== Counts ==
The doctors are happy with the way things are progressing with Nadia. And this makes mommy and daddy ~really~ happy. 🙂
Some of her counts look like they might be starting to level off, but they might still be increasing slightly. Yesterday her WBC = 2.7, and this is on the low side, although the low end of ‘normal’ seems to be different depending on the reference you look at. For newborns it can be 9, for adults it can be 3.5, my notes has 7 as the ‘mid range’. So there is still room for growth here, but our doctors do not appear to be worried. We just have to be careful, stay away from crowds, and try to be as clean as we can for now.
Her ANC = 1.24, and this is about half-way to the 2.5 value we are hoping for. Again, this count means we stay away from crowds and screen visitors for now.
Nadia’s Hgb = 104, and this is edging closer to 120, and healthy females usually have >120.
As for platelets, Nadia is an all-star! Yesterday she had 205, which is pretty much the middle of the normal range. She is a champ!
==Tapering CSA==
In order to prevent Graft Vs Host Disease, Nadia has been taking the immunosuppression drug cyclosporin (CSA). This is also called her Anti-Rejection drug. As of this week, she is being weaned off! It will take about 10 weeks until she won’t be taking it any more. We will have to keep an eye out to see if she starts showing any signs of GVHD, and hopefully she won’t. We are told to look for an angry rash. This rash could be her new immune system attacking her skin. If this happens, her other organs could be under attack too. They also said to watch her poo … yay … :-p
Tapering off the CSA is a big step towards living a ‘normal’ life. This is exciting.
==CVC coming out==
Perhaps most exciting in the short term is that Nadia’s CVC line is scheduled to be taken out on Tuesday! The CVC line is the ‘noodles’ that emerge from her chest. This line goes all the way up her ribcage (under her skin), up to her jugular vein, where it enters the vein and goes down to her heart. This is the line that IVy was hooked up to and was used to deliver drugs and fluids. This line has also been used to take blood samples so that we could get the counts, which ended up as wonderful graphs I know you all love. 😉
We have a surgery booked for Tuesday where this line will be taken out. Apparently the blood doctors used to just yank them out. I guess someone, somewhere decided it was too cruel to do it this way, which is kind of ironic considering Nadia was given poison (chemo drugs) right into her veins and kept in solitary confinement for 50 days! How cruel was that!! 😉
Sometimes these lines come out by accident, such as getting snagged on a slide or the kid pulling it out and handing it to their father. So, we don’t anticipate this to be a major surgery.
The next step will be home (!!!)
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Meow
Weee!
Nadia’s morning meds. The two on the left are Magnesium. Her CSA (far right) causes her to be short on Mg, so she needs top-ups three times a day. The CSA on the far right is her anti-rejection drug. It is the most bitter, so we add some chocolate syrup to the syringe. She gets CSA two times a day. The middle syringe has antibiotics in it. She gets this twice a week as a precaution since her immune system is so weak still.
More Achoo
Ninja in training
Nadia learns soccer (the father-son team was so kind and accommodating for Nadia crashing their game. Thank you strangers!)
