September 2010

Brynn flew through the first 4 weeks of chemo no problem.  Her hair was starting to thin quite a bit but her hair was so thick to begin with she still had more than me! My sister brought her bunkbeds over and moved Brynn upstairs with her sister Reese so she would be closer to our room and we could hear her.  Her first week off was the first 2 days of school and she was so excited to see all her friends she hardly saw all summer.  Her best friend Kaylee did come and visit her alot and that was soo nice for Brynn.  She was so excited to get a desk and feel like she was part of the class and wear her new school clothes and all that good stuff!  She loves buying all the school supplies and even though we didn't know if she would even use it this year we went ahead with whatever made her happy!  I thought she might only last half the day at school but she enjoyed the first 2 full days and even wanted to play with friends after school.  It was so good to see her being a normal kid after the summer she had.  She had her first evaluation where they do alot of tests: MRI, Bone scan, CT, ECHO, ECG and  see where she is at.  We had great news, the tumor was already shrunk to half the size! She started a new harder chemo that would take her counts down to 0.  She came home and was doing well for the first week.  Then I went to Sadie's first volleyball game in Milk River and came home and gave her a hug and she felt hot.  It was the first time I had really been away from her and I couldn't believe she had her first fever.  I took her temperature about 6 times to make sure and they were all over 38.  If it reaches 38.3 once it is a emergency and we were to go right to the hospital.  I remember how scared I was as we drove to Taber hospital.  They called up to Calgary and got her started on antibiotics.  We would soon learn that this would be a normal and regular occurance.  The end of September we had our first meeting at Foothills to meet with the radiation doctor.  Our first meeting had us all in tears as he talked about all the possible side effects and that they had discussed amputation.  Brynn turned to us and asked what that was.  It was so hard to tell her that they were actually considering that and she was devastated!  We finally went home when her counts were up and only had a few days before chemo started again.   It was so hard to not see my kids and then have them bawling when I had to leave again.  It is a HUGE adjustment for the whole family!