Home Improvement

Boy am I glad that this little girl is out of the hospital. She is so much more alive when she is home. Katie is animated, motivated and hungry. She spent the day yesterday, smiling, laughing, playing and loving everyone around her. She also spent a good portion of the day eating. She ate everything in site - never much of any one thing, but no food was safe within her sight. This morning has started out much the same. She asked for cereal for breakfast, but in the picture included with this post, she is eating my English muffin and turkey sandwich. She slept through the night peacefully in her own bed and didn't wake up this morning until after her mother and brother had already left for school.

Being home for her is the magic medication that is doing more to improve her mental and physical health than any of the drugs at the hospital. She is more active, more satisfied, and more willing to do the things she needs to do to regain some of the physical capabilities that she lost during her latest round of illness.

We will be going to North Country Hospital this morning to get the blood drawn for her first cell counts since leaving the hospital so that we can hopefully have counts back before the end of the day. Otherwise, if we wait till this afternoon for counts, we won't get the results back until Monday.

Her physical therapist will meet us at home this afternoon and we can begin to work on getting her to walk confidently again. Her muscle control is very shaky right now, and while holding a cup or some food, her arms shake uncontrollably and make it difficult for her to feed herself. Her legs are just as unreliable, but cause more problems for her when they fail. She is afraid of falling down, so she tries not to walk much at all and if she has to walk, she walks the shortest distance possible. The only way to describe her walk is to compare it to a the gait of a person with mild cerebral palsy. This new inability to walk is a direct result of her chemotherapy. The Vincristine that she gets generally causes this side-effect after a while and we have been told that Katie resisted the side-effect for a longer time than normally expected. With Therapy and time, this side-effect will eventually reverse itself, but for now we have to deal with it.

Amy has her own opinions about how beneficial it is for Katie to be home and I am encouraging her to add those at some point today. But just to give you a heads up, Josh said last night that he has caught her crying happy tears several times already while watching Katie interact with Josh and I.