Fun with cancer

You can tell how well Abbie is doing and how small and quiet my worries about her are, by the fact that I am about to whine and complain about small stuff.

So, here I go! To begin with, Abbie is just fine. Her fever was already gone by the time I took her to the clinic. I apparently made a mistake by telling the answering service that it was "not an emergency" when I called the day her fever appeared. It's hard to switch your perspective that way -- a little fever, coming a few days after another child has had the same, really mild, illness just doesn't feel like an emergency. However, because of Abbie's weakened immune system coupled with the fact that her broviac provides any bacteria quick and easy access to her heart, any fever (even if it's below 100) needs to be treated as an emergency. I was told that any infection would take less than 24 hrs to put her into septic shock. So, we don't have the time to determine if the fever is in fact related to infection; she needs to go on antibiotics right away.

That being said, no-one really thought that she had an infection with this fever. But it's a chance that we just can't take, no matter how benign it seems. So.....here comes the whine.....we ended up spending two days at the oncology clinic so they could give her the antibiotics. (We didn't spend the night, and the actual administration of the medication took about half an hour. But, it's just the way things go there; you show up bright and early in the morning, and by the time you get away it's almost time to pick up the older girls from school. Just a lot of sitting around and waiting.) It's not a huge deal. I understand that the clinic is very busy, and I understand that the hospital pharmacy has to prioritize which medication to make -- so they guy in danger of imminent death upstairs trumps my baby downstairs, which is fine, of course. I never actually want us to be the ones prioritized; it's much better to be healthier and on the periphery than in danger and the center of attention.

But......um, spending the day entertaining two little kids in the rather dull oncology clinic isn't exactly fun. Especially when your mind momentarily went beserk, and you forgot to pack enough supplies to last four or five hours. (On day 2, I had enough food to keep the entire clinic fed for a week, but of course we ended up getting out of there about an hour earlier than we had the day before, when all I had was a baggie full of Cheeze-its.)

So, waah-waah-waah, poor us. We happened to be there when one of the nurses went into labor with her baby, though, so that was cool to hear. I hope her labor went well! Maybe I should have offered up my boredom for her and her baby.......