Take A Deep Breath

When we first found out that Ida has leukemia, just over 2 weeks ago, I felt some sense of relief. Sure, no one is happy to hear his child have cancer but for the very least we knew what was wrong with Ida and that there is treatment.
As the days pass reality starts to sink in. It's a dreadful disease, and its treatment is even worse. We are into and ahead of a tough period, especially little Ida.
But let me start with the good news. Ida, though far from being well, is better than we would expect. She isn't happy, but she does express herself, she cries when in pain and protest when angry. She asks for stuff and talks sometimes. It's far better than she was last weekend, even though she is probably sicker now...
Another good thing, thinking a bit ahead, is that soon (sometimes in the end of September) we are moving to a new apartment. We bought it some months ago and as a positive coincidence it's located a walking distance from the hospital. In a couple of months we are surly going to appreciate that. We could be at home even at times when Ida needs to get daily treatments in the hospital.

Here is a picture of me and Ida from this morning. She is playing with her new princess book (which has over 600 stickers, to everyone's excitement). Ida had fever for a couple of days. In addition, one value in her blood tests went up significantly. It's called CRP (stands for C-reactive protein). It is a protein produced by the body as the first line of defense against inflammation. High count can indicate infection in the body. A healthy person has a count of about 3 mg/L. Ida's count went from 19 to over 120 within a day. It was 183 this morning, and presumably going to be yet higher tomorrow. For a healthy person those number are unreasonable but this is a typical condition in leukemia children as their immune system is practically on hold. The main defense in the body against infections are white blood cells, Ida has only few of those, hence this protein count continue to raise. An alarming high fever last night resulted with the immediate prescription of antibiotics. Antibiotics essentially do the job of the white blood cells. When the antibiotics are done with the infection the CRP level should sink. Her fever is already lower.

Ida's condition right now is almost exactly like the list of side effects of the chemotherapeutic drugs she is getting...
She started losing her hair, so say goodbye to this pretty curls, they'll be gone within days. It's the most visible side effect and the most identifiable with cancer but at least it doesn't hurt... The hair will also grow back. Right now it's a mess with all the hair so we're going to shave Ida's head soon.
She is constipated. She did not poo by herself in more than a week, and not expected to do so since her intestines are kinda on a break right now. She's being treated for that, but it's more of a grandma medicine. The treatment involves warm milk mixed with syrup, a flexible plastic tube and some Vaseline (and open a window when you're done...). Constipation may even be the cause for her infection, as some content from the intestines can leak and infect the blood.
Her nerves are effected too. She keeps touching her fingers like they feel weird. She also rubs her face, around the eyes and nose. It's likely a reaction to the chemo (vincristine).
She has some blisters in her mouth, but they don't look infected and it doesn't seems to bother her.
Her hemoglobin (the chemical in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body) level was low, again as a result for the cell killing medicines she's getting. So she received a blood transfusion earlier. Normal level of hemoglobin is 150 g/L, when it drops below 80 blood is given (Ida had about 70 this morning). Yesterday she got some thrombocytes (the ingredient of the blood that makes it clogs).
Ida still doesn't eat as she should. She didn't lose any more weight in the last few days, but her body needs energy, especially now. We still wait with inserting a new feeding tube, but we might have to do it eventually.

Nothing of this is unusual. This is how it is and how it's going to be in the near future. And as I said - Ida takes it all pretty well. She's not a happy camper, but she's OK. Me and Camilla are fine, too.

I'm going to try and update more often in the coming days.