It's been months since we have have written. We told our selves it was because really did anyone want to hear that Brenn went to school and that she ate dinner and went to sleep day in day out. Well I'm thinking that we didn't write because we were feeling so tired of dealing with everything. We thought that coming home would be great and that our life would go back to a relatively normal day to day life. Ha were we ever wrong. Reality set in, and it has taken Scott and I by the collar our shirts and is just shaking us in the wind, flipping us up and down and all around. Being home is not as reassuring as we thought, we no longer have the safety net of having the Children's Hospital being within walking distance if we have questions or issues, although they are just a phone call away it is just not the same. The doctors and nurse here in Prince George are doing all that they can for us when situations arise but they too are not use to dealing with an oncology child and often call Vancouver for direction before anything can be done. We have had a rough road that last 6 weeks and this is where my despair is coming from.

Brenn and Scott returned to Vancouver in February for routine treatment and this is when our life turned upside down yet again. Brenn's blood counts had dropped dramatically in two weeks. After keeping Brenn for 2 extra days she was released from Vancouver with the expectancy that her counts had come down due to the meds and that after stopping her normal weekly antibiotics they rose slightly. Two days after arriving home, Brenn spiked a fever of 39 degrees for no apparent reason. She was admitted, and put on antibiotics while waiting for her blood, and culture results and taken off her daily and weekliy chemo thereapy. During this time her temp rose to an astounding 40.4 degrees, and her hemoglobin and platelets dropped by 50% from what they were a few days before. At this time Scott and I felt that it would be in Brenn's best interest for her to have a transfusion, she was 20 points below the time that a transfusion would normally be given to a child. The transfusion proved to be the boost she needed for her bone marrow to kick start into action. Her counts began to slowly rise, in saying this not all rose. Her ANC or immune system continued to drop, it bottomed out at 0.1 so admittal and isolation continued another 4 days. We are home now but still in a semi isolated environment as her ANC is still only 0.7. It is in the opinion of the Doctors that if Brenn was to catch any virus that her counts would drop again as they are still fragile and that we would have to stop her chemo therapy again. As anyone can conclude this is not okay, Brenn's life depends on her receiving her medication. So here we sit 6 weeks into this and our family has got extreme cabin fever and are suffering from extreme boredom. Brenn misses her friends and school, Samantha is having a hard time understanding why it is that we can't go out to visit friends or have them over, Scott is worried at work all the time and I am going crazy trying to keep to children occupied at every second, while trying to keep it together. Such is life I guess, but it's hard and unfair right now. Our family has been given this for a reason and we will get through this journey.....hopefully with our sanity intacted.

On a more positive note Brenn's make a wish Disney cruise is coming up.....we leave for the cruise on April 9 to return on the 19th. This will be a much appreciated and needed break for our family to enjoy ourselves, and forget for 10 days that our precious beautiful little girl is going through the biggest trial of her life.