Our Time Home

We were able to go home on Friday, May 11th, just in time for Mothers Day.  Ava's counts recovered in just 19 days from the start of chemo, the norm is 33, wow!  Ava's ANC was at .10 but they let us go home because they were confident it was on its way up.  They were right about that, by the time Monday arrived it was 1.2, that was a HUGE jump.

We had such a blast at home.  Justin flew home to surprise me for Mothers Day so the 4 us were able to spend it together as a family.  This was by far the best Mothers Day ever.  : )

Our time at home was pretty uneventful until Wednesday when Ava came down with a fever.  I blame the shoes I wore Tuesday night, they were the same shoes I wore the day Ava was diagnosed with Leukemia.

The Cursed Shoes (In case you were wondering)

Needless to say, those will be going back to Nordstrom since I've only worn them 2 times and bad things have happened each time they have been worn.  I took Ava to the hospital on Wednesday, they drew blood and gave her antibiotics.  I received a phone call at 6am on Thursday letting me know her blood culture grew something and that I needed to bring her in ASAP.  ASAP meant, right then and there, not an hour from then but I needed to wake her up and leave right then.  I was certainly nervous, oddly enough it wasn't because of the fever, I guess I knew the ridiculously strong antibiotics she was about to have would kick the infection.  I was more nervous that Justin had plans to come home Sunday for a week to spend time, just the four of us as a family and now that wasn't going to happen.  Fortunately Ava's oncologist was Attending that day and he let us go home that night after she had her 2 doses of Vancomycin, her regularly scheduled bone marrow aspirate and spinal tap, w/chemo.  It was a long day for Ava, but we were able to go home, yay!  The only stipulation was that she had to go home on vancomycin every 6 hours, until we go back for round 3 of chemo.  The Vancomycin has to be given with Ava being pre-medicated with Benedryl (manually pushed over 3 minutes) because she turns bright red when given the Vanco, not so fun.  Regardless, we were able to go home and spend time as a family for the next several days.  

We planted lots of flowers, played outside everyday, went to the park and went to the zoo. (Ava loved the elephants, apes and the carousel).  Ava definitely made up for lost time.  We also spent quite a bit of time in our trampoline that the girls received for Christmas.  Although it is more convenient in the box, we figured we may as well put it together and get some use out of it.  To be clear, when I say "we", I really mean me.  (You're welcome Justin).  Both girls absolutely love the trampoline and it turns out, the trampoline actually helped get the blood flowing for Ava's daily blood draws required due to the infection.  Ava also enjoyed having her sister read bedtime stories to her each night.

The last time home we didn't really do anything, I was worried something terrible would happen.  (Now I know only terrible things happen with those cute shoes so that won't be a problem much longer)  Ava's doctor told me to let her be a normal child at home, so I did and she had a blast.  

Round 3 of Chemo, here we come!