Well, Ally has had an interesting week.

Ally is up to 7 transfusions so far since getting to Boston. She has been needing blood and platelets nearly daily, but goes on smiling. She has had mouth sores (common with this treatment) and has needed morphine for the pain, but goes giggling. Ally continues to eat (as well as get the TPN nutrition by I.V.), has been gaining weight, and is over 19 lbs for the first time in her life. Yesterday she turned one and a half.

The goal is for her ANC count to reach 500 and stay at 500 for three days, at which point they can finally go home (at least for a couple of weeks). At one point this week Ally's count reached 100, which felt good.

On Tuesday Ally's Mommy wrote:
I got the "home safety" talk today....wow. That's all I can say now.

We had hoped to see Ally's ANC count climbing each day, as her body figures out how to make use of her replenished stem cells. Today Ally's ANC count is back down to 20. Here's the latest note:

THURSDAY, JULY 31, 2008 09:12 AM, EDT
Not the ANC we were hoping for, BUT her white blood cells are going up, and the nurse said another factor in her blood shows that the ANC is really on it's way up, so hopefully from here out we will only see numbers going up.

Incase you missed any daily notes this week, here they are below. Dinny, owner of Hopkins Bookshop, is on vacation this week, so I have been working extra hours and needing to do some self care in the evenings, so haven't done as much emailing as usual. XOXOXXX June


TUESDAY, JULY 29, 2008 09:07 AM, EDT
Ally had a pretty good night. She needed more platelets and red blood cells last night, but she is perky and playful this morning.


TUESDAY, JULY 29, 2008 08:51 PM, EDT
A green font in honor the mysterious green thing Ally ate today and I had to dig out of her teeth!

Today was a great day for messages! 9 guestbook signs (a record as of late) and she got ALL the mail for 6 West today! 6 cards!

Her day was good, she FINALLY got to take mostly uninterrupted naps...first time...since coming to Boston pretty much. She is still in a good mood. She still has mouth sores, but the morphine is doing it's job, because she still had little bites of bagel.

I was encouraged by her counts today, but the numbers are still so low, it could just be a funny jump...I guess we will see how the rest of the week turns out.

I am suspecting she is going to need platelets again tonight, as she bled for a good 10 minutes after her shot today.

I got the "home safety" talk today....wow. That's all I can say now.


WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 2008 02:19 PM, EDT
A blue font for all of Ally's bruises today. Having a platelet count of 4 (normal is 150-450) makes Ally bruise like crazy!!! (And get ANOTHER transfusion of platelets and red blood cells) (Total transfusions since being in Boston = 7 or 8)

She was a champion sleeper this morning, waking up for the day at 9:30, so we only had to do 1 midday nap (happening right now).

The site where her central line goes into her chest is bleeding a little bit today as well, the docs say because of her low blood counts.

It looks like her ANC is sort of going up, at least it is not down in the 30's anymore. Looking forward to tomorrow and a high number (hopefully).


THURSDAY, JULY 31, 2008 09:12 AM, EDT
Not the ANC we were hoping for, BUT her white blood cells are going up, and the nurse said another factor in her blood shows that the ANC is really on it's way up, so hopefully from here out we will only see numbers going up.