Hottest yet

We are still in hospital. We had a better day today. Catherine has been up and about doing crafts with us rather than watching DVD's and having cuddles. Her temperature went down a bit today but then went up this evening to 39.1. She also had a lot of pain in her right ear again. The doctors are pretty much convinced that an ear infection is the culprit, but are still waiting for the test results from blood cultures and swabs to confirm that this is the only problem.

We also found out today that her blood results have gone down even further, so the chemo is still doing its thing and continuing to wipe the immune system on its way. We are waiting for its effects to wear off so that her counts, and her immune system, will start to rise again.

Today, we achieved seven craft activities together to keep Catherine amused - we began at 10am and worked through continuously until 3pm! Catherine also received some germ-free visitors and our friends have resumed their 'meals on legs' service which is gratefully received! She also received a lovely book, hand-made by all the children at her nursery. It had to be read to her this evening before bed, and I imagine this will be the bedtime book of choice for a while yet. Move over Hairy Maclary!

We need her temperature to come down, any infection to go away and her neutrophil count to rise before we can go home. They will consider changing her antibiotics if her temperature hasn't started to sort itself out again by tomorrow lunchtime.

Mark and I were talking today and we thought it was strange how much there is to do in hospital. You would think it would be long hours of boredom, but looking after Catherine there always seems to be something for us to do!