Biology

The room we stayed in at the hospital this time was really close to the landing pad for the Life Flight helicopter. Throughout the day we saw the helicopter come and go several times just 100ft. from our window. Chloe thought it was pretty neat to see that and she hopes that we get that room next time. Thinking about the kids that might be coming on the helicopter, she asked me why some people get cancer and others don't. Thats kind of a tough thing to explain to a little girl. Especially when she's your six year old who has cancer with eyes looking up at you like these. Every once in a while she gets real sad and asks me hard questions that you wouldn't expect a girl her age to think about.

Science has never been my subject, so I'm glad I have been able to retain some information from discussions with doctors and nurses. I did my best and explained it really simple for her. She had lots of questions about why it's in her blood, where the bad cells go, and how many times someone can get cancer. She was confused why her aunt Kinsey didn't have to have treatments after her cyst was removed (they thought it might be cancerous, but it wasn't), and what Marcus (a boy in our ward) had to do for his brain tumor. She didn't understand why the doctors could go in and remove some cancer, but they couldn't remove hers. So we had a talk about where her cancer is and how the treatment she gets and the bone marrow transplant is kind of like removing the bad blood cells. Tough subject for a six year old. But like most kids, she suddenly changes the subject with a random question "What do you think the Hogwarts school in Harry Potter looks like?"

They surprised us and let us come home last night sooner than we planned. After her big bag of Methotrexate on Monday, they had to keep flushing her system as Stacie mentioned. They thought it would take until the end of the week to get the level of chemo in her blood low enough to send her home, but it came down sooner than they thought. She was really glad to be home and play with her sisters. Addie and Elsie came down the other night to visit her in the hospital, but it's a lot more fun to play at home.

Our good neighbors threw a baby shower for Stacie last night since we'll be having our first boy. You all are too generous! I know Stacie will be sending cards and such, but thanks a lot to you all from me.

I drank a V8 yesterday. It tasted like vegetables.