Phase 3 is over...one more to go.

Chad bought me a Flip camera for Christmas. Of course I have no clue how to do much with it but thankfully it only has 5 buttons and I am fairly hopeful that I can figure it out. Perhaps even with a fussy little one on my hip and a chatty big one at my side.

Oh well, once I get Chad to help me out with it, I will upload the mini-video of last week. Keep in mind that Piper had chemo on Monday and was getting Dexamthasone steriods from Mon until Sunday and that on top of Neupogen shots at night make for a very clingy girl. She also has been very hungry and gained almost a pound and a half in a week...shooting her up to a grand total of 13.4! I will take it. She has not slept through the night since Sunday and is even waking up 2 or 3 times for bottles before waking for the day around 8ish. She is only on her oral antibiotics this week so I am hoping that she settles better into her more normal routine quickly so that I can stock up on sleep from now until we admit to CHOA on Friday morning at 8am.

Chad begins classes on Friday and we are prepping for a rough few weeks ahead of us. Piper has now completed phase 3 of her 4 intensive phases...WITH NO INFECTIONS!!! This is amazing and I cannot tell you how relieved I am for that peace in the midst of the fear that the big picture brings us. Starting on Friday, Piper will be given High Dose of Methotrexate for 24 hrs and then they pump a "rescue drug" into her system to chase the chemo out of her before it can do harm to her organs. She will continue to receive that "rescue drug" call Leucovorin every 6 hrs until her blood work shows the HD Methotrexate below a certain level (forgot what the number was). At that point we will go home for about 2 days and then come back the following Friday to do it all over again and then be done with the HD Methotrexate. We are praying that Pipers body handles it well. That she continues to remain infection free and that we are able to enjoy her fully when we are at home.

Please pray also that Chad is able to find employment here in Athens. He begins classes on Friday and will be looking for pt work. Once he lands a job and we figure out student loan stuff we can begin to check into renting our place on campus...our tiny, small OWN place on campus. Because of Piper and her treatments I am unable to bring in an income, leaving it all to fal, on Chad. He has very strong and capable shoulders, so I am not worried.

We also are happy to let those who have been praying, that Linley received 6 weeks of her growth hormone shot tonight. She has been without it because of appeals to her insurance for over 2 months. Thankfully we have been given enough to get her going again, with the promise of more if insurance continues to be a hassle. And she took the shot just fine, too. What a trooper she is.

My Linley really is handling all of this well. She and I went to see Princess and the Frog on Sunday night. We called in a "girl date" and chatted about how nice it was to listen to girl music and not hear Piper crying...well, Linley was especially happy for those things. She understands that Mommy and Piper are going back to the hospital for a sleep over for a few nights. Thankfully I am able to tell her that we will be home soon...I knw she misses us, but I can easily do a 5 night separation when I think back to our initial 6 week stay at the onset of Pipers diagnosis.

As soon as we can get the video to work out I will post it. And as soon as I get around to learning how to take all of the videos I will post even more.