Day1 of 4 Weeks

Today is the official beginning of the no eating or drinking (NPO), antibiotics, and nutrition (TPN) for 4 weeks. Emma has already be NPO for 5 days and we have 4 more weeks to go. Our family has been discussing a lot about possibly skipping the last week of chemo treatment and being NPO for 3 weeks. Since that is the amount of time the GI docs would recommend under normal circumstances. We have run it by our doc this weekend and she will talk to the other oncologists to see if maybe we can re-evaluate in a couple of weeks to see if that is a possibility. As much as it scares me to stop chemo early, I am having a hard time denying my baby her most basic need.

Emma has now learned to say "MO ice pease". Oh MY GOSH!!! When she says it it just breaks my heart. I had decided that she had had enough ice for the day yesterday, but when she said that I had to give her more. Oh boy, I"m in trouble!! And Jonny is even more wrapped around her finger : ) We wanted her to start saying please so bad, so we were trying to teach her the sign language. Well, she didn't seem to pick up on it or didn't want to say it, so we just stopped trying. And then all of sudden she busts out the word and the sign!! What a little smarty pants : )

I stopped by toys r us on my outing yesterday and picked up a toy kitchen and a coloring toy. She has enjoyed both, but still gets tired after playing for just a little while. We are expecting her energy level to pick back up after a few more days though. She has lost some muscle in her arms and legs, but is able to pull up on the crib. But only if it is her idea : ) She can still stand for short periods of time and has taken some steps. We will slowly but surely be back where we were.

We are going to talk to the docs tomorrow about doing x-rays every other day rather than everyday. We do not want all of this radiation in her body as well as everything else. Her x-ray from today has shown no improvement, but is not worse. The air is still there, but it will probably take a couple of more days to go away.

I want to thank John Herren and Hazen Daniels for doing yardwork at our house today! What a great surprise!! They even took our Christmas lights down : ) I probably shouldn't have posted that for everyone to see, but oh well. We are so the griswolds! Thank you so much guys for taking the time to help us out. We appreciate it so much! I also want to thank Gerod and Callie Black for the wonderful dinner on friday! And of course our family who visits everyday and helps us out more than they know! What a great support system we have!

Please pray:

A complete healing of Emma's gut and leukemia

Wisdom for the doctors and nurses who are caring for Emma

A restful stay for Emma and our family at the hospital

Emma as she does not understand why she can't eat or drink