Month 2 - Delayed Intensification

This Thursday was the beginning of Kate's second month of delayed intensification. We arrived at 8am for blood counts and found that they were good enough to proceed with chemo. This was a good thing since my Mom was here and we had already geared up for the long day.

Kate did very well with the lumbar puncture and intrathecal chemotherapy this time. She actually told me that she was tired and fell asleep BEFORE they even gave her the "sleepy" medicine. After the procedure, she was grumpy until she saw the oreos that I had brought. As you can see in this picture, she was all smiles after that.

Kate received Vincristine and Cytarabine through her port, followed by a longer infusion of Cytoxan. This drug can be toxic to the kidneys and bladder so after the infusion she had to receive several more hours of IV fluid. That poor girl must have gone to the bathroom a dozen times!

In total, we were at the hospital for about 8 1/2 hours but the time actually passed pretty quickly. Kate watched Curious George, worked on some homework that her teacher had sent home, did a few crafts and took a little snooze, too. She was most pleased by Daddy's visit complete with her favorite turkey and cheese roll-ups.

The child life specialist, Christy, had a fun activity planned at the end of the day. She had the kids create their own feeling tree. She asked them what colors they associated with being happy, sad and mad. Kate then did a leaf rubbing with red for mad, blue for happy and green for sad. Christy asked them to tell her something that gave them each emotion. It was a pretty neat exercise and Kate seemed to really get into it. She also is still drawing Vincas and we've tacked these latest works of art on our bulletin board at home.