Day 23

A good day.

Kennedy before clinic

Outside of waiting a little longer today and me freaking out about being in a pediatric waiting room full of germs, clinic was GREAT!  Dr. Manera was out and his associate Dr. Hemminway saw K.  No platelets or transfusions needed and the antibiotics were stopped (so no re-accessing the port).  In addition, her blood counts were up (ANC is now at 400) but she is still severely neutropenic* .   I’ve used the word a lot so figured I’d define it below.

She received her Vincristine chemo and we were done.  My biggest concern of the four hours was Kennedy being scared about having the sticky removed from around her accessed port and not having enough food to satisfy her.  Thankfully, the nurse let Kennedy remove the saranwrap-like sticker herself and we had just enough food to keep her from going crazy. 

The rest of the day was uneventful. Kennedy took a nap when she got home and played with  Maddox most of the evening.  I walked half way down the stairs to the basement to check on them and heard Maddox sweetly saying “I understand, you’re always hungry”.  Apparently, Kennedy was filling his ears with conversations about food.

Kennedy usually has some nausea after the Vincrisine but lucky for her, nothing yet.  Here is to celebrating no pokeys, better blood counts and togetherness.

*Neutropenia (noo-troe-PEE-nee-uh) is an abnormally low count of neutrophils, white blood cells that help your immune system fight off infections, particularly of bacteria and fungi. You have several types of white blood cells, and between 45 and 70 percent of all white blood cells are neutrophils.

The threshold for defining neutropenia varies slightly from one medical practice to another. Neutropenia in adults is generally defined as a count of 1,700 or fewer neutrophils per microliter of blood. The cell count indicating neutropenia in children varies with age.

The lower your neutrophil count, the more vulnerable you are to infectious diseases. If you have severe neutropenia — fewer than about 500 cells per microliter of blood — bacteria normally present in your mouth and digestive tract can cause infections.