Another Clinic Day, Beaver Camp and Sunday Trip to the Hospital

It has been a while since the last entry (probably due to the fact that life seems to be really busy) so there is a bunch of stuff to catch everyone up on.


Tuesday was a regular clinic day, but was also the start of the interim maintenance phase.  She is once again on Vincristine and is now on an increasing does of MTX by IV.  We are already starting to see some of the effects of the Vincristine already; she doesn't have the strength or endurance that she had before.  She can no longer walk to school with Ryley and has issues even going for short walks.  The MTX that she is on is now being given through her port.  The dosage of MTX will increase through the duration of this phase.  Due to this increase we are now on a 10 day rotation which results in a Friday - Monday rotation.  It is going to be interesting to see how she reacts to this new treatment.


Tuesday was also the first day Ryley started complaining about a very sore throat and pain in his ear when he swallowed.  He stayed home on Tuesday and Dad called to try and get a Doctor's appointment for him.  The earliest they had was Wednesday morning so Ryley stayed home then and went to his appointment.  When the doctor saw him he felt it was strep throat and prescribed a course of oral antibiotics.  Due to the contagious nature of this we felt it was best to keep him home for a few more days to protect the rest of the class.

Thursday afternoon we got an e-mail and a phone call from Mary with the KCCFA asking if we would be interested in tickets to the Wiggles on Friday night.  She thought of Ryley and Karlee when she saw these tickets come across her desk.  Since we didn't have anything planned and because the kids would love it we said we would take the tickets.  Thursday night was another busy night around here.  Dad went to a hockey team meeting to decide what we are planning for this year.  It sounds like we are going to have a good and busy hockey year with a great group of kids and parents.  Thursday night was also the night Mom has to bake 120 cookies for the Beaver camp.  After the meeting Dad had to run to Superstore to get chocolate chips to allow Mom to finish the cookies.

Friday we headed to the Saddledome to take in the Wiggles show.  The seats were absolutely incredible; 2nd row beside the stage and as close as you could be.  The kids loved the show and spent the majority of the 90 minutes dancing, jumping and singing.  They put on a great show for the kids and adults.  Both Mom and Dad were surprisingly impressed with what they did.  Anthony came into the crowd and was only a foot away from the kids.  Murray (the red Wiggle) had to fly home to attend to a family emergency so they had a stand-in perform for him.  Ringo was really good, but he was much younger than Anthony and Jeff.


Saturday morning Dad and Ryley were off to spend the weekend at Kamp Kiwanis for Beaver camp.  It was a great weekend with lots of fun games and activities, investiture, a camp fire and lots of fun!  Both of us could have used a little more quality sleep, but that seems to be the way camps go with 22 5-7 year olds.  Mom and Karlee had a nice girls weekend without the boys around.  They even made it to church Sunday morning.


Sunday when we returned Karlee was a little flushed so we took her temperature and the result was a trip to the hospital.  She may have picked up Ryley's strep throat.  The doctor on call didn't want to keep her overnight as her counts were good (and had even improved since last week).  He gave her a dose of IV antibiotics and instructions to call the clinic in the morning and find out what time to come back tomorrow for the second dose.  Of course this trip to the ACH resulted in another disruption to our life.  Ryley was having his hockey pictures just after they left so we had to give Grandma a call for a ride.  Tonight was also Grandma's birthday dinner at Uncle Randy and Aunt Catherine's place.  Ryley and Dad went to the celebration and had a good meal and Ryley had a good time playing with the cousins.  This is the second birthday party at Randy and Catherine's that Karlee has missed due to hospital visits.  Hopefully this will start to calm down around March once Karlee moves into maintenance.