WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2008 04:46 PM, EST

I am still trying to get my head around all the things that happened today.

The big event was Ally's central line. They wanted to take it out today...we knew this was a possibility. Their first thought was to fast her for 6 hours and do surgery. Then, they saw how much it had already come out and just had a surgeon come down. He tilted the bed way back so Ally's head was lower than her feet, put his hand on her chest and pulled it out. Wow! It came out really fast and easy. (Sadly, we were not able to keep the tubies) This is good news because Ally can now take her first real bath (without a chair, or saran wrap) and splash as much as she wants. It is also good because having it in was always a huge risk for infection. Having it out is bad because Ally still needs frequent blood draws, so they will now need to stick her with a needle. Having it out also makes us lose Visiting Nurse privileges :-(

Speaking of sticking Ally with a needle, they couldn't get blood out of the central line today anyway, so they had to stick her with a needle. They put some numbing cream on her and she didn't even cry when they poked her!

The doctor said Ally looked GREAT in regards to her dry skin and lips. There is another patient a couple steps ahead of Ally going through similar treatment and that little boy's skin is not doing as well as Ally's.

We got a message with Ally's counts. They continue to go up! Her ANC is about 1500...if you remember, she needed a score of 500 for 3 days to get out of Boston. :-)

Ally keeps looking for her missing tubies.