Surprise homecoming

Dr. Panchoosingh, our oncologist, dropped in today to check up on Abby at the hospital and let us know that based on the progression of the chicken pox he thought she could go home on Sunday. That was in line with our original thinking, but Amy wisely observed that there weren't really any reasons why she needed to stay in the hospital--her blood counts looked good, she was tolerating the acyclovir well, and she had not manifested any other symptoms that would indicate that the chickenpox had caused problems with her internal organs. She has only four more days of the medication. Plus, we were already experienced with delivering IV medications at home, so why shouldn't we just go home?

Dr. Panchoosingh thought for several minutes, and then surprisingly said..."You're right. Let me see if we can get the paperwork together." So we are just ecstatic that we get to have our weekend back!

What a wonderful blessing from God, and we know it is because there are so many people that have been so faithful to pray for us. We thank you, and also thank God for you.

We got home at about 7:00 PM. An hour and a half later our nice home health nurse came and gave us the overview of administering the acyclovir. The home health version of the drug doesn't even require a pump, it comes in a pressurized disposable sphere that delivers the medication at the correct rate for one hour. How wonderful! No syringe, no pump.

Our radiation group informs us that they would prefer that we not come back for the remaining four days of radiation until all of the pox have scabbed over and Abby is no longer contagious. That will probably be early next week. If it's God's will that means we might be able to still complete her radiation therapy next week.

We also had a long talk with Dr. Panchoosingh and Jane about Abby's diagnoses and our planned chemo regimen. That will have to wait for our next post--there's lots of detail and I want to make sure I get it right.