Day 4.

Day 4. Four whole days that we have known that Piper has relapsed. I know we were not certain until Wednesday but frankly, this mom knew. I knew the minute the nurses wouldnt talk with me about her bloodwork while at the ER in Athens. I knew the minute Chad spoke with Dr George and I sure as heck knew when my heart was aching as Chad and I drove the hour to the hospital with Piper sleeping soundly in the back seat.

For four days Ive woken with that sense of immense dread that only comes with having had your world rocked. I know from experience that this WILL get easier and I eagerly await that time.

As for now Piper is tolertating chemo well. She is having a fever about every 5 hours combined with mottled skin, fast heart rate and high blood pressure but thankfully once she is given tylenol she quickly goes back to normal. On Thursday she had 3 fainting episodes that were related to being anemic due to low hemologlobin which was quickly remedied with a blood transfusion. Piper is still eating well and keeping us very busy running around the unit. Without the Iv pole she would look like the picture of health...something I forget she is not.

Yesterday Dr Woods spoke with us about Pipers lumbar aspirate...she has leukemia cells in her spinal cord. (of 200 viewed, the pathologist saw 3 that looked leukemic) While this is definitely not what we wanted to hear, he felt like it would not be changing anything treatment wise. Her spleen and liver are also enlarged which is symtomatic with Leukemia...he expected them to be back to normal size within the next 2 weeks as the leukemia in her little body diminishes with all the chemo.

At this moment both girls are a arms reach away from me in the bed, giggling. Piper is loving having her "dissy" here and Linley is loving the role of being that beloved "dissy". Bonding is happening and it is a beautiful, while bittersweet, thing to see.

Despite high doses of chemo being chugged into my sweet Piper, despite our entire world being disrupted, despite the fact that I really miss having bare feet...it all fades when the four of us are together here in this room. Its the way it should be.