Clinic day

Yesterday was Riley's monthly clinic visit and chemo, and she did great. She was in a very silly mood and kept herself entertained...which helped greatly in passing the time. The Cancer Clinic is supposedly working on cutting down all the wait times...but my family has yet to experience this. We waited for almost 2 hours just to have Riley's port accessed...I finally decided we had possibly been forgotten about and went to ask the receptionist if she could check to see when we were going to be called, she called them to check and wouldn't you know they were just about to page us. Seriously? We hadn't even made it back to our chairs and our pager was going off...makes me wonder if they were really about to page us for real or if they were waiting to see how long this sucker was going to sit there and wait. Anyway, it all worked out and her counts were great...and Riley was so proud of herself because she didn't cry when they stuck the needle into her port. She usually makes a huge production out of it, even though she knows it won't hurt. So, now she's learned that we make an even bigger production out of being so proud of her when she doesn't cry...and it may help that she also gets a special treat from Target when she is good. Hey, whatever works!! Yesterday she decided she wanted a new Barbie movie...I did not hear one peep out of her on the way home, she was glued to the screen.

2 weeks ago when we had Riley's blood counts checked here her ANC was 656...she has had this nasty little cough since that time, so I was worried her counts were going to be even lower. But, they had actually gone up...yesterday her ANC was 1,120. Her hemoglobin and platelet numbers had gone down a touch, but they were all still in the normal range.

So, we will persevere through another tough week filled with steroids and the after-affects of Vincristine. She was already complaining early this morning of leg pain, and I finally got up and gave her one of her Tylenol with codeine pills. May not have been such a good idea, because she was a zombie when she woke up and DID NOT want to stay at school. The codeine makes her a little out of it...but definitely helps her legs feel better.

Please continue to pray for Riley to make it through this week, and for Josh and I to have the patience to deal with the fun of steroids. Also, please continue the prayers for Paige and all the other kiddos still battling Cancer. Paige did great with her last chemo treatment, and is awaiting her counts to come up and then have her bone marrow transplant.

Riley being silly

The kids got these hamper thingies from the Sunshine Kid's Christmas party, and for some reason decided they were going to wear them around. It was quite amusing...they kept trying to hug each other - wasn't really working out for them.