Clinic day today...It was a tough one for sure. Brenn has developed some mouth sores and some jaw pain over the past couple of days which we have seen before, and didn't really think were a big deal right now. However, the mouth sores are called mucusitis, and these sores go all the way through her entire digestive tract, and out the other side. We have known that her bum has been sore for a little while now, but we were prescribed some cream for this in the second round, and have just been using the cream again to help her be more comfortable. Her mucusitis is not to bad yet, but we will be going to the hospital more often throughout this round now, so will have to stay close to home, our short lived freedom has now been taken away, but Brenns health is far more important, so we don't really care to much...During this round of her treatment, the drug called Methotrexate is responsible for the mucusitis. Some children are more susceptible to the mucusitis than others, and the doctors were somewhat surprised today that Brenn had developed symptoms already. Methotrexate is the drug that we will continuously be increasing every 10 days in the clinic, and if she has already had a reaction to it, this may be a really long couple of months. We were prescribed a couple of different drugs today to help combat the symptoms, and the pain, but they symptom medication isn't a drug that is used in all hospitals, and there is debate on weather or not it actually works. Our doctor recommended that we should use it, so we have faith in him, and will try it out. We are now worried about Brenn, when we weren't yesterday, but I guess it is just another thing during this crazy time we are having.

The rest of the day was pretty good. Uncle Allan came in to watch Samantha while Christine, Brenn and I were at the clinic this morning. Thank God for Uncle Allan being able to come and spend time with Samantha while we are in clinic. Clinic would be really hard if Samantha was there with us. It is a time when we get to talk to the doctors, nurses, nutritionists, physiotherapists, and social workers. Without both Christine and I to be there, we would have a really hard time getting to take in all of the information. With Samantha at the clinic there would be absolutely no way that we would be as informed as we are. Today we talked to all of the people that I listed except for a physiotherapist. Today was the first clinic visit that we did not see her, because Brenn is still walking pretty well. All of her tendons in her legs seem to be doing pretty well right now, so hopefully that symptom will stay away for now at least.

When we got home, we made the girls some lunch, and hung out with Uncle Allan for a little while before we had to go back to the hospital to pick up Brenns new prescriptions. We came back home, made some dinner, which only Samantha, Christine and I ate, because Brenns mouth is really sore. We made her a high calorie smoothy, and she sipped on it a little. We are going to have to get used to her not eating very much now. The doctor explained that mucusitis is quite painful, and usually kids simply will not eat. This is the time that they were telling us that Brenn would loose all the weight that she gained in the first month! We just pray that she won't get any worse, because there is a real possibility of hospitalization if we can't get it under control. Please pray that that will not happen! She is a tough kid, but she doesn't need any more problems to have to deal with.

Scott