Officially engrafted!

By jenrvball - December 05, 2016

Charlotte's had 3 days of great WBC growth and is considered officially engrafted. She is still dealing wth some pain and we had to increase the morphine yesterday to help keep her comfortable , but her pain and symptoms from this round of chemo should resolve quickly. She has some swelling from fluid retention and also some strange sleep disturbances (similar to sleep walking where she is having several episodes a night and during naps where she is sitting up completely out of it and yet still sound asleep) but those are likely side effects from medications. We should be weaning slowly off morphine very soon. And once she doesn't need so much pain medication through her PCA then she can have more time off her IV pole so we can take her out of the unit on a walk. She has been confined to just this room for 3 weeks now. And because she tested positive for a cold virus when we were admitted, she still isn't allowed to go to the playroom or do certain activities out of her room for the duration of our stay. However, in an attempt not to sweat the small stuff, she's engrafted! Again! Her new bone marrowto replace the damaged marrow from chemo is growing. She's doing it! And we will have her running and playing out of this unit soon enough. HUGE check! I cannot begin to describe how long this round has felt for so many reasons, but the end result will be worth it. If the outwards effects of this chemo mirror what it was able to do to any cancer lingering in our little girl, then this round kicked some serious Neuroblastoma butt. And our little warrior will be healing and ready to soldier on. But first, perhaps we can take a breath and pause to celebrate some Christmas together as a family. Thank you God. Thank you village.