Home...so nice!

November 21, 2010

Josie is HOME!  On Friday the Oncologist for this week came in and said she didn’t see any reason that Josie couldn’t go home for a little while.  Even though she is on chemotherapy right now, these particular drugs are not the ones that will drop her blood counts.  News to us…but good news!  Josie’s reflux has also improved greatly since the last time I posted – we know without a doubt that this is due to God answering our (and your) prayers on behalf of this issue.   The 11-12 refluxes in an hour was pretty exhausting – for Josie and for us.  Along with these improvements, the doctor noted that Josie was not needing as much of the nurses care any longer – they were giving her medicine and other basic care, but the rest of the care came from me and Marc.  The Occupational, Physical and Speech therapists have showed us how do much of Josie’s therapy and felt they didn’t need to come see Josie as much since we were working with her so well.  I think we both should have new degrees once we get through all of this! 

Josie will need to go back to the hospital on November 30^th for a different chemo drug in this cycle.  This particular drug is the one in this cycle that will possibly drop her blood counts, so she will need to stay for a couple of weeks (so they say) to be watched in case her counts do go down. 

Once we arrived home yesterday and unloaded our bags of stuff that we accumulated over the past month, our house looked like it had been trashed!  In order to not have more chaos, Marc’s parents took the girls for the rest of the weekend – this took a bit of the stress level away.  Thankfully we had thought a little ahead of time and bought a 7 drawer storage bin yesterday morning.  The bin seemed huge when I brought it into the house, but we filled it completely with all of Josie’s supplies for her 9 day stay at home! 

We are administering two of Josie’s chemotherapy drugs, giving her a plethora of other medications (see picture that Marc posted today) and we have to flush her broviac central line every day.  We gave medications to Josie previously, but this time it is elevated to a whole new level.  Administering the chemo is a bit nerve racking, especially the first time, but we did it and are more than willing to do it since it means she can be home with us!

We continue to be amazed by how quickly things can change for Josie and we are extremely pleased to have Josie home even for a short time.  This Thanksgiving will truly be a thankful time for our family this year. 

Blessings,

Marc & Darcia

Back to work for Marc

7/26/10

Since it has been really quite quiet with Josie the last few days on Floor 7, I haven't posted much. We are very pleased and excited for all the good reports we are having about Josie. I was told at one point today that the doctors and nurses in their rounds are calling her a miracle baby. She sure is!!! We are truly blessed.

Today has turned out much more crazy than I anticipated. Marc was planning on going back to work today - he still did go, but he ended up going in later. Josie's CAT scan was moved to 9am (was at 5am), so when Marc got here to the hospital, he ended up waiting - hoping to talk with the neurosurgeon before he went to work. He left at 11:30 and of course the doctor came at noon. It was all good though and the CAT scan of Josie's head is looking good. YEAH!

From that meeting with the doctor, I ended up talking to so many other doctors, nurses, specialist and friends. Somewhere in there I was supposed to take a nap...it didn't happen. :) Everyone is coming to meet with us to prep us for going home.

Home...it's a wonderful, yet terrifying word. I am trying to turn my worries into trust in God as I hear these words. I truly believe we will be equipped by everyone here to handle the transition, but it will be quite the transition. For example, one of the discharge nurses is going to create a calendar for us with meds and dosage and other such information. Any help we can get...the better!

We were worried about Josie's neck having a kink in it because she likes to always look to her left side, but thankfully, PT (Physical Therapist) came today and let us know that she is only a little tweeked that way and promptly showed me techniques to get her to go the opposite way - and they work!!! Tried them already!

Lots of other information that I won't go into, but wanted to let you all know that Josie is doing well. We still covet your prayers as this next stage of life is going to be just as crazy, but in a different way.

We are thanking God for such a miraculous recovery that Josie is making. We couldn't have made it through without all of your prayers being lifted up on our behalf for our baby girl and our family.

Blessings,
Darcia

*By the way - big sisters are coming home tomorrow! Can't wait to see them - they've had a GREAT "vacation" with Uncle Josh and Aunt Tara and of course their cousins!