November 9th, 2012

I'm having  a hard time wanting to write on this blog because it still seems surreal that this turn of events is actually real and not a nightmare.  We were able to go home on Halloween day and be with our family.  We really needed to regroup and see our other kids as well.  Brynn wasn't feeling great but did manage to put her costume on and get driven to a couple of houses.  We were in close contact with the pain team in Calgary and it took a couple days to fine tune Brynn's morphine and make sure we were giving the right amount for pain and not too much and making her sleepy.  The day after we got home I was concerned that her biopsy sight was a little red around the bandage.  We took pictures and showed our doctor and we got her on oral antibiotics right away.  By Friday- 2 days later however it looked worse and was an angry red color, very warm to touch and she was sleeping all the time.  We took her into emergency and got her on IV antibiotics.  We were scheduled to come back to Calgary on Tuesday to get treatment started but unfortunately her infection wasn't cleared up enough yet.  They switched her to a stronger antibiotic and she had an allergic reaction to it.  The last few days have been rough- she has had a few allergic reactions, 2 blown IV's, a few failed attempts at new IV's and high blood pressure requiring medication.  She is getting tired of the endless doctors needing to look at her infection site and a few ultrasounds, echo, ECG and other tests.  Right now she is in surgery getting her PIC line put in. The room feels so empty when she isn't in it! She is still in unbelievable good spirits most of the time even though she has been fasting since midnight last night thinking her surgery would be before noon and it ended up not being until 5:30 pm.
One of the hardest things about Brynn relapsing is that she is such a worrier and so smart.  She asks so many questions that I have no good answer for and it breaks my heart as a mother not to be able to take all her fears away.  She told the doctors she want to get chemo going right away because she is worried it is growing and spreading inside of her.  We are supposed to begin either tonight or tomorrow.  They will keep us here through the weekend to keep fighting this infection and then hopefully we will be home Tuesday or Wednesday for a little while.  Our kids at home are having a hard time- especially Sadie.  She is so strong and doesn't want to make any of this about her but I know she is keeping it all inside and it's hard to hide it all the time.  Her and Brynn have been so close and decided to share a room again when Brynn was done treatments last year.  She is such great big sister and I'm so glad for the special bond they share. 
Brynn just returned from surgery and is having some back pain.  Time to go be with my baby.... I'll put up more pics when I'm back and on my home computer.