ER Visit and Steroid Week

At Loyola ER

We are prepping for clinic tomorrow and are prepared for our new-normal life to be yet once again turned upside down.  Kennedy gets Vincristine through her port at clinic tomorrow and also starts a 7-day run of steroids.   It seems as if just as things start to become normal, we are tossed back into a chemical nightmare.  The side effects of this chemotherapy include hunger, puffiness and intense muscle/joint pain.

Kid Yoga

Since I haven’t blogged in awhile, I figured I’d catch up now.  We had an unscheduled ER visit last weekend.  The cough that I heard in Kennedy’s classroom by a classmate just 3-weeks back made its presence at home 2 weeks ago.  When visiting her class, I heard the thick congested cough and had a full blown panic attack.  I called the teacher, nurse and principal and insisted that all of the kids in the class need to use sanitizer immediately - I'm sure I sounded crazy as I told them I wasn't sure I should continue sending Kennedy to school.  Up to this point, only Kennedy used sanitizer.  I ordered 4 enormous gallons of alcohol-free sanitizer from Amazon and as far as I know, all the children are using it and the school has me on crazy-parent watch.

Halloween Goodies

Unfortunately, my efforts were a little too late.  Kennedy’s cough resulted in a temperature bouncing between 100.5 and 100.9 and we were sent to the ER.  We were there for 4 hours where she needed two blood draws, one from her port and the other from her arm. 

Since Loyola is also a teaching hospital, it seems we also got to play test-doll for a trainee learning how to access a port.  I should have known better when the head nurse came in with two younger nurses.  It was the way the assisting nurse was feeling around K’s port that gave it away.  I asked if she had done this before and she assured me she most certainly had.  Of course she missed and the head nurse had to fix the error.  The same error happened earlier when drawing blood on Kennedy's arm as I saw a different nurse poking around with the needle.    I forgot how protective and on guard we as parents need to be, we are our child’s advocate.  Gene and I were on edge after the two misses.  Thankfully Kennedy’s counts were high enough so she was given a preventative dose of antibiotics and sent home.

Circus Fun

Outside of the hospital visit, the last month has been good.  We had a Halloween party for the kids, we went to kid yoga and we were spoiled by Jon Troy at Feld yet again and given front row and stage seating at Ringling Bros circus.   Kennedy is loving school and has been going to gymnastics at the Y.  We are keeping busy and trying to have fun.  Hoping for a quick and painless roid run.