Hospital Visits

We actually had a pretty mellow weekend! Mike and I got to spend the day with Braden and Kayla on Saturday and my parents took Brooklyn and Kelsey back to their house. We had a "swap" day where the kids were the parents and we were the kids. They got to make all the decisions on what we did and where we went, and Mike and I got to whine a lot. :) It was fun to get to spend the whole day with them, especially since they are starting school soon. It was good too because I feel like they haven't gotten as much of our time lately since we always have appointments to take Brooklyn to or are busy taking care of her & all her medicines. We all had fun. Sunday we went to church and then had some friends over for dinner. Apparently since we had a couple of days that were slower, we just had to mix it up and get crazy again! About 4:30 Monday morning, Brooklyn called me into her room to lay with her and when I got in bed with her I could tell she was hot. I took her temperature and she was about 103. I kept taking it over and over hoping that my eyes just weren't focusing correctly because I was tired. I got her some ice water to drink to help cool her down and finally went to wake up Mike about 5:15. We called the doctor on call like we are supposed to when she has a fever and he wanted us to take her in to the ER. I was so reluctant to because she had never had her port accessed before and so I was worried about how she would do with it since we would be in the ER and not with a nurse that we know. Her home nurse was supposed to come over later in the morning to take her blood counts and she had made a little doll for Brooklyn to show her how the port worked. My other hope was that since it was so close to 8:00am, maybe we could just go in to the infusion lab and they could take care of her there (they access ports all day long and we are there so often, we know the nurses and I knew Brooklyn would be comfortable there.) But, the doc said we needed to go to the ER, so I packed up clothes for all the kids, called my parents at 6:00 and we met at the hospital and they took the 3 back to their house. God blessed us with an amazing nurse who was so great with Brooklyn and she did a great job with accessing her port and taking care of her while we were there. We have some numbing cream that I put on the site before we left home so I don't think she felt very much at all. To access her port now, she gets poked with a needle that is connected to some tubes just like the ones that used to be coming out of her chest. They can draw blood samples and give chemo and medicines through the tubes and then they take the needle out when she's done. The doctor was worried that she might have an infection since she had a fever and had just had the port put in a few days earlier. They took blood in the ER and gave her some antibiotics and her fever actually went away on its own. We got to leave about 12:30 and went home to pick up some stuff I had forgotten and then went out to my parents to watch Braden and Kayla play in their junior golf championship. Kayla played 1 hole and Braden played 6 and they both did a great job. Brooklyn felt pretty good all afternoon even though she had been through so much in the morning. All the kids (and adults) were really tired last night since we had gotten up so early. This morning, Brooklyn and I went back to the hospital for a spinal tap and then over to the infusion lab for chemo. She was really upset to leave this morning saying she didn't want to go to see any doctors or nurses, but by the time we got to the surgery center, she was in her normal happy mood, laughing and talking with all her favorite nurses. I am so thankful for the doctors and nurses that are so good with these little kids that have to go through so much to fight these crazy diseases. They make life for all of us a little better while we are going through this process.