Ava's Big Debut!

Check out this music video created for a telethon being held for Primary Children's Medical Center in SLC.  They asked if Ava could be in the video, they though she'd be perfect for it.

Enjoy!

Round Three

We are on day 3 of 5 of Ava's 3rd round of chemotherapy. She's been doing ok but this round has been a little tougher for her than the rest so far. Since she is only doing 5 days of chemo this time around, the doses are significantly stronger and are pretty much taking a toll on her energy level. She's had a fever on and off for the last couple of days, she's been pretty nauseous, and has been sleeping quite a bit.

Ava still finds the time to play and argue with Addison when she's awake so her energy isn't completely gone. The girls had some fun with glow in the dark bracelets last night. There was a minor incident when Addison accidentally bit through a bracelet and her mouth glowed yellow for a minute. Apparently Justin did the same thing when he was little so it's not a sueprise that Addison did it too.

We only 2 more days of chemo for round 3 and hopefully Ava will get back to normal. I'm hoping for a very boring next 2-3 weeks while we wait for her counts to recover. Wish us luck!

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!  

    

       

Almost Done With Round 2 in the Hospital

Ava was so happy to see her Daddy on Friday, she couldn't get to him fast enough when he walked in the door.  After a fantastic weekend, Ava's counts have started to recover.  This is a trend, she spends time with Justin and her counts go up, the same thing happened during her last round of chemo.  She has 34 monocytes as of today, no ANC yet but hopefully we will wake up tomorrow to find her ANC is up and we get to go home!

She has been doing really well this time around, even better than I had expected.  She didn't have a reaction to her platelet transfusion and she only had to have one since she is now making her own platelets.  Ava hasn't had any fevers, so she hasn't had to have any antibiotics this time.  She's been drinking enough throughout the day so she hasn't had to be hooked up to fluids at night, which means that she has been sleeping better.  What can I say...we've been lucky!

Ava had a great visit with her big sister Addison yesterday.  Addison thinks she knows so much more than Ava (and everyone else) and since most of Ava's books are primarily pictures, she feels she can read the stories without mom or dad's help.  Ava really enjoyed the positive (not fighting over toys or most recently, suitcases) attention from Addison too.

Today Ava made a new friend, her name is Mary Kay and she is a Pet Therapist here at Primary Children's Medical Center.  Ava played with Mary Kay while KSL News video taped her for an upcoming telethon the ICS Team is putting on to raise money and awareness for Cancer Research.  She was quite a ham for the team filming her...maybe she will have a future in front of the camera one day.  =)

Thank you to everyone for the continued positive thoughts and prayers...they are definitely helping!  We will keep you posted on Ava's progress.

XOXO