So, before I go into today's stuff, I need to mention something I had forgotten. On day 3, 6, 9, and 11 from transplant, Ava gets a quick injection of chemo IV. This is done on specific days after transplant to help with grafting. Its just a quick "burst" of chemo, then its chased with a flush or something to get it out of her system. Its really crazy to me how they know all this. Anyway, this past Sunday (her 11th day post transplant) was her last dose of chemo. She handled these 4 small treatments well, except now we are seeing problems with diarrhea and horrible, horrible, diaper rash. I don't even think its called diaper rash, its worse. Her poor little tush is raw and so painful...changing her diaper is excruciating. Today was difficult, you can tell she can't get comfortable and that she hurts. They upped her pain meds today so hopefully this will help.  The main thing that will help her is when her #'s increase, her body will be able to fight infection and heal her mucositis , and tushy. One more thing, I wanted to go into her #'s one more time just to make it a bit easier to understand.
Her ANC (absolute neutrophil count) is the main thing they look for when watching her immune system rebuild. Her RBC's and platelets are the last to rise, so transfusions are given throughout the process until she can make these on her own. In the very beginning of this, the doctor explained that her ANC would do some rising and falling, then just rise.  For some reason (and we are NOT complaining) her #'s are just rising. On 8/3 she was at 0, on 8/5 she was at 24 in the morning and 66 in the evening, on 8/6 she was at 32, on 8/7 she was at 81, yesterday she was at 282, and today she is at 396!!!! They say by 500 patients are ok to be released, that # is considered "safe". Now, by no means is she ready yet, she still vomits, has diarrhea, doesn't eat, and is on a million IV treatments...but they will start to work on weaning the IV stuff and starting some "by mouth" stuff when they feel she is ready.
I didn't take any pics of her today, she was not happy :(