Duffy’s Blog
Friday August 23rd

(Chris will be doing his blog soon)

This past week has been kind of tough. I think I hit a wall today. We are kind of secluded in our room due to K’s low blood count. We have only had close family and a friend visit this week, and we are not allowed to take K to the fun kid events they have downstairs every day with the risk of getting her sick. So, it has been me in a room trying to keep her occupied (with a ton of help from my mom & Ron) everyday 24/7. Chris is back to work so he usually gets here about 6:45pm, and by then I am kind of spent. We originally were told we would have to stay here 24 hours, then it was 48 hours, then it was “you’ll be released Friday.” Then it was “you’ll be released Saturday morning.” Today I received the news that “Due to her blood count not rising like it should, along with her hemoglobin being too low, she would not only need a blood transfusion today, but we wouldn’t be discharged until Tuesday afternoon.” Although I kind of figured it would be silly to send us home this wknd only for her to get chemo on Monday and wind up back here Tuesday with a fever, I still wanted to be selfish and go home as a family for one night. Whenever I start to feel like the walls are closing in, I look next to me for my reality check. Our soon to be 18^th month old (tomorrow!) finds some way to smile or laugh almost every day & it seriously puts everything back in perspective! Here is this tiny little dynamite of a girl going thru everything that she shouldn’t possibly ever have to go thru, and she finds a way to smile, therefore putting a smile on every person’s face she encounters along the way! Amazing! What a blessing she is!

So, a few of you have asked how this week has gone and I have to of course include the “See? I told you prayer is awesome” story. So, I noticed K felt very warm the other night, so I took her temperature. Realizing it was a fever (everything is in Celsius here, so it takes a sec for my brain to load the Celsius to Fahrenheit temp) I called the nurse. She came in and took K’s temp, and verified, yes it was a fever. The nurse said they could not give her any medicine unless she still had a fever or a higher temperature after 30 minutes…so what did I do? Um, I took it to Facebook and asked people to PRAY! Well, 35 min later our sweet nurse came in to check K’s temperature (ready to give her Children’s Tylenol) and K’s temp was not only NOT a fever anymore, it was exactly a normal temperature! Now, THAT is a rather cool answer to prayer story people! God is so good!!

Today, we received the good news that her initial fever that brought us back to the hospital must have been a reaction to Chemo b/c the lab work came up negative for a virus or bacterial infection. (Praise God!) We have been eagerly waiting every morning to get her blood results in. She still gets her blood taken every morning at 4 am, and I get a copy of those every morning around 9/10am. Everything is still super low, so we are praying for those numbers to rise. I really didn’t appreciate the Oncologist’s explanation today as why her counts weren’t rising “Well, it seems her bone marrow is just… stupid.” (really? That’s the best answer I could get? Nice, Dr.) He said “Her platelets are starting to rise so it looks like her bone marrow is at least doing that, but we really need to see better results as far as her white blood cells are concerned.”

So, we’ll pray for that ….or better yet, let’s go all out and pray for straight up healing! I remind myself every day God’s got this! He can heal her!

K had a pretty great day today. We knew this morning she would be getting a blood transfusion today, and from past experience we know that she turns into a lightning bolt of energy on days that she gets new blood! She smiled and laughed more than ½ the day and even went outside to the Wishing Pond to spend some of Grandpa’s money on wishes :> She never napped today, but Grandma was able to get a few videos of K laughing while throwing a ball to mommy and Grandpa. She is now waving and smiling to all the nurses when we take her by the nurses’ station & amazing them all with her willingness to take medicine and her sweet smile when they are done taking her vitals. “All done!”

We are praying for her blood counts to rise this wknd, and for her to be able to endure the planned Chemo on Monday (breaks my heart she has to go thru this!) We are hoping for more good days than bad, and that God will give us endurance and strength to be the best parents for her during this difficult diagnosis. As always, thank you for your prayers. We need those! They truly are what is helping our family get through this and what is giving K her good days! So, please keep praying, and we will do our best to keep you posted on her progress!

PRAYING FOR REMISSION!

Jeremiah 29:11

#PRAY4K