Humdee Humdee Hum

The girls have a book about two orange socks that get separated when the Dad does the laundry, and one gets bleached white. The white sock gets tossed out of the drawer (the kid will only wear orange) and is lost under the couch. The orange sock is the more timid of the two, and relies on the other one to calm him down, which he does by humming, like that.

I realize now that I wrote that it doesn't explain very well why I am humming now to myself, but whatever. I am feeling a little edgy. Dayssi is just barely out of the neutropenic zone -- ANC up to 562 or something like that today. It is creeping up, still no REAL reason to worry except that she is so vulnerable to infection in this condition. Another week of missed school, etc. The NP says she is clearly recovering from whatever she had because her "monocytes are 24." I have no idea what that means.

Good news is that Dayssi will have her port removed tomorrow, and she is good and ready. The last three times we've accessed it she has been really stressed out and unhappy about it, and I've needed help holding her down while she fights, kicks and yells (but doesn't cry). I hate it, but I'm sure she hates it more. Tomorrow they'll take it out, give her some intrathecal methotrexate (into the spine) and we'll get some vincristine via IV (presumably they'll insert it while she's sleeping). We'll start 5 days of steroids and, as soon as her counts pass 750 (I think) we'll get back on the other nightly chemo drugs. And, on Thursday they are going to check her counts again, and we will draw blood from the inside of the elbow. Oh boy.

I'm still feeling sad from the recent deaths I wrote about last time, and am even sadder today to have learned that a family from Dayssi's pre-school just lost their newborn, who was about 5 weeks old, and who seemed healthy and asymptomatic before hand. If you are inclined to pray, please add the Wilcox family to your list.