Una mas

Today was...whew...one day down, how many more to go?! We started off by going to a check up appt. with Dr. B. to get bone marrow and spinal fluid results, also to check her blood levels. It was the first time that Livi's port was going to be accessed while awake. We were a bit nervous to say the least. Bill has gone back to work, so I took Aaron upstairs to our neighbor and loaded Livi's port site up with "magic cream" stuck the cellophane on it and headed off. Bill was able to meet us at the office and we both were able to help Livi get through the fear. At one point, through rapid breaths she asked me to sing her a song. "I love to see the temple" is her favorite so I started singing and the nurse asked, "do you go to primary?" It's so nice that Heavenly Father has his angels everywhere. :) The "poke" happened and then Livi said, "when is she going to do it?" The nurse, Wendy was great. She even let Livi switch out the viles to fill up with blood, which to our surprise, she loved. Who knows, perhaps we have another "vampire" in the family huh Gretch!? The doctor was pleased with the counts and then gave us the test results. The spinal fluid is still clear, YEAH! and the bone marrow count has gone down. The original test showed 80% of the marrow as being leukemic, it's dropped down to 10-15%! That was great news. That will be followed up by another bone marrow test next Wednesday followed by IV chemo. (2-3 hours in the office. All the goodies that were given are definitely going to come in handy over the next couple of years...lots of things to keep her busy.)
We got home at noon and had a good lunch. Aaron and Livi split an egg sandwich and then both took a nap at 1:00. Nice for me to get a real break! Aaron woke up but Livi kept sleeping. An agent from Bill's office brought dinner, Livi woke up looked around, got resituated, and went back to sleeping. She did that one more time, but ultimately didn't wake up until 7:45 pm. Bill was still at work doing arrests and had no plans of being home anytime soon which turned out to be rather unfortunate. Livi had a craving, chips and salsa. (She is so thin that no matter how odd the craving, I don't question it.) She had 2 maybe 3 bites and then commenced vomiting all over the couch. I ran her to the bathroom, set her up at the throne and went to get a hold on Aaron not knowing what he would do with the mess. Thankfully I was able to call our upstairs neighbor, who might as well be my guardian angel here on earth, she does literally watch over me( being that she lives above me) and she came down within the minute. Se got Aaron to bed and she left to get Zofran. It's a prescription anti-nausea med that Livi says, "yum that's good!". Finally, a medicine that tastes good!!! 10:30 came and Livi's night in shining armor, literally, came through the door. (Bill had his "shining" badge hanging around his neck.)
Silver Linings of the day: because Livi slept all day I was actually able to read a book for some time and take a 20 min. nap, and get all the chores done AND bake some banana bread! WHEW! Also, I got to spend 1-on-1 time with Aaron. AND when steroid patients are sleeping they can't have their mood swings, a very good thing!
The hard part was watching what seemed to be my mom all over again. One day at a time...we'll make it through.