Sophie's World

9:30 PM Today has been an especially full day. Susan and I worked at home today, and we must have been very productive (or at least very busy), because the day went very quickly. We picked up the girls this afternoon and ate out before dance class. Elisabeth was pretty grumpy and complained about a stomach ache, but she agreed to dance anyway. By the time the day was done, she had quit complaining about it, so there you go.

We saw T'yanna's sister and family this evening at dance class. This was the first time Melissa had left T'yanna at the hospital in about two weeks. I'm sure it was hard for her. T'yanna is likely to come home this Thursday, and it sounds like she'll have pretty serious home health care. This is all very hard for her family, and for her. She's in a great deal of pain, and is physically uncomfortable (she cannot stand by herself and laying flat is uncomfortable). It also sounds as if the doctors are trying everything they can to treat her. St. Jude's was in the discussion for a while, but eventually it was decided that because of the support of her family here, it was better to keep her here. I'm confident that the people at UNC are working very, very hard in the face of incredibly difficult odds. In the car on the way home, Susan said it best when she sighed, "I don't even want to imagine what that family is going through." It's just too painful and too sad.

As for our family's situation, Amy from Home Health care came this morning and did a blood draw. Sophie's counts came back later this afternoon and her ANC is only slightly higher at 0.7 (it was 0.6 last week). The upside is that there is still no chemotherapy this week, but Sophie is scheduled for a spinal and chemotherapy next week. If her counts are still low at that point, they will administer another drug (leucovorin) to protect Sophie's kidneys from the chemo drugs.

One thing we accomplished today was to create chore charts for both girls. One of Susan's co-workers forwarded a web-based program for chore charts. I filled one out for each girl and they were both very excited about working away on them. Here's the link http://www.dltk-cards.com/chart/. The best outcome of this chore chart is that we may get Elisabeth to actually practice piano every day (she picks it up very quickly, but she rarely is enthusiastic when we ask her to practice). Our goal is to get her to memorize "Spoonful of Sugar" from Mary Poppins by Easter (her recital is in May). Frankly, I was a little intimidated by the music, thinking it was too hard for Elisabeth (she's only been playing since June), but she actually does okay with it!

Also keeping it in the family, Susan's grandmother was admitted to the hospital today. It sounds as if she has some kind of viral thing, and with her already compromised health situation, it doesn't take much to weaken her. Hopefully, she's already on the mend and will be home again soon.

Whew! That's a lot to update!

A quick post-script: Tonight Sophie wanted to watch a video before it was time for bed. She kept insisting on watching "Allison World." Susan had no idea what she was asking for, but I knew--Sophie got hooked on a Disney sing-along video at the hospital, which included the "Merry Un-Birthday" song from Alice in Wonderland. That's what she wanted to watch.