Allie's Turn!

Well I haven't been blogging because there hasn't been a lot to blog about. Caitlin has been doing really well with the at home chemo medicine and her counts are not dropping as fast as they were before. Which is nice, we have not been totally confined to the house, and we haven't had to make any trips down to Primarys.
Now I will explain this post title, I guess Allie has been feeling left out with all the trips Caitlin has had to make to the Hospital, so she wanted a turn, I guess. I'll explain, Allie woke up Monday morning pretty early, and said she was feeling very good. At first I thought that she was just tired because she hasn't been sleeping very good lately. She didn't eat a whole lot and pretty much slept all day. By nighttime I figure I should take her temperature, and it was 102.3. I know that your body temperature rises a little bit at night, and I figure I would give her Motrin and she would sleep off the fever. On Tuesday the fever was still pretty high, so I called the Doctor's office and made an appointment to come in at 11:30. Dr. Armstrong looked her over and couldn't see anything that stood out why she would have a fever, so he sent us home with instructions to give Motrin and Tylenol. At eight pm I checked her temperature again and it was 104.9, not good. I called Jake to leave work, so I could take Allie to the Emergency care center at the Speciality Hospital. There they did a CBC, a urine test, and a flu test. They figure it was a kidney infection, thank goodness. I say thank goodness, because I was fearing it was swine flu, that would just be the worst. Now both my girls are on the same antibiotics, Allie to clear up the infection, and Caitlin to help her bodies blood counts to recover from chemo. Another crappy fact, Allie's white blood cell count was low at just 2.4, and the doctor wasn't sure it was because of the infection or something else, so in a week we have to go and get another CBC done. Hopefully it is nothing big, I think we have had enough excitement with cancer and doctors to last us a lifetime.

Vacation and other good news!

On Tuesday we packed our bags and left for a much needed vacation. First on our trip list was Caitlin's Doctor appointment to find out the results of the MRI scan, and great news the scans were clear. The spots they saw before on her neck are gone. So we are so excited! Hopefully things continue to go well. After that we headed to the Hogle Zoo, it was fun and a little hot. We had rented a wagon for the girls to ride in, but after about 15 minutes Caitlin wanted to walk by holding someones hands. She walked the rest of the way through the zoo, which is a long walk. We then spent the night at my uncle's house in Centerville. The next day we went to Cherry Hill, which is a waterpark, and other fun stuff like batting cages, a rock climb, and miniature golf. We went golfing first, since it wasn't very busy. Caitlin even wanting to try. Then we went to go play in the pools, Caitlin at first was crying and didn't want anything to do with the water. But after a nap she walked in the little kiddie pool, and put her feet in the bigger pool. Allie loves the water and keep jumping in and out of the pool. Jake and I went on the cardiac canyon which is where you go down a rapid like river on tubes, we kept getting stuck and really wet, but it was so much fun. Allie and I also rode on the Double Dragon water slides, which are tubes that you slide down on mats, they went really fast. After Cherry hill, we got ice cream and then grill hamburgers and hot dogs at Doug's. It was a really fun day, expect we brought the wrong kind of sunscreen so everyone got a little bit burned.
Unfortunately the good news didn't continue for some. On Wednesday we found out the our little friend that I wrote about it my last post, had passed away on Tuesday night. Please pray with us, for comfort and understanding for her family. We will miss her, and wish that she didn't have to leave us so soon. But in our hearts we also know she is now healthy and feels no pain, and upon her beautiful bald head has returned her beautiful curls.
On Thursday we went to the Gateway Theater, to watch Harry Potter (Caitlin and I, my family) Ice age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (Jake and Allie). It was fun, they have a pizza hut inside the theater so you can eat pizza during your movie. I was so proud of Caitlin, she was so good during the movie, she didn't hardly make a sound. After that we head to Boondocks fun center, which was almost better than Lagoon. They have a kid's jungle gym and arcade, where Allie and Caitlin spend most of their time. They have these Bumper boats, that is like bumper cars, but you can squirt the other people. They also have Go-Karts, that was the boy's favorite. Allie like them too, she kept telling me to drive faster. They also had a fun different miniature golf course. They even had little go-karts that Allie could drive, but she forgot to brake when the ride was over, good thing the operator guy was fast and caught her. We also played laser tag, which apparently I suck at, since my score was -1300 at the end. I don't think I really knew how to work my laser gun. Today we were maybe going to stop at the Dinosaur park in Ogden, but everyone was so tired and worn out we decided to save that for the next trip. So all in all we had a really great time, but now we need a vacation after our vacation.

Pray for our nephew and our little Friend!

Sorry its been awhile since I have updated but this week I have been so tired I can't think clearly to write whats been going on. Thank goodness, we didn't have to go back to the hospital for the 4th of July weekend. Caitlin's blood culture from the Tuesday that we left the hospital was negative so that's good news, but they like to keep her on the antibiotics so I have been giving them to her every 8 hours, which makes for long days and sleepless nights. But anyway, we did try to have a little fun last weekend. On Friday we went with Jake's family out to lunch and then to the car show, and then watched the fireworks at my Grandma's house. Caitlin loved the fireworks, she was saying "Oooo, Pretty." On Saturday we went to the Hyrum parade with my family, and then my mom watched our girls while Jake and I went to see Transformers 2. Which was really good but a little long. On Sunday we went to a family dinner at Jake's parents house and Allie and her cousins played in the swimming pool. Yesterday we headed down to Primary Children's for another MRI to determine if the spots they saw before our growing or if they have disappeared. Caitlin did pretty good, except she was a little dehydrated so her blood pressure dropped a little bit, but they just gave her fluids and she was just fine. We won't find out the results of the MRI until Tuesday and then we are going on vacation after that but I will post the results when we get back. Keep your fingers crossed for some good news! To explain this post title, our nephew Ryker's doctor found a lump on his neck and thinks it might be lymphoma, he is having surgery on July 21st to remove it and test it for cancer cells. The doctor believes that it is not cancerous, so hopefully he is right, and everything will go fine.
Since Caitlin has been diagnosed with cancer, we have connected with friends going through the same difficulty. There is little girl who is only a couple months older than Caitlin, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor as well. Unfortunately this little girl has been a lot sicker than Caitlin, the doctors thought that they had got all of the cancer removed. But just recently they found that it is blanketing her brain, and the doctors gave her 1-2 months, and then it changed to 1-2 weeks. We are heart broken to find out this news. Please pray for our nephew and our little friend! Thank you for your continued prayers for Caitlin.

Update on our little angel!

Well since my last post, here's what we have been up to. Caitlin had another chemo appointment on Monday, which was a little long. Sometimes I just don't understand it, there are nurses who have four patients to take care of, and then they are two nurses walking around doing nothing. Who knew nursing would be a field where you could get away with doing nothing. Apparently there are some lazy people in every profession. Anyway enough complaining, on Friday Caitlin and I headed back down to Primary for a blood transfusion. When we arrived she had a little fever but I thought it was cause she had her jacket and blanket on her in the car. Anyway her temperature didn't go down, but she didn't seem to be sick other than that. So they gave her an antibiotic and drew a blood culture before we went home. But at 3:00 in the morning on Saturday, a doctor called me and said that the blood culture came back positive, and to bring Caitlin down that day, so they could start her on antibiotics. So that's where we spent our weekend. They found out that Caitlin had a Gram positive staph infection. Also poor Caitlin gets the red man face which is a side effect of this VancoMycin antibiotic she is on. Thankfully with Tylenol and Benadryl she doesn't get it anymore. Thankfully we were able to come home on Tuesday with antibiotics and hopefully we won't have to go back for the fourth of July weekend. I wish I had a genie so that I could wish for just a normal day at least every once in a while.