A very mixed day

Catherine has had a very mixed day today. It started off well for her and she felt fine on the way to hospital. However, both Mark and I felt uneasy today about her having her lumbar puncture and general anaesthetic which was unusual in itself. We both felt a real urge to pray when we took her into the theatre this morning to have her 'wobbly medicine'.

Catherine was in theatre for an unusually long time today, and we started to feel concerned about her. The nurses reassured us, but we were still worried. A while later Catherine was back on the ward, but the procedure had been difficult. They had to make a number of attempts to do the lumbar puncture, so they had to give her more general anaesthetic than usual. When I saw her, her breathing was very raspy, but they said it would clear when she came round from the anaesthetic. She woke up extremely grumpy, but after some food, and her Cytarabine, she was feeling better and wanted to go home.



She is currently very anaemic, but at lunch time was leaping around 'like a tigger' with her friends. She asked to go to nursery, so we said that it would be ok. However, once she got home from nursery, she said she had had a headache and so missed me. She has also had some back pain this evening because the lumbar puncture was so difficult for her today. It is the first time we have ever had a problem with this procedure. She tried to distract herself by doing some crafts but eventually gave up and decided she would have some painkiller after all.



This evening at bedtime, she read one of her simple stories to me and then didn't go to sleep for ages because she wanted to spell all her friends' names out loud to me. She is mad about language and words. I'm worried she will end up an avid reader like her dad, and then we will have no room for anything in the house except for bookcases!!!



Tomorrow we need to go to hospital for a four hour blood transfusion. Please pray that this goes smoothly. Please also continue to pray that she doesn't have any side effects or infections. Catherine will probably be off nursery at the end of the week, as her blood counts will be extremely low. This block of chemotherapy has meant that she has her lowest platelet count so far (only 84) although they do not transfuse platelets until the patient has 10 or less.