"Interim Maintenance" Update

At 8:00 am, Charly had another chemo appointment today. Last night, Sean asked that I take her. I emailed work and took the day off - Thanks Dr. C and everybody! Charlotte also had another lumbar puncture today, to judge how well the "Interim Maintenance" cycle has gone. The final dose for the cycle is on November 15. Again, the doctors remarked on how well Charlotte is doing. No mouth sores, no significant stomach pain, no burning rash on her hands and feet. Her counts were excellent - no need to transfuse blood or platelets. Her ANC (Immunity levels) is great. We have been blessed. Again, I was warned they were increasing her chemo again today. They reminded me to dose her with Zofran before bed to help her from having nausea.

We went to the sedation clinic adjacent to the oncology clinic, and Charlotte had an LP. This is the first in-office LP that I attended. In the sedation clinic, they give Charlotte a dose of Ketamine and Versed through her port. A nurse practitioner quickly gets her spinal fluid sample, and then within minutes, Charly's brain starts working again. The nurses say she is quite funny at how happy she is. It's a little disconcerting to watch the intelligence to fade from her eyes and she is just a big smile and blank eyes. When she started to come back out, she kept trying to touch the ceiling, where a cloud picture covered the lighting. She also said that her back poke was fun, we should get back pokes more often. It was so funny, I remembered I had a camera and started to film her. Those few minutes of fumbling for the camera were all it took for her to regain even more coherence. We finished up with chemo and finger painting, and made it back home by 1:00 pm.

When she is done with a lumbar puncture, she's supposed to keep off her feet and relax. By 3:00 pm, she was through with that. When I left to find Naomi and pass on a phone message, she followed me. Charly helped spin the rope for Kayla and Ellie's attempts at (is this correct?) single dutch jump rope. They even convinced her to try jumping. Worried that she was going to develop a spinal headache, I encouraged her to invite the girls over for activities at our house. They painted and glitter glued and cut out construction paper with fancy scissors. Charlotte had a great day. I'm hoping we will see that the chemo doesn't even put a break in her stride again.