IM2, we did not expect this

Well....this treatment isn't being so kind to Ellie. On top of making her not want to eat, she has had some mild insomnia, has developed mouth sores, spiked a fever and dropped her platelets. 

Ay yi yi. These past few days have been a blur, but I will do my best to recount them.

Eva and Nora have had colds all week. Nothing serious, for them. But, everything can be serious for Ellie. On Thursday, Ellie was driving me bananas! And then that night, she had a low grade fever, around 99. Nothing to call the hospital about, but definitely needed to be watched. This explained why she was in a bad mood earlier in the day. She was not feeling well.

It seems like "fever watch" is my new hobby. Anytime Ellie feels remotely warm, I take her temperature and obsess over the results. My minimum is two checks in each ear and the head. Anything above 99.0 makes me start worrying, because if it gets to 100.4, stuff gets real. Ellie is not allowed to receive any Tylenol, unless she is on antibiotics. So it's always a wait to see how high her fever will go, and therefore how long it will be before we have to call the doctor.

Nothing happened with the fever that night, but Ellie did start having a runny nose and watery eyes. So even if the fever did return, there was a good chance it was just a cold, and not something worse. The next morning Ellie seemed fine until about lunch time. She started driving me nuts again! I went to pick her up and then I felt that the fever had returned. I forget the number now, but it was high enough to send us to the ER. 

Tests and cultures were run, and everything came back ok. Ellie was not neutropenic and showed no signs of infection, so she was given an antibiotic and sent home. The one unusual thing to note was that her platelet count was low: 24. On Tuesday, it had to be over 75 to receive treatment, and I'm pretty sure that it was actually >100. So the drop to 24 was very unusual. Something that we definitely needed to watch. 

Feeling so crummy and tired.

On Saturday, I was like a hawk on Ellie looking for bruises on her body. I found one, around about noon, on her knee. We spoke with her doctor and all decided to keep an eye on things, calling if anything worse happened. As we put Ellie to bed that night she felt warm. Checked her temperature and it was slightly elevated. We set the plan to check it again in two hours, but also planning to go into the hospital that night. We prayed for God to take away the fever, and when we went back in, Ellie was cool and clammy. The fever had broken. She was safe at home for the night. 

This morning, Ellie was in a great mood! No fever and very happy. But then, Mike and I started noticing more bruising. We felt ok with waiting it out until tomorrow, until we noticed the blood on her lip. A very well timed follow up call from her doctor confirmed that we should go ahead and bring Ellie into the hospital. It was very likely that she would need a platelet transfusion. The ER does not do transfusions, so we decided to be admitted straight to the oncology floor. 

She never napped, but was able to rest for a bit.

Watching the helicopters land

Ellie's platelets were 11. Transfusion time! 

Ellie's bruising and bleeding that brought us in tho the hospital.

Ellie received her new platelets, and unfortunately like last time, her body did not respond the way that it should. She only jumped to 20. So now, we stay the night and most likely the next day or two until her body recovers. The good news is that all of her other numbers are high, including her ANC at about 4000.

If her ANC stays high, then hopefully she can leave her room tomorrow.
We were unsure today, so most of the playtime was on the couch.
I hate hospital room floors and won't let Ellie stand on them.

She just cannot get enough of playing with the tubes.
Don't kick the blood.

She turned part of her tubes into a ring.

Please specifically pray that Ellie's blood counts recover quickly. The second half of October is a crazy amount of fun for us, and selfishly, I do not want any of the girls to miss out. Nora's birthday is in a few days, Ellie's is in a week, and Eva's is at the end of the month. Plus, we've got a small party thrown in there for all three of them. I really want all of us to be able to be together to celebrate. 

Thank you so much for your continued love and prayers. Even with these bumps in the road, Ellie is doing so well! We know that our prayers and yours are being answered, so thank you. 

Sleeping so peacefully.