Hurry Up and Wait.

Don’t you just hate the “hurry up and wait” mode? That’s where we have been for about two weeks now. They took Sandy off of the chemo to allow her symptoms to resolve, and then we waited and waited for them to resolve.

The worst of them faded over a period of about a week to ten days, but some linger on. The most frustrating of all to Sandy is the continued hair loss. She has lost more than half of her hair at this point, but she wears it well! Interestingly, she now has some peeling skin on her hands and feet where she had experienced the pain. It is nothing gross and is only noticeable if she shows you, but certainly interesting given the blistering sensations that she felt. Fortunately, that pain is gone. I promised myself and others that I would not to go into unpleasant details on this blog, but I thought those were pretty basic and could be appreciated by all.

Sandy actually ceased chemo 2.5 weeks ago, to be exact. She has been eager to resume, strangely enough (good soldier/do as she’s told), but her white cell count is too. Given that her immune system is already compromised, a falling white blood cell count could be dangerous. Chemotherapy tends to beat the snot out of your body as it is, and a person needs to be well enough to fight off infections. White blood cell counts have to be high enough to withstand the treatment, as well. The plan was to run labs a couple of times this week to see which direction the white cell count is headed. If it is recovering, then we’ll give her a few more days to get it where it needs to be. If it is not recovering, then we’ll introduce some growth hormones by injection… and enter her in the Babes of Baltimore Body Building Bonanza, Hon. (If you don’t get the Hon reference, watch Hairspray…it’s a Baltimore thing). Either way, we should know this afternoon what the plan is.

We have another big weekend ahead of us—Hannah has a lacrosse tournament for her Sky Walkers team in Mt. Laurel, NJ. Games start this afternoon and go through Saturday. My team (the team I coach) is also playing, but the schedule works out well enough for me to see Hannah’s games today. Sandy and Haley will not be going this time. It took Sandy two days to recover from last week’s tournament, and Haley has gymnastics practice tonight, anyway. The two of them will hang out here and enjoy the beautiful sun and low humidity. Hannah and I will be hard at work on the fields. I can’t wait. I love it.

I know, I know...I need to post some recent pictures that include Sandy. She has been reluctant to get in front of a camera, despite the fact that everyone thinks she is looking great. I'll keep working on it.

Have a great weekend.