August 5, 2012
Day 13

Things over the past few days have been much the same... lots of sleep.

Sleep is a good thing because it will help the body recover quicker and if she were awake more, she would just be in more discomfort.

The rough part is that every time she awakes, she vomits.  

Not so much but combined with the mucositis, it is really painful and it is easy to see that she is uncomfortable.

Just today, we noticed an ulcer on her anus and now, when she has a bowel movement, she becomes almost hysterical.

This is really not something that a 3 year old needs to be dealing with.

We are now seeing Manue smile which is a super good thing.  Since the first time she smiled, she had always been one to have a smile.  When the smile is not there, it is upsetting because she's not feeling so hot.

Today when I arrived, she had enough energy to play hide and seek with me - even if she was just hiding under a blanket while sitting on Jessica.

It was fun and encouraging to see.

I was surprised to learn that Manue is in really good shape, considering.  

Many of the kids that receive bone marrow transplants are in super rough shape - morphine all the time plus some other ones to help deal with the pain.  

I can't even imagine what it must be like for the parents of those kids and more importantly, what the poor kid is going through.

I get really angry when Manue is in pain.... not so sure how I would react if she was in more pain than what she is already experiencing.

August 2, 2012
Day 10 (10 days after the transplant)

Two days ago, Manue started to have fever and the dreaded mucositis became apparent.  It is crazy because she went to bed in good condition and woke up in rough shape.

In the morning, after a sleepless night, she received her first dose of morphine.  She had been restless, shaky, and visibly uncomfortable and 15 minutes after the injection, she had somewhat returned to her normal self.
She was pretty tired from all the discomfort during the night that she fell asleep soon after the dose of morphine and pretty much slept all day.

At one point during the day, her temperature had increased to 40.3 degrees celsius!
She has something in her body - don't know what it is yet - and we won't know for a day or so exactly what we are dealing with.  It takes anywhere from 3 to 5 days after the blood samples are taken to see what bacteria is causing all the problems.

For the time being, she is being given 4 different antibiotics to keep the bacteria at bay.  Once we know what we are dealing with, the doctors will be able to give the most effective antibiotic to get rid of the bug.

Its times like this where reality sinks in and I realize how sick my little girl is.  We've been lucky so far in that the effects of the chemotherapy hadn't kicked in but now that they've arrived, what a change - almost overnight.
Her hair is falling out really fast now, the mucositis is making swallowing difficult, and the fever is making her overall very uncomfortable.

Watching and listening to my daughter suffer is really hard.  I wish that I could take her from this hospital and let her live how an almost 3 year old is supposed to live.

Stupid fucking cancer.