phase 2-day 2

Yesterday Piper was due at the Clinic (Across the street from the hospital) at 830 am...we live about and hour and a half away so we were up much earlier than any of us what to be, plus Piper was not able to have anything to drink after 2am to prepare her body to be put under. When we arrived at the clinic they prepped her for a LP (lumbar puncture) and reminded us that while she was under she was to receive a triple mixture of chemo that targets the Central Nervous System. She was also to have a catheter put in as an effort to keep the urine off her bottom when she received the High Dose Methotrexate last night through this evening. And most important to me, they were taking a sample of her marrow to see if she has achieved remission yet. Remission does not mean Cure. Remission means they do not SEE any Leukiemia cells but know that they are "hiding" out somewhere. The example they gave was like that of a iceburg...they are killing off all that they see and keep doing the treatments for so long (2 years) to attempt to kill off what they cannot see yet. Still, to acheive remission is the first step on our way to curing Piper.

Right now she is asleep and the nurse just took her off the HD Methotrexate. Pipers diaper rash worsened because her catheter seemed to be too small and a little bit of this crazy chemo in her urine made her bum even more red. Ahhh...and Chad and I had just gotten it to begin to heal up. The nurse changed out her catheter for the next size up and hopefully that, along with mega doses of sensi-care should keep it from becoming even more ugly. Tomorrow she gets a differant type of chemo, the name of which I can neither pronounce or spell. It apparently counteracts the HD Methotrexate after 24 hrs and may allow us to be home for the weekend if it all clears out of her system quickly. Or we may be here non-stop for years...good luck planning anything with us for a while.

Its been a long, tiring day made a little nicer by my wonderful father not only visiting but buying me lunch at Moe's...I am easily made happy by mexican food and good company.