12/13/11 - WE'RE HOME!!

Riding shotgun on the road home!

The doctors came in early this morning to tell us we were going home today!  Her counts look good (although still low) and she's been doing so well!  She had to finish her last round of antibiotics and we were out the door (after we loaded up 5 tons of stuff that Haylee had in her room!). 
We were discharged around 12:00 but had to go to the CVS in Emory Village to have her prescriptions filled.  What a pain!  The hospital faxed over the scripts (8 of them...) but they only received blank pages.  They gave Adam a hard time dropping them off and told him if would be a few hours!  Really?!  I went in and showed them the most important 3 of the 8 and asked them how long it would take.  The girl behind the counter rudely said 15-20 minutes.  Haylee wanted a hamburger from McDonalds so we went, grabbed some lunch, then went back to get it.  It was ready, thank goodness.  We were tired of being down there and was ready to be on the road to home! 
We unloaded the 5 tons of stuff then went to pick up Mason.  Everyone was so excited to see Haylee!!!  She was a little overwhelmed cause she's not used to that kind of attention.  She handled it well and I was equally glad to see everyone :)  We grabbed Mason and went home.  I thought he might have something to say when he saw Haylee without her hat and her head shaved, but he didn't even notice!  Talk about a brother who loves his sister no matter what!!  We had to point it out to him and then he said, "She looks like a boy."  Ha ha!  He said the same thing to Kim when she shaved her head.   It didn't bother Haylee and Mason doesn't see that she has no hair...sweet :)
My dad called to talk to Haylee and AGAIN asked her if she wanted him to shave his head like hers.  She said, "No" and was VERY adamant about it.  She told him she thought he looked good with his hair.  I asked if she would be mad if he shaved it anyway and she said she would be very mad.  Enough said!
Dinner time came around and she wasn't very hungry but she did eat a little.  I'm fine with her not eating as long as she's drinking (she's had 3 juice HUGS since she's been home - that's a huge improvement from the hospital).  She complained a little from her neck hurting (we think she slept on it wrong) and just gave her Tylenol to help. 

She's done with the Induction phase as of the 21st.  She has a clinic visit on the 22nd, then another bone marrow aspiration the week after Christmas to check for remission (fingers crossed!).  She will begin the Consolidation 1 phase after the New Year and it lasts 10 weeks (Monday-Friday clinic visits for 2 hours each time).  Sometime at the end of February or beginning of March she will be re-admitted to the hospital for the Consolidation 2-4 phases.  That will be a few months :(

Whitney, a good friend of mine, passed along something she found and I thought I'd share (at the bottom of this post).  The meaning of the words hit very close to home for us.  Thanks Whit!!

Thank you to EVERYONE for your continued love, prayers, and support for Haylee!!!  We're so glad to be home!

WBC - 2780
Platelets - 65,000
HGB - 10.8
SEG - 8
Monocytes - 3

You never know how STRONG you are until being STRONG is the only choice you have.