Monday, March 22, 2010 8:34 PM, EDT

To begin, the picture right here is from last August and it will be clear why I included it as you read on.

We had a great weekend. Ally was very snuggly all weekend long. It was great to just hold her. She had lots of stories to tell about NYC. She also included the fact that Oscar (her pig) is a girl. Who knew?

Late Sunday and today Ally started to complain that her button hurt. This is the Mic-Key button that is basically a hole with a plastic contraption that sticks out a little bit in her abdomen right into her stomach (see picture, taken last August...look at all that hair!). It allows us to hook her up to a feeding pump throughout the night and give her meds that taste yucky, without her actually having to put them in her mouth. Very useful. Anyway, it seems something from the treatment (probably the 10 days of shots and their effect on her immune system) is wreaking havoc with her Mic-Key button. Tylenol and neosporin are not helping. We are hoping the pain subsides over the next few days. Poor little monkey has been through enough.

Our next step is to get Ally's blood draw on April 1 to test for HAMA (Human-anti-mouse-antibodies). This will tell us if we can move forward with the second round of 3f8 treatment. If Ally HAMA's that means we will have to stop, wait for her HAMA to go down and then proceed with 3f8. We have no idea how long we would have to wait. She is only eligible to do 3f8 for 2 years from her start date, no matter what. So, when April 1 comes along we need to think positive thoughts for a negative test. And to make it all the more dramatic, we won't get test results until the following week! Yeah for more stress!

That's about it for now, I will be sure to update about the current pain situation when it changes!