Round 3

Merry Christmas! It has been so long since we have last posted. We have been so busy with everything we just haven’t had time. I will post more of my feelings and thoughts later but for now we know many have wanted to know how Bree is so hear it goes.

We were scheduled to go in for Bree’s 3rd round of chemo on Friday the 12th but they didn’t have room in the pediatric oncology wing so we had to wait until Saturday. Her treatment lasted Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Usually when Bree gets her chemo she does pretty well and usually gets sick a few days later but this time she seemed very nauseous and agitated. The doctors kept us an extra day because they wanted to make sure Bree was feeling better. She just wasn’t her cute happy self. So we went home on Tuesday. It was great to be home and we were excited to get ready for Christmas. Our stay at home was short…like a day and a half short. Thursday afternoon Bree spiked a fever so off to the hospital we went. Usually when she gets fevers the nurses can get it back down pretty quickly but this time her fever took a while to go away. The doctors were also concerned because her heart rate was way too high. This was scary for me. She was miserable and exhausted for most of the afternoon and night but thankfully her fever and heart rate came back down. The bacterial infection was very aggressive, usually it takes a few days to know if there was in infection in her system but they knew within hours because of how fast the bacterial culture grew. The doctors told us that had had we not came in right away that she could have gone into septic shock….scary. While in the hospital they decided that Bree needed to have a feeding tube because she was not gaining enough weight. They had mentioned this to us last week so we have been trying so hard to get her to eat solids or formula from the bottle but Bree has become very suspicious of people bringing food to her mouth from all of the medicine that she has been taking so she will only nurse and she just isn’t getting enough calories. Usually a woman doesn’t want to be called a cow but I wish I could produce milk like one☺. So on Saturday they placed a feeding tube into her nose, down her throat and right into her tummy. I still can nurse her but for 12-16 hours a day she will be hooked up to a machine that pumps a mixture of formula and breast milk into her body. I will post more about this later but the good thing is the tube will help Bree get stronger and help her fight off future infections. But I definitely have mixed feelings about the tube and am obsessed with getting her to eat solids so she can get rid of it but she still won’t. In times past Bree got infections when her Neutrophil counts dropped but this time they never dropped…yea! Since they never dropped and the infection was under control we got to come home on Monday afternoon. This was a blessing because the time we spent down there this time was harder than normal. So now we are back at home and loving it. It is so nice to be home and Bree loves having her brothers around to laugh at her and her Dad there to dote on her. The best part is it looks like we will all be together for Christmas..that truly was THE ONLY THING I wanted for Christmas! So, Christmas came early in the Cook household. Merry Christmas everyone!
(I’ll post pictures of this last round in our next post!)