MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2008 04:40 PM, EDT
A wild and woolly day...

Today is "Day Plus 6". Ally was engraphted on Day Plus 13 last time around....so we are about half way there.

I generally like to tell the good things, gloss over the bad, and leave out the really bad stuff till after it has gone by (like Ally could have lost her kidney during her surgery....which would have compromised the rest of her treatment) But today, in the interest of bringing you along in our journey here comes the gross. If you want to skip to the end that's okay with me. (I will put the gross stuff in a different color, so look for this color again at the bottom for safe reading.)

The past few days Ally has been waking up with blood stains on her pillow...this did not alarm us. Her platelets have been running around 20 and those mouth sores are good ways for blood to escape her body. This morning though....
Ally woke up with LOTS of blood in her mouth. It was very mucusy and every time she cried it would ooze out of her mouth. Then, she cried a lot and opened her mouth wider and we saw "it". "It" was this super gross blob of blood hanging behind her front teeth. "It" was attached. The nurse's best guess was a mouth sore ripped open and the skin was hanging down, coated in mucusy blood. I pretty much freaked out. Platelets were ordered. Ally calmed down and within an hour of the platelets being in (a very quick transfusion) Ally's mouth was no longer oozing blood. She does have MANY mouth sores, which are still painful to her and gross for us to look at.

Ally's courage amazes me. If that was going on with me I would be yelling (well if my mouth could handle it) and forcing people to bring me things and get better TV available. But no, not Ally, Ally will sit there and put that silly star shaped block in the silly star shaped hole as many times as Mommy and Daddy dump the bucket. And she will hand me The Belly Button Book about 12 times a day to read to her and I will, because she deserves it (I no longer have to look at the words to read it.). We are super lucky.