Day 8

Found out they have DVD players built into the TV here. I brought a bunch of movies to keep Maddy entertained. She is in good spirits today. Last night after the doc told her the rejection was persisting she was very upset and sat in her bed and had a bit of a cry for a very long time. Poor kid! Her nurse, Anne, who has been with her for a number of days in a row was very upset to see Maddy so sad. They had a conversation earlier in the week about Reese's pieces and how Maddy likes the peanut butter part better than the chocolate. So today Anne brought Maddy a giant Reese's cup and Reese's peanut butter chips (see below). So sweet! Anyway, I thought Maddy would be in a funk for at least a day or so but she cheered up within a few hours of getting the news and was cracking jokes with me and laughing at the TV. Amazing! I never cease to be amazed at how strong and resilient my daughter is!

So the bad news for today is that they will be starting a round of chemo therapy on Maddy tonight immediately after her plasma pheresis. It's called Velcade and it will not be a fun experience. The most common side effect is peripheral neuropathy, numbness and possible pain in the fingers and toes. Apparently in order to lessen the risk of this they inject the chemo in her stomach or thigh instead of intravenous. It is very painful and she will also most likely experience nausea so they will have anti nausea meds ready. I think it's going to be a long night! They want to do five of these treatments and I think they space them out every 72 hours. Doing the math that's another 14 days in here just for that treatment! I hope I'm wrong! Maddy was a bit vague when she related the information to me. Nothing we can do if that's the case anyway so we are just battening down the hatches and making a go of it.

I decided to spend as many nights here with Maddy as I can, even though I'm still doing the morning show. I'll go to work at 5am everyday and be back to the hospital by 1ish each day to help Maddy. If things get really bad I will ask John to juggle the staff around and take time off to just be here all the time. For now though I will work and stay here. The more crazy treatments they throw at Maddy the scarier this rejection scenario gets in my head. Maddy is so positive about it, I'm just trying to feed off her energy. She says she has been though this kind of stuff before and she is always fine. She just can't seem to do things the easy way. Lol

Thanks again for all the prayers. I'll keep updating as developments occur. Hopefully her body will not react too badly to this chemo treatment.

Oh, yeah. We took a walk and saw some pretty things around the hospital this afternoon. I took time for find the beauty in our dark moment. The above is the result.

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