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Friday, November 20, 2009 7:45 PM, EST

Well, our family hit MANY emotions today. Our day began about 5:45, with a wake up for Ally, who of course woke up beautifully. She was chatty and fun on the hour+ ride to the hospital. They were able to take us right in. Labs needed to be drawn this morning, to check her counts. This has always been a formality, as Ally's counts are always good......until today. After we had been waiting a while the nurse came in and told me it looked like Ally's counts were going to be too low to do the chemo today. A feeling of utter defeat. We had not been looking forward to this, but had geared ourselves up for it and now the plan was crashing into the ground. We were informed that a call was placed to Sloan Kettering (Ally's NYC doctors). An hour or so later we get the go ahead, her counts were lower than protocol called for, but not much lower, and if we want her ready for surgery in January we needed to do the chemo now. Good news....now we just wait for the pharmacy.

Finally everything is ready around 1:00, but Ally is not quite hydrated enough, so we check her urine one last time in a last ditch effort before we put her down for a nap. Good news! Chemo is hung by 1:30 and Ally is asleep by 1:35. The earlier the chemo goes the better, because it lasts 6 hours, with us having to change her diaper every hour for those 6 hours, plus the 2 after it, so it is already bringing us to 9:30 tonight, with another chemo to hang after that, and then the whole process again tomorrow. So, we happily hang out in the cancer clinic waiting for our bed upstairs, and wait, and wait and wait. At 4:00 they said they just needed to clean it, and they sent for someone to clean it "stat". At 6:00 we finally made it up to the pediatric floor. I know I don't need to say this, but I will: OF COURSE ALLY ROCKED THE WHOLE DAY! She never complained and kept herself entertained for a good 8 hours sitting on a hospital bed (without watching TV).

This chemo is going to hit her HARD. We will be released on Monday IF she is not vomiting profusely. If she is puking just a little we will be able to go home. That is how bad she will be for a while. They are expecting us to be back on Thanksgiving or the day after with a fever.
When Daddy graciously let me leave the hospital for David's House at 7:30 Ally was still feeling really good, but I could tell the long day was getting to her, and she still had 1 chemo and several diaper changes to go.

Well, here is hoping the anti-puke meds work great and Ally wants to play tomorrow.
Thanks for reading...not the best post, but I am tired and cranky.

Fun Tid Bit: Ally got a big girl bed in her pedi room, instead of a crib!
Plus she weighed 24 pounds today!!!!!!!!