Category: Health

I’ve been awake since 5am when Geli woke to use the toilet.

She went to bed last night around 8:30-9:00pm and at 6:30 this morning is still asleep. She only woke twice last night and every time was able to get straight back to sleep. I’m so thankful that she’s able to get some good rest. As her momma, I worry about things like that…..you know, getting enough rest and not being too worn out…..Sometimes its the little things that kinda stick with us.

Yesterday was a good day and a hard day.

So much of life is that dichotomy of good and bad, joy and pain, peace and fear, strength and weakness and yet…..we continue on!

Some….some very tiny small sliver of our current reality hit Geli yesterday and combined with everything else overwhelmed her. She was in pain from her surgery. The “realness” of being in the hospital and being sick hit her and made for a bit of an emotional day. I still don’t think that the huge-ness of this all has really hit home – for her or for us.

I know that I’m still processing through the shock of all of this in my way and I believe that Jon and Geli are doing the same. And so are our other kids and our extended family. It’s a day by day thing and just as we learned with Chris and his journey back to a new life – a lot of it comes day by day and you have the strength needed for the day. It’s much easier to focus on what’s happening now than to try to plan and arrange and control everything else. It’s so beyond our control anyway……..

Family Picture Wall
we’re missing a few pics still

As Jon mentioned in the previous post, we did have a big meeting yesterday with Angelica’s Team and as far and meetings regarding your child and cancer go…..I’d say it was a pretty good one.

We are still at the beginning of this journey and we have a long way to go, but it is good to hear that the prognosis for this kind of cancer is so good.

The Doctor who is in charge of Geli’s case walked us through the different meds that she’d be on over the next 28 days and went through the most common side effects. Over all, while it doesn’t sound that great, it also doesn’t sound that bad….

This is one thing that I’d love specific prayer in regards to….That Angelica would physically be strong through this time and that the “expected” side effects would not affect her negatively.

first official chemo treatment

Some of the most common side effects are things like nausea and constipation and there are other’s but I’m sitting in her room typing this post in the dark and can’t specifically remember each one…..to say that we were overloaded with info yesterday would be an understatement. Fortunately, we have amazing references, notes taken and given to us, a team ready at our call and a whole staff that is willing to go above and beyond to answer any questions we might have.

I do feel an amazing peace about this situation and yesterday was a much better emotional day for me although I do still feel a bit like my “bell’s been rung” or my “boat’s been rocked”. I’ve not been knocked out or drowned, just shaken up some. And….when the emotion hits, I cry….and then I carry on…..because, this is life. This is our life and we will get through this.

I asked the Dr yesterday how long he figured Geli’d been sick for and he guestimated a month or two and in hindsite, we can see how that time line would match up with certain symptoms that she might have had, but also ones that are completely normal for a 13 year old girl….things like fatigue and bone pain and headaches…..

There is nothing we could have done to caught this earlier. There is nothing that we did to cause this. It just “is what it is” and we go from here. Inside her body, the cancer cells double and so that explains how she could seem fine or okay on the Wednesday that she left for camp and then to come home on Friday so sick…..when the cells start to multiply from 10 million to 20 million….well, that’s a much more significant jump as opposed to 1 to 2 and 2 to 4 and 4 to 8…….

They figure that with the start of the chemo…she will start to feel better and we should notice an improvement before this next week is up. I’m looking forward to that. It’s been hard seeing her hurting and just laying in bed. She did finally eat dinner last night and that was probably her most significant meal since our dinner on Wednesday night was interrupted by “that” phone call from our family Dr.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this new day brings. She is enjoying the visitor’s that pop by. I’ll just be honest and say that shorter visits are better than long ones….She likes to see people, but to have to entertain is hard……But she’d love to have you stop by and say hello, maybe play a quick game of cards or let her know what’s going on in your life…..normal things.

She asked her Dr about the possibility of getting to her Grade 7 Graduation Event which is happening next Thursday. They’ve not 100% okay’d that, but they have talked about setting that as a goal and possibly having her go to that on a 4 hour pass. She’d have to come back to the hospital that night and finish up some stuff on Friday…possibly getting to go home on Saturday.

So, we have our first goal……get to the Grade 7 Grad…….

While it doesn’t seem so important to us, in the grand scheme of things – it’s important to her and so therefor…..it’s important. That could also be something else specifically prayed for…that she’d be able to go, that she’d be healthy enough and that her blood counts would be good enough to have to go.

I’d love to see miracles in all of this. I’m expecting to see her do way better than the Dr’s predict what is normal. Thank you for praying. Thank you for your notes of encouragement. Thank you for loving us. I woke up this morning and checked my blackberry and had a ton of e-mails of love and support and I just cried……knowing, hearing, reading about how much we are loved and cared for and supported through this time is HUGE! Thank you! THANK YOU! We appreciate you so much!

ps. to see more pics you can click on this link or click on the photo’s tab in the menu bar at the top of the page.

We just had a meeting with Geli’s doctors and ALL the support staff, all crammed into her room. The diagnosis is that she has Leukemia ALL Type B. Based on the tests from yesterday, she does not have any Leukemia cells in her spinal fluid, which is really good. She will have a whole series of medications that will treat this exact condition and will have to be in hospital for a week.

The statistics are that 98% of kids that have this condition that get this treatment are cancer free within 28 days. The treatment then continues for two more years (although it reduces down to a couple pills that she takes once a week).

As far as this bad news goes, this is as good as it gets.

There are side effects and it will change a few things about life. Angelica will loose her hair (but she does get a custom-designed wig – i’m trying to get her to go for multi-coloured spikes). She will have to come into the hospital for a couple of days a week for most of the summer. She will have to start high school missing a few days from school every 10 days or so and work with a tutor here to keep up. But by Christmas she should be able to return to normal life.

Thanks for your prayers and comments (she reads them all).

jon

Well, we had an uneventful night last night.

Around 7:30pm, Angelica went into surgery and got a VAD placed into her chest. She went through the approx 60 minute surgery like a champ and was quite groggy when she got back to her room. After a few sips of juice – the first food she’d been allowed all day – she just relaxed in her bed.

Angelica fell asleep around 10pm and slept most un-interrupted until about 1:30am. We had a short Jaunt to the toilet at that point and then got back to bed. She was in a bit of pain from the VAD and so got some meds to help with that.

She slept again until 5am when we needed to make a second trip across the hall. Once finished her business over there, she came back to bed and was out again until 7am this morning.

We brushed our teeth, had a few bites of cereal, ate 2 pieces of soggy bacon (maybe not the best choice – she feels a bit gross now) and have had our vitals checked. She’s doing well, but tired. Her counts are a bit low which would be a factor there.

So far, we’ve heard that she will probably be having an echo cardiogram today sometime around 12:30pm….this could mean around 4pm hospital time.

She’s resting in her bed and watching Road to Terabithia.

Last night her brothers and sister managed a visit, but it’s hard when you’re not feeling that great. Mostly the kids just needed to see Geli and know that she was doing okay. They explored the hospital a bit and watched some of a movie with Geli and then Nana Karen took them home.

Around 7:30pm – Brianna, Rebecca, Zacharius, Aunty Chelle, and Uncle Kenny came by for a quick visit. Angelica had been sleeping, but they met her in the hall on the way to her surgery and were able to give a quick hug and say a quick hello before Geli was taken in to be put to sleep. They brought presents and although Gel wasn’t able to open them last night. So far we’ve opened one present already this morning. It was a nice morning treat. Thanks Guys!

Jon and I went to Labor and Delivery last night to try and figure out what the plan is as far as me having our sweet boy and I’ll write about the chaos of that in another post.

We thank you so much for your encouragement and prayers and support and love.

This time seems so surreal and to feel my phone buzzing all day long with encouraging messages and love and prayers being sent our way means SO MUCH! It helps us to feel connected to this amazing network of love. Thank you.

We are supposed to be having a family meeting with the Dr’s and Staff here at Children’s around noon today and should know the outcome of the bone marrow biopsy and spinal fluid tap (these were done yesterday afternoon) and have more ideas about what the plan is moving forward.

The staff here is amazing and we are so thankful.

I slept in the room with Geli last night and Jon slept in the playroom on the teeniest little couch. Originally they set us up with a room in the Easter Seals house, but due to certain circumstances we both stayed close. More on that soon.

The good folks at Vancouver Children’s Hospital have a guest WIFI internet hotspot, but I can only see web pages and cant get e-mail (for the techy people all extra ports are blocked so I can’t even see webmail – I can however get e-mail on my blackberry). So now that we know what my connection environment is like, i’ll proceed with an update.

We made it into the hospital last night after some bad results from a blood test in the morning. We got here around 8:00PM and found an almost empty emergency room. We were seen right away, but it was a bit of hurry-up-and-wait. We had a few check-ins with triage types and then were sent to a small treatment room to await an actual doctor.

The first doctor was a resident and gave us a bit of a roller-coaster emotional ride. He told us that the blood work test came back positive for mono-nucleosis and going through the list of symptoms, said that all of them could be explained by mono, but were a-typical. I really felt strongly to stay even keel and that we weren’t done yet, so I opted out of the roller coaster.

They took a bunch more blood to redo the tests and do a few more. After a fair bit more waiting, the hematology / oncology doctor came in and discussed the results of the tests and the results were the opposite. He was quite sure that they were leukemia blast cells and that the mono was probably a false positive. In the end further tests confirmed this.

A few numbers:

• A normal person has a white-cell count between 5000 – 10000. Angelica is 18500. Adult leukemia (different than in children) presents upwards of 50000.
• Angelica had a low red-cell count yesterday morning (don’t know how low) and it came up to 85 last night. It was down at 55 this morning, but the doctors are not worried about that at all.
• The biggest concern is platelets. A normal person has a platelet count around 125. Angelica was at 9 last night. She has received a platelet transfusion overnight that has brought that number up to 40, but they need it to be above 50 to do a marrow biopsy. (Platelets are responsible for starting the clotting process and not having them means that when you bleed, it wont stop.)

Angelica is doing really well. We had a good talk on the way in to the hospital about what to expect and what it means to have faith and what leukemia is and the fact that doctors speak about the facts and statistics and that we can focus on those or we can focus on what God says the outcome will be. She does tend to process internally and so I am keeping an eye on that, but I honestly believe that she has no fear. She’s an amazing girl.

Also of note, Patti is about to give birth to #5. This is significant in that there are some treatments for some types of leukemia that involve stem-cells from a new-born umbilical cord and placenta. We had been planning on having the baby in langley, but Women’s hospital is next door and the maternity ward connects the two hospitals, so patti is talking to our midwife about that right now.

We’ve just received a phone call from our Family Dr.

We took Angelica into the Drs today as she was not getting better within the 24-48 hour window that the antibiotics should have helped with.

He sent her for blood tests and called us about 20 minutes ago saying that we needed to take her into Children’s Hospital right away, TONIGHT, as it looks like she has Leukemia.

Please Pray!

We are upset and don’t really have any answers and in reality don’t really know what questions to even ask.

We’re hoping we’ll find out more tonight.

My baby, my teenager went away to camp this past week.

It was a Grade 7 Year End Graduation Trip Thingy and she’d been looking forward to it for a long time.

They went up to Camp Jubilee. Which was kind of fun not just because it’s a great camp with a great facility but also because Jon and I did a couple of Youth Camps there 13-14 years ago.

Angelica actually was probably conceived at that camp…..yah, yah I gotcha with the TMI……. and then she was there the next year as a 3-4 month old.

Interesting tidbits, eh? Yah, not really.

Anyway, she’s been looking forward to going with her class and the other Grade 7’s in her school and this past week FINALLY came along. She packed and repacked and finally Wednesday morning rolled around and Jon took her to school at 7:30am and dropped her off. We would be getting her back on the Friday after school.

On Friday, Jon showed up to pick her and her luggage and the other two kids up and Xandra and Jeremy were there an so was Geli’s luggage, but the bus hadn’t quite made it back it. The kids finally showed up and Jon brought a very sick little girl home with him.

Apparently she did fine until Friday morning when she started coughing and her throat felt a bit sore. By lunchtime, just before they left the camp, the glands on the left side of her face on her neck and under her chin had started to swell. By the time she made it home she had quite the fever and so, rather than muck around, Jon took her to a walk in clinic where she was 99.9% diagnosed with strep, but in the event that it doesn’t respond to these antibiotics, it might then be mono, so keep a watch on her and come back on Sunday if she’s not starting to feel better.

AWESOME!

Baby should be showing up anytime now and we have strep throat floating around our house.

She came home, took her meds and went straight to bed. She still felt pretty miserable when she woke up and we dosed her up again and sent her back to bed. She stayed in bed ALL DAY yesterday which indicates to me just how sick she is/was because my kids…..it takes some serious illness to knock them down. She even slept in the afternoon. So weird!

I used my Google medical degree to determine that once on the antibiotics, she should start to feel better in about 24 hours.

So we’ve been watching her like a hawk and she was out of bed last night and actually wanted to eat….which I figure is a good sign.

This morning, she is still swollen, but she actually got up and took a shower and had breakfast.

Jon took the other kids to church with him and she is still up and about. I figured that I’d let her be up a bit this morning, but then I’d kick her back to bed once everyone got home.

I’d say that the good Dr at the medical clinic was right and that the antibiotics are doing their job. It’s not even been 48 hours, but she is definitely on the mend.

I haven’t asked her too much about the camp, but she did show up the pictures on her camera and she looked like she had a great time.

I really wanted her to get the most out of her time away, but picking up a case of Strep Throat wasn’t really what I had in mind.