We had another clinic visit yesterday. It was pretty uneventful. The waiting room was jam packed when we arrived; there was not even room to sit down at first. I overheard the receptionist tell someone that there had been a code earlier that morning. 🙁
Serenity didn’t take long to warm up once the waiting room emptied out a little bit, and she got right to business making her craft. She was making a ladybug but instead of giving it legs she gave it as many googly eyes as she could squeeze onto its body.
She had gained a whole pound since our last visit! She has really had an appetite lately. I wondered why she was so hungry when she wasn’t on the dexamethasone but maybe she was going through a growth spurt.
Our doctor is out of town so she saw another doctor who adores her. On her way out of the examining room the doctor said, “Will you blow me a kiss?” and sweet Serenity ran over to her and put her face up. I don’t think the doctor understood but I knew Serenity was offering to kiss her, which made me smile.
Serenity worked on a puzzle while we were in the infusion room waiting for her chemo to arrive & several of the nurses were astonished at how well she put the puzzle together. It was a 63 piece Mickey Mouse puzzle, and I worked on it with her, but she does love puzzles and is good at finding the flat pieces to get the edges done first. I filled in things like the sky and the grass and let her figure out how to fit together Mickey Mouse.
After her IV vincristine we were ready to go. Serenity pitched a fit when it was time to take her line out. Phil hadn’t been able to come with us and Serenity wanted to leave her line in so that Daddy could see it. It was cute but sad to see her so worked up about it.
One funny story about her lab results – the nurse had told me that she would call me when Serenity’s numbers came back. I was in the gas station when my phone rang so I let it go to voice mail because I didn’t have a free hand to write down the results. The nurse left a message to please call her back because she “wanted to talk to me about Serenity’s lab results.” My heart just plummeted. I felt like I was reliving the phone call when we first had labs drawn on the day she was diagnosed with leukemia. Really, there was no logical reason for me to panic. If her numbers had been low I would have turned around and gone back to the hospital so that she could get a transfusion. As it turned out, the nurse said she didn’t want to leave the numbers on the voice mail because she couldn’t tell from my greeting if she had the right number. I wanted to say, “At least say EVERYTHING IS FINE when you leave a message,” because I had been so scared.
We are back on the dexamethasone this week so I’m preparing for some late night eating and an increase in temper tantrums. 😉 As far as her 6MP goes I try and feed her dinner by 6 and then have her fast until 8:00. Then I give her her medicine and she can go to bed or play around until 9:00 when she can nurse. It’s hard for her to fall asleep without nursing but she is a pretty good sport.