all.  I started up at 15 miles and hour on a up slope. We crept all the way up and low and behold VDOT decided to come up from behind us. Idiots.  But wait, they most have turned off and realized this was a secondary road because they were no longer behind me.  Must have been a newbie. Damn!  We made it in the driveway fine.  Home at last. 
However, getting out to work in the morning was going to be a challenge. And it so was. I made it down the driveway and got to the end when the car wouldn't get onto the road all the way.  I was stuck on the driveway and into oncoming traffic.  I put it in reverse and got it back on the driveway.  Trucks passing me by just kind of looked at me and laughed. HAHA, yes I'm attempting to get out I thought.  I'd like to see them try.  After several tries, I got myself on the road with a slide across it.  I kept it slow and realized the road still had not been touched.  Going down the slope was going to be my biggest challenge.  I kept my foot lightly on the break before it went down.  I did it.  No fish tailing, no accidents, I knew the rest of the trip would be easy.  
As expected, Jasmine came home and made up for lost time.  She ate breakfast as usual and was super social and smiley all day.  She's amazing.  I wish the doctors could see her the day after.  They probably wouldn't believe their eyes.

Week 8: Tuesday

Yet another early Tuesday morning.  Jasmine and David are off to another DC appointment but this time there will be no chemo involved.  I only wish Jasmine was feeling better.  She continues to fight this sinus drainage.  Her breath smells awful.  I don't know what more we can do for her when it comes to this.  We can't give her anything for it and if we could we have to get authorization.  Tylenol is something that has to be authorized even.  I guess I will have to wait and see.  
I got us up early today even though it wasn't really necessary to be up a half hour earlier.  I was afraid that we would be late.  This could not happen today because David was meeting his brother in law at a halfway point.   Not to mention, we didn't want to make our lateness a habit. 
I called David at lunch to get the update. He said that there was not much more we could do about her drainage than just use the vicks vapor rub.  We were doing everything we could do and just had to let things take their course.  The hand, feet, lip peeling were just part of the chemo.  The drainage could be helped with steam vapor treatments or the rub.  Everything was cut and dry.  The only real concern for me was her count.  It was at the lost it has been since we have started.  This sends red flags up for me.  We have to be extra careful about sickness around Jasmine as well as taking her out in public with numbers like that.  This might mean some more days of quarantine.  Well at least it would be on David's watch and not mine.  I hate being indoors for too long and I know Jasmine does too.  Maybe we could seek out early this weekend for a bit.  Just to give her a break from these four walls. We shall see. 
I have to get some wrapping paper today to wrap up Jasmine's Christmas gift.  We got her a dollhouse on the black friday internet sale.  I can't believe it's already here.  I think she is going to love it. So excited. It would be even nicer if it was already put together but then she would know what it was.  Darn! Well it just means we will not just be sitting around on Christmas.  Maybe I should pull out the toolbox the night before. 
Anyways, off to work today for a half day.  David's going to try to fix the fence this afternoon for the dogs.  This will definitely make them super happy, when its done of course.