Round Three, Day 1

Esther and I checked in today to the 7th floor....YAY! On the drive down Esther asked if she would get to have her "real nurses." I told her the other nurses from last time are real nurses, but yes, we do get to see her regular nurses. It's nice to see familiar faces and we got to see lots of them today, with several visitors and a sweet nurse, Virginia. I will always remember the first time Esther had a frightening nose bleed because it was scary, but also because Virginia was excellent that day. I just love this department, not the circumstances, but what a gift these caregivers have been! Lydia has a goal to become a nurse at "THE Children's Hospital" (not just a nurse in general, but one at THE Children's Hospital), and I was thinking maybe we'd go to nursing school together someday. I would be so honored to care for families in the same way.

We've started today with all the precautions and preventative measures we can to keep these nasty antibody side effects away. Her medicine is running at the slowest rate possible, she's getting breathing treatments, and I've been slow to increase her pain medicine. Today has been good, she's about half way through her infusion for today and is just starting to have some of the expected, not-so-scary, side effects. However, she hasn't had issues until the end of the first day's infusion, which will be about 8am tomorrow morning.

Painting only won for a few minutes.

One of the Child Life Specialists brought Esther a few awesome gifts for her stay this week. The highlight being a squinky dispenser toy. It's like a gum ball machine, you put the toy coin in, turn the knob and a squinky comes out. She played with it nearly the entire day with a few short painting breaks. This toy even won out over a movie she had asked to start!

So, we could certainly use prayer for our week. For Esther to come through this week without any of the hard side effects she's had with the last two. For protection of her body from long term damage. For this treatment to teach her immune system to fight this cancer and that it would never come back.Margarita was able to make it out to help with the kids this week so Anthony can get a full week at work. Thank you, Wayne, for sharing her so frequently! They will have a great time, I'm sure. I miss them terribly already. The last two weeks were good, the closest I've felt to normal in a long time. Still, my mind is scattered. I forget. A lot. The recent snow storms didn't have to make me think it's still winter...I do think it's still winter. Today's warmth was a bit like being hit in the head with a 2x4, it was so disorienting.

Also, my dad had a PET scan today to evaluate his own cancer progress. Please pray for clean scans and effective, encouraging appointments with his treatment team. He is doing better, but it's a long road to recovery. His treatment was not all that long in duration, but really intense. Please pray that his cancer would not return.

Thank you for your company and encouragement on this long road. We've been carried in the hands of a loving Father through your prayer and support.

UPDATE: 10:30pm

So, the second I posted this, Esther spiked a whopper of a fever and needed a little oxygen....Praying this is the only excitement for the night.

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