May 31st - LP #6

Unfortunately Paige's neutrophils are still too low at 0.3 to start the Consolidation phase of chemotherapy, so she is now delayed by possibly another week. Her lumbar puncture however is not dependent on her neutrophil count so she had one today and will continue to have one per week for the next two weeks. We are told not to worry ...yet. Her consultant said to me 'wait till I'm worried and then you should worry'. She said that some children just take longer than others to recover. Additionally the risk of having Chemo with such a low count is that the neutrophils may take even longer to recover. So the plan of action is that we head down to Pian Brown again this Thursday, have another blood test and hopefully her count will be up again and we can resume treatment. Her white blood count is climbing steadily so the consultant expects that she should be able to crack on later this week.
I must say this is really a nerve wrecking process in addition to all the existing worries and frustrations, waiting for her neutrophils to climb up again with absolutely no ability to influence the process is almost unbearable.
On the bright side, Paige is growing stronger every day, she's crawling around at a decent speed again, pulling herself up on the furniture and even climbing the stairs, closely supervised of course. I think that her favorite pastime though is taking Samuel's toys and being the good big brother that he is he lets her take them, then complains to me!
Sam celebrated his 3rd birthday on Sunday and got an unusual amount of presents, he loved every minute of his small birthday party and especially his cake and 'party things'. Our little, big boy is a very empathetic big brother who always make sure that his sister is 'nice and safe' and reminds me to be careful with her tummy because she has a really big ouch, (her Central Line). His favorite expressions are "mummy speak to me properly" and "you need to have more patience mummy".
It's quite heartening to watch the interaction with Sam and Paige as she begins to mature and become more of a little person and less of a baby, after all she will be One in exactly two weeks time.
So fingers crossed that Paige will be able to resume treatment this week and that her bone marrow begins to grow neutrophils.