In our room

We spent about 6 hours in the transplant clinic (not our regular clinic but a little clinic on the 7th floor for transplant patients) getting IVIG and Pentamamin (IV antibiotic). It takes a while to get each of them (2 hours for the antibiotic and 4 for the IVIG with 15 min flushes in between and dose of benadryl before the IVIG that takes 15 min with a 15 min flush....you do the math). She did great. None of these are ones that we expected to have a problem with and she did great. We got into our room after all...there was some fear that we wouldn't get to go into our room cause there wasn't one available so there was talk about postponing another week...I told them I couldn't handle postponing. Either do it or cancel it no postponing. But thankfully a room opened up and we are now all settled into room 60 on the 7th floor. Here is our address....

Alivia Haughery
RM. 7260
500 University Drive
Hershey, PA 17033

Our day start tomorrow at 6 am with a weight and measure and vitals exam by the resident. Then at 8 we start the first dose of Busulfan (chemo). It runs every 6 hours and she will also be getting blood draws ever 15 min for the first few hours to see how her body processes the meds. These blood draws will be sent overnight to a special lab and the results will come in the AM. They will then know the perfect dose for her body. Seems crazy to give it without knowing the perfect dose but that's how it's done. She is happy so far only tears came when she had to take a new medicine (Dilantin) and it wasn't a flavor she liked so the nurse plugged her nose to get her to swallow it. Not a good time at all. We are going to try crushing the chewable type into cherry syrup the next time around cause it might not taste so foriegn. Pray that she will take it. Tomorrow could be a really hard time. Pray that she does well and that she doestn' get sick at all. People keep saying some kids "sail" through transplant...we want to be that family. Thats what I'm praying for.

On a lighter note just wanted to let everyone know that we talked about it today and we need some distraction so we are starting a competition. I asked for pictures yesterday well now we want to make it a little more exciting. Get creative... do something wild... take a picture of you with a gaggle of geese, a herd of sheep, wearing a ridiculous costume, doing a crazy stunt. The pictures will be judged by our elite panel (Me, Alivia, James, Pa, Gigi, Nan, De-dad and any Uncles that show up). There are three catagories....Wild Times (You and the animals), Incognito (costumes...the more pubic the location the more points will be awarded), and Antics (you hanging upside down from the top of a 40 story building....okay not that wild but you understand). We will start posting updates on the best photos of the day. And the winners will get some sort of something.... maybe a picture drawn by Miss Alivia or an autographed picture of her. So make sure your picture has the names of all involved and the address you want the prize sent to on the back. Also we will post the picture on the blog (if we can get writen consent from those involved). So start distracting. You can enter many times. Our walls are bare and boring and need some sprucing up. Get to it. Oh and Marmie just send a picture of you and Duffy...its bound to rank very high.