12/7/11 - No food for 7 days...

She had a good night last night, although she ended up running a fever after all of 101.  Once it broke, she got a bath to make her feel better and then she was out shortly after that.  We must have been super tired this morning because we slept (or dozed in and out) until 11am.  I can do it easily but Haylee...doesn't happen at all!  And her medicine/IV machines...not my friend.  Those stupid things were beeping from 6am-7am almost non-stop.  Maybe that's why we slept for so long!
I convinced Haylee to go down to school for the last hour it was open.  I killed some time by walking around the gift shop and pretty much looked at each and every little thing it sold.  She had about 15 mins left of school so I went back downstairs to wait on her to finish and the teacher there told me a volunteer took her back upstairs because she wasn't feeling well.  Is she skipping school early!?  I got back to the room and she was complaining that she was nauseous while she was at school as well as right then.  I kept telling her that what she's feeling is lack of food for 7 days.  She asked, "How can I still be alive with no food?"  I explained that the IV fluids, the milk she's been drinking, and the Boost boxes have kept the nutrition that she needs in her body.
Dr. Keller came in and looked at her.  Still impressed with her progress!  I asked him what her monocytes needed to be at for him to be satisfied enough to let us go home - anywhere from 5-8.  She had no monocytes yesterday...she has 2 today!!!!  To me, that's HUGE!!  It shows something good is going on in her little body.  He also said she needs to be fever free (she's on Day 5 of fever) as well.  They aren't too worried about the fever because the 2nd set of blood cultures that were taken on Monday were still negative (nothing growing).  The fever is more than likely coming from the leukemia itself.  Colleen, the CNP that checks her daily as, said she would be surprised if she's here for Christmas...that's what I'm talking about!!!  I need good news like that daily! 
Home Depot was out today with a kids workshop - she painted a birdhouse and perked up during and after that.  Adam and Mason came down to have dinner with us :)  Adam brought her a Pokemon card book with all her cards from her book bag at home in it and she was so happy!  I had her convinced to eat some vanilla pudding (her idea!) but since she has to wear her mask downstairs, she just had to drink milk.  Her mouth started hurting while we were down there so we came back upstairs to get some pain meds.  Once the pain meds kicked in, SHE ATE SOME VANILLA PUDDING and almost all of it at that!!  She actually ate some real food and not just liquids.  I know that vanilla pudding may not be real food to some people but when your child hasn't ate in 7 days and has refused to eat anything at all, vanilla pudding is like steak and potatoes!!

SHE HAS 2 MONOCYTES TODAY!!!!

WBC - 1710
Platelets - 22,000
Hemoglobin - 8.4
SEG - 0
Monocytes - 2