Sophie's World

5:00 PM (Randall posting): Sophie has had a bit of a hard day today. Her counts are definitely down, so she's pretty pale and tired (and cranky--more on that later). She woke up early this morning around 6:00am, but went immediately back to bed. In the past, that has been a sign of low blood sugar, and before long she was retching and acting like she was going to throw up. In case the nausea was from the chemo, Susan gave Sophie some Zofran and followed it up with some juice and a snack. That all seemed to help her a little bit, and she hasn't been sick any more today.

We know her counts are down, so we arranged for someone to stay with Sophie while the rest of us went to church. Although Sophie really likes Ms. Megan, she had a complete and total meltdown the moment Megan walked in the door, and it went on (as near as I could tell, since I had left early for church), for several minutes afterward. Susan and Elisabeth came to church anyway, and Sophie settled in with Megan and had a pretty good time. She sure was glad to see us all when we came home, though.

Our latest concern has been that Sophie really has not had much interest in eating anything, or she'll say she wants something to eat and once it is in front of her, she'll refuse to eat it or ask for something else. Aside from the frustration in this situation, we are worried that she's not getting enough carbohydrates and protein in her diet to keep her blood sugar up. I know that picky eating is age-appropriate, but under the circumstances, the chemotherapy and her general health are probably greater factors here than anything behavioral. Most of all, we want her to remain as healthy as possible under these circumstances, but we can't force-feed her. We're hoping that she'll turn a corner here before too long and regain at least a little bit of her strength and her appetite. Right now our strategy is just to keep putting a variety of things in front of her and hoping that something will strike her fancy.