Transfer to Group Health and Chemotherapy Started

When we walked into our room at Group Health Eastside, we breathed a sigh of relief. We had a room all to ourselves. They said that we could all camp out there if we wanted. They even have fold out mats to sleep on. It is so nice because we won't have to stay in a hotel room or out in a trailer like we would have at Children's. More than one person can be in there with her too. The pediatric wing was small, but they had toys that Kelby likes. The fact that there weren't very many kids there meant that we got special attention. She walked around the pediatric wing a lot when we first got there.

Still, looking back, it is amazing what I can't remember any more. It seems like ages since this occurred. I do remember our straight-forward talk with the doctor. "This is going to be a long, hard road" was the gist of what he was saying. It is hard to hear the honest truth, but we prefer it. This doctor said that Kelby has about a 20-30% chance of making it through this. Our primary doctor was more optimistic with a 50% chance prognosis. The doctor also explained to us at that time about another condition that they were testing Kelby for. It is something called N-myc. If she is N-myc positive that means that her cancer has a gene that causes it to be amplified. This makes the cancer grow faster. If she has that, her cancer will be harder to beat. They did say that there are survivors that have that gene amplification. We wouldn't get the results on that until later. On the coming Friday we found out that Kelby is N-myc positive. This may be even harder than we thought, but God is watching out for us.

They started her chemotherapy at around 11:00 pm Tuesday night. Mike and I both stayed there with her. She did really well with it. I hope that all her rounds of chemo go as smoothly.

The next day, our moms came down to relieve us. They stayed together overnight Wednesday with Kelby. Mike and I got a chance to go home. We had gotten several chances through all this to be alone together. We sure appreciate being able to do that. All of Kelby's grandparents were more than wonderful to have stayed with her for us. They all also kept after us to take breaks and be sure we were eating well (Don't worry about me-Shawna, I gained 9 ½ pounds through all of this!).

Kelby stayed on her chemo for 48 hours. Then she got to rest. We were in a hurry to get home by that time. On Friday they gave her the first dose of her G-CSF, which is a white cell growth factor. This helps her white blood cells to grow back quick after they go down.

Kelby will be on a cycle every 21 days. First she gets her chemo. Then, we should be able to go home. Her white blood cell levels will start crashing down. About 5-8 days after chemo her counts will be near zero and that is when she is in danger if she should get any kind of infection. We will have to carefully guard her from anyone that may be sick. If she gets a fever at all when she has low counts, then we will have to rush down to the hospital. They give her tons of antibiotics just in case, and watch her until the fever goes down and her counts come back up. As her counts come back up, she awaits her next round of chemo. We have to continue to give her the G-CSF at home for about 10 days to keep those cells growing. We also had to learn how to take her blood at home, so it can be tested when the doctor needs to know her counts. Group Health arranged for a home nurse from Apria to come to our home and teach us. Apria also provides us with all the supplies.

So, on Friday, December 8, when everything was all set up, we got to go home! We were very excited to get Kelby home after 2 straight weeks of being at the hospital. She was all too happy to be home too!