We did get home for Easter. We had Easter Saturday dinner at my mom's house. Bill took the kids fishing in the pond out back and Lauren caught the first fish. She was so excited. She wanted so bad to throw it back in that she tried to do it while it was still attached to the hook! I'll try to get a picture of it up this week. We had a really nice visit with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Nean & Uncle Dylan. Then we headed back to RMH on Easter Sunday.
All in all this round wasn't really too bad. Lauren really didn't want to be there at first and kept asking to go home. But then we got back into the routine and she was fine. She had about half & half good vs. pain days. We did hit one snag though and had to be admitted for one night. On the second day of the round Lauren spiked a fever and was extremely lethargic. So they drew blood cultures, admitted us and started IV antibiotics. She missed one day of the 3F8's but they said that was no problem. The fever lasted about 36 hours and then disappeared. Nothing ever grew on the cultures and she had no other symptoms so they're not really sure what the problem was. She did get another fever towards the end of the round but that one was due to a reaction and major hives on her face & neck from the gmcsf. One doctor talked about admitting us again but I refused and a second doc on the team backed me up.
I haven't told the docs yet but I think I figured out what the first fever was from. The day we came home, Timmy had a fever of 104 which lasted about 36 hours with no other symptoms. But then about 4 days later he got a major rash and was confirmed to have Fifth Disease (a parvovirus) which was going around his school like wildfire. A lot of kids never get the rash, just fever & lethargy. So I think this might be what Lauren had too. I'm also pretty sure this is what I had when I was sick in March. They say that it hits adults a lot worse than kids and adults don't get the rash.... just stiff, swollen & very painful joints. So I guess I started it in the house! LOL Thankfully everyone is healthy now.
Lauren is in the middle of her second cycle of Accutane right now and is doing pretty well with it. She has some dry cracked areas on her cheeks & lips but not as bad as with the last cycle. We have to be very careful with the sun when she is on this so the last few heatwave days have been hard. We pile on the sunscreen and try to keep her in when the sun is the strongest. She doesn't seem to do to well with the heat these days. It just zaps her energy and tires her out very quickly. Hopefully it won't be a blazing hot summer.
We should be home for another week before heading back to Sloan for Round 4. We have an appt. at the Valerie Center on Monday for a checkup & the HAMA test. As long as she is still negative we're due to start on 5/14 which means we head back to RMH on Mother's Day. There's a chance we'll be bumped an extra week again but I won't know for sure til next Wed when I get the HAMA results. I'll let y'all know as soon as I find out.
As always, Thanks for checking in on us and for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.
