Clinic Day

Today was our second clinic day.  Ryley came with us today and found out how boring the hospital can be.  Fortunately there was an incredible volunteer there who played video games with him and then had him play house with another little girl.  Not only is the staff at the Alberta Children's Hospital incredible, but the volunteers are great.

Karlee has gained 1 kg (2.2 lbs) in the last week and she is starting to look a little puffy in the face. Dr. Singh said everything she is going through is normal.  He was also very happy with the bone marrow aspirate results from last week.  To put this all in perspective 90% of her cells were affected by leukemia prior to the start of treatment and after 1 week of treatment less than 1% of the cells were affected.  The effectiveness of the chemotherapy and the DNA testing they did will determine the next 5 months of treatment.  After we met with Dr. Singh he came out and chatted with Dad.  They had gotten back some of the DNA testing and the results were all very favourable that she would respond very well to treatment.


So with the DNA testing and the response so far he is very optimistic about her prognosis and that she will not require as extensive of treatment.  This is excellent news and give us even more reason to be optimistic.


Karlee was a trooper through all the treatment today.  She chats with all the nurses and actually seems to enjoy the visits.  Even the port access seems to be enjoyable to her as she gets something out of the "poke box" afterwards.  When she leaves the clinic all the nurses say bye to her and she gives them a big wave and a "goodbye".  I'm starting to see why kids miss going to clinic when they are done treatment.  The staff is so incredible and makes the entire process completely painless (both physically and mentally) for the patient and the rest of the family.

Ryley went home with Uncle Randy, Aunt Catherine, Everett and Oliver.  They were up there for Everett's pool therapy and were done around 10:30.  Karlee really wanted to go to MacDonald's for lunch; she even told several nurses that is what she wanted to do, so we took her out.  Dad was a little nervous having her in a restaurant with all those people and their germs.  We tried to find a clean table mostly out of the way and hopefully Karlee's suppressed immune system will make it through.  Looks like we are going to have to try and find a MacDonald's with an outdoor eating area if we are going to go out.


Karlee was a little tired when we got to Randy and Catherine's but she quickly perked up and went downstairs to play with Ryley and Everett.  When we got home she was a little tired, but was still in a good mood.  Around 4:30 or so her mood seemed to get a little worse and she started to feel a little worse.  We had planned on taking them swimming this evening, but Karlee just wasn't up to it.  Dorie brought over a great hot meal for us which we greatly enjoyed.


Dad and Ryley finished building the bed for "Buddy Bear" this afternoon and evening.  Grandma is going to make him a mattress and then his bear will have a bed fairly similar to Ryley's.  As soon as Karlee saw the completed bed she wanted to help build "Princess Bear" a bed.  Looks like I will be making a trip down to Home Depot tomorrow to start another bed.