Recap of the Week

Last Friday Julia came home after spending a week in the hospital getting chemotized. For the first time, she was sent home on IV fluids administered via her port. It was a hectic time because Amanda and I headed out that afternoon to make it back to central WI for her Grandma Delores's funeral. My parents stayed with Julia and Finn at our house while we were gone.

All was going well until Saturday morning when Julia forgot she had an extra tube coming out of her chest and stood up too fast. She fell down and the needle pulled out of her port. She was in a lot of pain at first and after a trip to the ER and a rushed, three-hour drive home by her parents, it was deemed that she was ok enough to wait until Monday to get her port looked at at Children's. We were hoping it wouldn't require surgery to fix, especially since her week-long chemo treatments would be pushing her blood counts way down soon and with low counts, surgery would be too dangerous to even attempt.

Sunday, as biblicaly suggested, we rested.

On Monday the oncology folks agreed that there was some trauma to her port. After a little painful prodding, the chemo nurse was pretty sure he had determined that it was orientated slightly different - instead of facing straight ahead, it appeared to be twisted and pointing a little to Julia's left side. He confirmed this by deftly accessing her from the new angle and making sure fluids moved in and out. So while there was trauma to her chemo port, it seems as if things are still workable and functioning fine.

Tuesday's excitement consisted of Finn's dance recital. He did a great job and was happy to find another use for his ring bearer dress clothes from the wedding a few weeks prior.

Julia had been long awaiting Wednesday's visit from the Make-A-Wish people. They did a home visit and filled out a lot of paperwork to keep the process moving forward. Julia likes to joke around that her wish is to have a giant rainbow cookie (as big as the house) with no frosting. We still have to hear more, but we're hoping to be able to have Julia's wish happen in the Fall, after she's been finished with treatments for a few months.

Blood count Thursday! The counts were low. Low enough where she should wear a mask in public and low enough where we've decided to keep her home from school on Friday. It's a half day anyway, so she won't be missing as much.

Another new notch Julia has added to her +4 Belt of Cancer Curing, is the use of orthotics. It's been deemed that she's got a major weakness in her ankle muscles and some other foot issues (a side effect of some of the chemo) and so she got specially made leg braces during her hospital stay. She's been starting off slow and wearing them for short times each day but the hours quickly increase. Friday is supposed to be for eight hours and it won't be long before she supposed to wear them for 23 hours a day.

She had a lot of say in the coloring and design of them. They go from toe to nearly her knees and have blue swirls.

On the back of one is a dog bone and on the other it says, "Skippy".

Last Friday evening and Saturday morning was Relay for Life in River Falls. We were sad that we weren't able to attend but very glad to hear it turned out well and we felt the love from afar from everyone's well-wishes and the "Walking for Julia" t-shirts that had been made. Thanks to all who participated!