It was a good, but kind of difficult day today. We started the morning really early so that we could get Brenn fed before 7 am because she was scheduled for a lumbar puncture around 12 today. When we went to the hospital, we did all of the standard stuff. We had Brenn weighed, and thank God, she is still exactly the same weight as she was last Friday, measured, blood pressure, and temperature before heading into a room to get her accessed. Brenn has become so good at getting her line installed that she actually helps the nurses, telling them what she likes, and what she doesn't like. As soon as they have accessed her, she pretty well takes over now. Today, she drew her own blood, and then flushed and hep-blocked her line so that we would be able to leave her accessed, and ready to go if her counts came back in the acceptable range. When we did get her blood counts back, they came back incredibly good. She is as close to normal counts as she has been since we have been here across the board. We were thrilled when we found this out. Yesterday was kind of a hard day for Brenn, she just seemed a bit out of sorts, and we were a little worried about today because of her behavior yesterday. When we got her counts back, we started her on IV fluids, which again, Brenn hooked up herself, and then waited another hour or so before heading into the procedure room right at the stroke of 12...these guys are really good at the clinic! Brenn had her LP done, and Methotrexate injected into her spinal fluid during her procedure today, which we have done many times now, and everything went really well. We left the procedure room for our 2 hours of Brenn laying down and drinking coffee (I am telling you it is really weird ordering a soy vanilla late from second cup for a 5 year old, but it's what the doctor ordered, and what Brenn likes). While we were in her room, they came and gave her her dose of IV Methotrexate, and Vincristine so that we would be able to go as soon as Brenn was able to get up. It worked out really well, as soon as the Vincristine was done, we had time to have her de-accessed, and we were on the road.

By the time we got home, we were all really tired, and we all just needed a break. We had some lunch, and kind of sat around and played for the rest of the afternoon, before going to the grocery store, and getting taco fixings. Brenn was starting to feel a little sick around dinner time, but we gave her more of her anti-nauseant before putting her to bed. I will likely give her another dose sometime around midnight, and again tomorrow all day, and hopefully she will be feeling all right tomorrow as we are having a big barbecue put on by one of the RMH donor families tomorrow afternoon. The kids are really excited as this event has been hyped up by the staff here. There is going to be games, face painting, food, junk food, and crafts to do. it sounds like a really great day for the kids tomorrow. Brenn, as long as she is feeling okay, will really get a lot out of tomorrow, as she really seems to thrive when there are a lot of new things to do that are within her comfort zone.

Samantha went off with Uncle Allan today. Again I am not really sure what we would do without Uncle Allans undying support. Taking Samantha to the clinic would be really impossible, and if it were not for Uncle Allan, one of either Christine or myself would have to miss clinic each time, and there is simply too much information given to us during clinic that would be to hard to tell the other person, and make it harder for us to care for Brenn. Samantha and Uncle Allan went down into Richmond of the skytrain, and the bus to yet another really cool water park. Uncle Allan taking Sam to the water parks all summer has been really great for Sam as well. Both Brenn and Sam love swimming, but Brenn is unable to swim in public pools, and it would really be unfair to Samantha to take away her swimming time as well as uproot her from home because of our current situation. Any way, we miss Samantha when she is not with us, but it really sounds like she has a great time with Uncle Allan, and she looks forward to her time with him each time now.

Scott