Tiffany had to go back in the hospital today and get a blood transfusion. Like the other time, her blood count can get extremely low due to the harsh chemotherapy. We'll let you know when she gets to come home.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
Fun Gifts!
Tiffany received a couple of nice gifts recently. Her cousins Jeanette and Jennifer ("The Twins" from Vegas) very generously bought her some NIKEid customized shoes. Tiffany picked out all the colors on the Nike website (nikeid.nike.com), and the heels even say "Tiffany"!
Matt's grandmother made Tiffany a Temari ball. It's a Japanese ball that historically was made for the children of royalty. Matt's grandmother isn't Japanese, but she likes to make beautiful things! And she thought Tiffany would like to have one.Saturday, September 23, 2006
Back Home Again
Tiffany is back home after her third course of chemo. As before, it was five daily treatments, then one recovery day in the hospital to make sure that her body was able to safely tolerate all those harsh chemicals. She came through it OK.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Chemo Starts Again
Tiffany is going in the hospital today (Monday) for chemotherapy and will be back home Saturday if things go as planned. Her doctors wanted her to start yesterday, but she asked if she could wait one day so that she could do her home-schooling today. Such a good girl!
Friday, September 15, 2006
Radiation Treatment Plan
Tiffany, her mom, Aunt Ivy, and I went to CHLA today to meet with the head of the radiation oncology department (Dr. Lavey) to discuss the radiation part of Tiffany's treatment plan.
Tiffany is going to start her third chemotherapy treatment on Monday (the 18th). That means she'll be in the hospital for nearly a week, then she gets to come home and recover for three weeks (although she's been doing it in just two), then she'll do her fourth chemo. Right after that (~ two days after getting her fifth and last daily dose), she'll start going to CHLA every weekday for radiation therapy. It's outpatient (she gets to go home after each treatment), which is good, and Dr. Lavey said it will be much easier to bear than surgery or chemo. She'll go in, they'll x-ray her for 15 minutes, then she can go home, and she won't feel any different. The only thing she'll probably notice is that she'll get tan (or maybe even sunburned) at the spot where the x-rays enter her body.
Monday through Friday for seven weeks Tiffany will be going in for this. Her fifth course of chemotherapy will be given at CHLA for a change, and they'll continue to give her radiation at the same time (she'll have to stay overnight for those 6 days). She won't do her doxorubicin chemo drug, but the other three drugs will stay the same. Doxorubicin makes her photosensitive, and in combination with the radiation, she would get a very bad sunburn.
Tiffany will be spending a lot of time driving beginning in mid-October! The reason she's going all the way to CHLA is that they're the very best place to do this. Radiation is serious stuff, and CHLA has the machine with the capability (and the people with the most expertise) to deliver exactly the amount of radiation Tiffany needs at exactly the location she needs it, and we want to keep exposure to the rest of her body to a minimum.
Tiffany is going to start her third chemotherapy treatment on Monday (the 18th). That means she'll be in the hospital for nearly a week, then she gets to come home and recover for three weeks (although she's been doing it in just two), then she'll do her fourth chemo. Right after that (~ two days after getting her fifth and last daily dose), she'll start going to CHLA every weekday for radiation therapy. It's outpatient (she gets to go home after each treatment), which is good, and Dr. Lavey said it will be much easier to bear than surgery or chemo. She'll go in, they'll x-ray her for 15 minutes, then she can go home, and she won't feel any different. The only thing she'll probably notice is that she'll get tan (or maybe even sunburned) at the spot where the x-rays enter her body.
Monday through Friday for seven weeks Tiffany will be going in for this. Her fifth course of chemotherapy will be given at CHLA for a change, and they'll continue to give her radiation at the same time (she'll have to stay overnight for those 6 days). She won't do her doxorubicin chemo drug, but the other three drugs will stay the same. Doxorubicin makes her photosensitive, and in combination with the radiation, she would get a very bad sunburn.
Tiffany will be spending a lot of time driving beginning in mid-October! The reason she's going all the way to CHLA is that they're the very best place to do this. Radiation is serious stuff, and CHLA has the machine with the capability (and the people with the most expertise) to deliver exactly the amount of radiation Tiffany needs at exactly the location she needs it, and we want to keep exposure to the rest of her body to a minimum.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Back to School
Tiffany started seventh grade today! She's going to be home schooled for now. A teacher ("Mrs. Pam") comes Mondays and Wednesdays for two hours each day. It's all being coordinated through her normal school - she'll have the same core classes, the same books, and progress at the same pace as her schoolmates!
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Happy Banh Xeo Day
Aunt Ivy ("Ut" to Tiffany) cooked Banh Xeo to celebrate Tiffany's cousins Matt, Kathy, and Cindy's birthdays. Banh Xeo is a Vietnamese pancake - it's yellow batter, and inside there's shrimp, pork, and bean sprouts. Delicious!! You wrap lettuce around it, throw in some mint and basil, and dip it in Vietnamese fish sause (nuoc mam). Mmmmmm!
It is a lot of work, and Aunt Ivy sweated (that's her secret ingredient) for hours in the kitchen. The results were fantastic (nobody barfed this time!), and Tiffany enjoyed the Banh Xeo as much as any of us!
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Back Home (Again)!
Tiffany had her second session of chemotherapy from August 21-25, and got to come home from the hospital on Saturday the 26th. But she developed a fever the next day, which for can be very dangerous for patients with decreased immune function.
Chemotherapy can be very hard on any cell in the body. The reason chemo works against cancer is that cancer cells typically are very fast-growing cells, and they draw a lot of nutrients from the body. At the same time, they also draw a lot of the chemotherapy drugs from the bloodstream, and that's what kills the cancer cells. But the process isn't perfect, because chemo drugs end up in other parts of the body too. One of the things that can be most affected are the cells of the blood - red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. So Tiffany's doctors are always monitoring her blood count to make sure that her blood is able to function well enough to do the things it's supposed to, like for the immune system to fight infections. When a chemotherapy patient gets a fever, it can indicate that the body has an infection, and it is very hard for an immuno-suppressed body to fight an infection on its own.
When Tiffany developed a fever, her dad called the doctors and they told him to bring her in to the hospital to get antibiotics right away. She went in on Monday the 28th, and only got to come home on Saturday September 2nd. They had to give her a blood transfusion to get more healthy blood in her. Tiffany's white blood count (WBC) dropped down to 200 (a normal child ranges from 5,000 - 1o,000) They continued to monitor her, and once her WBC rose back up to 1,000 she was OK'd to come home.
So when people come to visit Tiffany, we want to make sure make sure they're not sick, because she's very succeptible to catching germs. For that same reason, we're all really careful about washing our hands, and making sure that food is handled safely. There are germs everywhere, and our healthy bodies can fight them off almost all of the time, but Tiffany's immune system is working at a fraction of its normal strength.
Chemotherapy can be very hard on any cell in the body. The reason chemo works against cancer is that cancer cells typically are very fast-growing cells, and they draw a lot of nutrients from the body. At the same time, they also draw a lot of the chemotherapy drugs from the bloodstream, and that's what kills the cancer cells. But the process isn't perfect, because chemo drugs end up in other parts of the body too. One of the things that can be most affected are the cells of the blood - red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. So Tiffany's doctors are always monitoring her blood count to make sure that her blood is able to function well enough to do the things it's supposed to, like for the immune system to fight infections. When a chemotherapy patient gets a fever, it can indicate that the body has an infection, and it is very hard for an immuno-suppressed body to fight an infection on its own.
When Tiffany developed a fever, her dad called the doctors and they told him to bring her in to the hospital to get antibiotics right away. She went in on Monday the 28th, and only got to come home on Saturday September 2nd. They had to give her a blood transfusion to get more healthy blood in her. Tiffany's white blood count (WBC) dropped down to 200 (a normal child ranges from 5,000 - 1o,000) They continued to monitor her, and once her WBC rose back up to 1,000 she was OK'd to come home.
So when people come to visit Tiffany, we want to make sure make sure they're not sick, because she's very succeptible to catching germs. For that same reason, we're all really careful about washing our hands, and making sure that food is handled safely. There are germs everywhere, and our healthy bodies can fight them off almost all of the time, but Tiffany's immune system is working at a fraction of its normal strength.
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