Day 9 - Delayed Intensification

Difficult day for us. It was injection 5 of 6 today, and by far the most difficult one so far.

This morning Jo phoned to let us know that the chemo was going to arrive late, so I asked her what Bianca's levels were sitting at and the levels were high enough so Bianca visited Daddy at his work when we dropped him off, she was a bit grumpy and didn't want to talk to anybody. Thereafter we quickly went to Junglerama for a quick 30 minute play. It was really early so it was before the crowds arrived. It is hard to remember a time when we didn't have to worry about neutrophils and stuff and could just go without worrying about whether there were crowds of possibly sick people.

Then we went to the hospital. Bianca already had her wiggle in and so they could start the pre-medication early and that saved a bit of time.

And then we needed to go get the medicine. Bianca was fine walking into the treatment room, but then as soon as she sat on the bed started crying - "It will be sore" and all I could say was that I know it would be sore, but that the quicker it happened the quicker it would be over. Bianca then said "I'll stay in hospital" and then I had to say that it didn't matter if she stayed in hospital or if she stayed at home, the injection had to happen and that her "soldiers" needed it to fight the "bugs". She kept stalling, didn't want us to count to 3 and in the end Jo just had to jump in and give the injection. She was really upset and unhappy.

She slept for most of the waiting period afterwards. Thank goodness only one more left.

It is really heartbreaking and to think that when Bianca was really little and had to get her shots, I could never take her and Terence had to take her. I remember crying the one or two times I had to take her and she cried. And here I am now having to sit through injection after injection and having to be strong.

Learned today that the injections are actually called "Erwinia", but it is a different form of the asparaginase. So pretty much the same with the same kind of side-effects.

Bianca wanted to eat pizza for supper and we did not have any pizza bases and so we took some bread, she put some tomato paste on each one, she put some cooked bacon and some cheese and then we put it in the oven and voila!

Bianca decided tonight to play "Library" and made a sign saying "Open" and saying "Closed".

The open sign:

The library...
The "closed" sign...Yesterday Sanna took a walk down to the park with Caitlyn and took a few really nice photos of her:

Medicines today:

• Dexamethasone (steroid) - 3.5 tablets in the morning, 4 tablets at night
  
• Co-trimoxazole (antibiotic) - 6.25 ml in the morning, 6.25 ml at night
• Fluconozole (antibiotic) - 10 ml at night
• Erwinia injection (chemo) into the left leg with pre-medication before and waiting period of 3 hours afterwards