Back Home

Elle came home yesterday afternoon after finishing her second round of Doxorubicin and Cisplatin. She threw up a couple of times but it was nothing approaching "Exorcist" levels of spew. The bigger issue was all the pee she kept expelling because of the massive hydration that is required to flush these chems out of her system. Many pants were changed, my friends. And...Elle discovered a new fun thing to do in the hospital.

You can unplug IV racks from the wall because they have a battery pack that keeps them running for a couple of hours. That allows nurses and doctors to transport patients without any worries about a drip stopping, or allows parents to walk their kids down to the playroom and then plug in there. Elle discovered a third thing it allows; riding the IV rack like a scooter as your dad pushes you. The bottom of the rack has two metal bars that cross each other and a wheel at each end. Elle discovered that she can hold the pole that holds the IV rack and place a foot on each of the bars. She is short enough that her head doesn't hit the stuff on the IV pole.

So yesterday if you were at the Barbara Bush Childrens' Hospital, you saw me pushing Elle around the floor as she held onto her IV rack and yelled "Faster, faster!!" Since the nurses laughed at the sight of this nearly-bald, elf-sized girl riding her IV rack around the ward, I am guessing this is okay. Or it just may be because it's Elle and she can warp reality to her needs. Either way, she had a blast.

So she is back home and demanding waffles. She is taking her Zofran but has thrown up once or twice since she got home. Again, nothing major but it is a side-effect of these particular chems. The Zofran does seem to be slowly lengthening the time between those moments, so hopefully it will kick in soon and stop the vomiting. And she wants to toast marshmallows tonight on the grill, so she must have an appetite of some kind.

Oh, and she got her blood transfusion. So now Elle has even more energy... help! :)

Next up should be some scans on Monday. That will hopefully set up the plan for going forward, including when the surgery will take place.