Clinic...

Just the word clinic causes increased anxiety for any cancer mom/dad I'm pretty sure. At least I know it does at this house.  In order to make it to the 10:00 appt which is the latest they have been willing to give us we should leave by 8:20, difficult when the patient rarely awakes before 8:30 and does not like to be bothered for quite some time after waking.  And she knows by now just exactly where she is headed and repeats over and over "I not want to go to hospital", " I not want to be brabe" yes she says brabe, it's pretty cute and "I not want a prize".  So as is no surprise by the description she was not out the door much before 9:00 despite our best efforts to wake her...I'm seeing a challenge when she starts school :) So her counts were high enough to continue chemo tonight...but low enough to have us worried and trying to prevent another repeat of her last week long hospital stay.  She seems to be trending down again and long story short we are thinking the chemo dose is a little too high for her little body or her marrow is slowing down possibly making the chemo dose too high etc.  So the Dr told us to definately have her counts checked in two weeks and gave us a prescription for counts to have them taken any time we feel we want them.  So we'll probably have them taken in a week.  It's always so hard for me to make these decisions b/c she hates getting accessed.  She did well today Todd says, he took her and sounds like it went well but of course we gave her zofran and valium before she left which seems to help her. 
However, we FINALLY got her playing outside with the water table etc and bathing with her shirt off... and its back to the same old game crying, screaming terrified sweet girl who wants to "cober up her owie" and get a new shirt on.  She showered unhappilly with Todd with her shirt on and I had to have a new shirt ready to immediately put on to switch with the soaking wet one.  Hurts to think about...I wonder what her little brain and body is going through to be so terrified around her own parents to not even take her shirt off to shower.  How afraid she must feel.  I pray she will forget most of this but feel she's now old enough to remember.  She has now made herself a "new bed" on the couch where she has a large heavy quilt that she puts over her as well as her "white blanket from grandma".  She didn't even want to go out and play outside tonight we pretty much had to force her out. 
Her ANC was 760 today, and hemoglobin was 11.6 I believe.  Low on exact details since I was home with Tyson and getting our garage fixed finally.  I guess another clinic visit down and closer to the day we dont have to do this anymore and maybe we'll actually feel comfortable taking her on a trip or to go visit family.  Gets hard missing out on so many events and her not seeing any of her cousins and us not seeing many family members, but I don't dare take her to Utah every time we visited she got sick, and a vacation isn't a vacation in a hospital.  Plus crazy old mom has some terribly irrational emotions about going back to utah since the last time was so rough and right before she was diagnosed.  All her cancer symptoms started then and I was so oblivious to what was coming.  Some day...one step at a time.  One day closer...my new motto!  Every day we are one day closer!  Until then I pray every day for heavens help!