The way things can change... unexpectedly

Our Saturday started all good. We planned to visit Kelly Tarlton thanks to CCF who arranged for us to go. So fairly early (it was Saturday remember) we all got up and Bianca wanted her face painted with the face paint she got for her birthday and so both the girls chose to be painted as tigers. Terence did a pretty good job and then for the next 15 minutes or so the kids roared at me and I had to act all scared because "we had a tigers in the house".

And so after we all got dressed, had breakfast and packed a bag, we went to Kelly Tarlton. It is a pretty cool aquarium and also offers an Antarctic encounter. They have a penguin enclosure with real live penguins and that is by far Bianca's favourite part. You get into a little car that takes you around and you can see how they swim or sleep or sit or whatever penguins like to do. We went around twice. Caitlyn of course was being her usual busy self and had a few moments where she felt a bit frustrated at following the rules.

Bianca wasn't feeling 100% and didn't have much of an appetite and so on the way home she did what all tigers do after a busy day:

After a fairly long afternoon nap, Bianca decided that she wanted to paint her dad's face and this is her work of art:

Yes, she did it all by herself. Personally I think this would make a pretty good Facebook profile for Terence...

And what do tigers and clowns like to do in their spare time?

They like to put doll houses together...

Unfortunately Bianca had a number of runny tummies on this day and so in light of the fact that she didn't have much of an appetite, had an unusually long (for her anyway) afternoon nap and despite there being no fevers, we decided to ring the hospital just in case. The Starship ward was full and busy and so they asked if we could please take her to the ED side. We quickly packed some activities as there would always be a bit of a wait and then Terence and Bianca left. Now the one benefit of saying that you have a child with cancer is that there is a certain urgency when they deal with you and they quickly put Terence and Bianca into an isolation room with a door so that she would not be exposed to other potentially very sick people. They saw one of the doctors, got a blood test done and then they waited:

The blood test revealed good platelets and haemoglobin, but low white blood cells and they were still waiting on the neutrophils, but in the meantime Terence and Bianca were allowed to go home. After all, Bianca didn't have any fevers, wasn't too dehydrated, was drinking well enough, so they were not overly concerned. They finally arrived back home around midnight.

When Terence phoned this morning it turned out her neutrophils were sitting at 0.37. That was quite unexpected and is much lower than when she was at the hospital on the 8th of June. So tomorrow we will ring Bianca's oncologist and see what he wants to do with regards to her chemo (keep it at the level it is now or reduce it) and when she would need to get another blood test. I know that on the 8th they increased her chemo and it is possible that this is as a result of that or perhaps that she is fighting some mystery virus again (like she did around New Years).

Tomorrow we are keeping Bianca home and I'm hoping and praying so hard that she will still be able to participate in her school production this week. Her school only does the production once every 3 years or something and it would be so disappointing if Bianca had to miss out. The past few weeks (maybe a bit longer) she's been practicing her lines at home every single day, so it would be a real "bummer" if she had to miss out as a result of low counts.