First thing's first: Tuesday morning we went in for Ainsley's bone marrow aspiration and to be admitted for IV methotrexate (4 day admission). You would think 3rd times a charm, right? Wrong. In order to start the next phase of treatment she needed to have platelets above 75 and ANC (absolute neutrophil count--aka her immune system) above 750. 3 weeks ago the platelets were 7 and her ANC was 0. The next week her platelets were fine, but the ANC was only 100. Last week the ANC was up to 300. Yesterday it had climbed, but only to 638. So, again we had everything packed and arranged for admission and got sent home.
My mom (Grandma Sue) has been here for the past 3 weeks helping us! LOVE HER! Thank you Grandpa Terry for sharing her with us! The original goal was to have her here for 3 weeks, which would get us through 2 out of 4 of the next treatment cycles. Instead, we didn't get any of the treatments done! Oh well, sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men... We are sure grateful she has been here, though. We don't know how we would have made it through the past two weeks without her.
The good news is that since Ainsley has not been able to have another round of chemo for a few weeks, she is feeling as good as she has felt in a while. She is starting to regain the weight she lost over the past 2 months (huge relief, because once the steroids stopped, so did her appetite). She even got to finally ride the birthday bike that she got and that Trevor put together for her while she was initially hospitalized. She has had a ball!
We had a visit the other day from Kayla, with Emmy's Heart. She brought tutu's for the girls! They LOVE them!!! Ainsley wore her tutu all weekend! She felt like a princess.
Over the weekend, our friends the Steeds/Tubbs families got a booth at the Collinsville Hogs n Hotrods car show! We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support we received. The bracelets and head bands were good, but the 22 rifle and box of 22 ammunition were a HIT! (They are being raffled off--Ainsley is drawing the winner on July 5th). Randy, thank you for arranging that!
The most touching thing about the car show was the people that we met. If you have been following the news lately, you will see that the people of Oklahoma are AMAZING and will do anything that they can to help you! We had total strangers praying right there in the street for Ainsley!
We want to give a special shout out to the Herron Crown Opry House in Collinsville, Oklahoma. You have never seen such kindness and generosity. Jenny and I got to attend their country music show Saturday Night. They even raffled off a beautiful guitar on Ainsley's behalf. All I can say is if you are anywhere near...you need to go see their show! http://www.herronscrownoprytheater.com/ for more details. The next show is on Saturday June 22. If you are coming to the Barrel Race, you can go to the show right after. It is just down the street. Rick and the "Main Street Opry Band" put together a great evening. While we were there, the band prayed for Ainsley. We were so touched. We got to see Allie Colleen perform. Look out country music...she is AMAZING and we look forward to watching her for years to come. There were so many people that were so kind and generous in thought, word and deed. I know that they don't want to be singled out, so I won't. But suffice it to say, there are amazing people in the Collinsville/Owasso area.
Here are some of our favorite pictures from the past week:
Got to show my family your blog while we were in Utah. We were hoping this Tuesday would work out, but glad to see that Ainsley is getting a little break.
ReplyDeleteI cant wait to share your blog with my daughter who was diagnosed with ALL at age 11. She was a patient of Dr. Martina Hum. She is now 21, just got married and is in nursing school. God is good! I can relate to so many of your entries. It brought back a lot of the memories especially about the hair. My daughter too had red curly hair. Guess what, it came back red & curly. ALL shaped our family and made us stronger, more compassionate & patient...among many other things. Im praying that your sweet girl's treatment goes smoothly.
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