Something’s growing in the petri dish – it has turned purple from the stain and is growing in round shapes, connected one to another in chains.  Apparently circles are better than rods – somehow I think I would have guessed that.  Rods growing inside you just seems a little more alien like.  They’ll let it keep growing and see what more they can discover about this wee bacterial invader.  All this fun in the lab because Allistaire spiked a fever last night about midnight.  Whenever a fever occurs, blood cultures are drawn immediately and a broad spectrum antibiotic is started.  They will continue to draw labs every 24 hours until they’ve had 72 hours of nothing growing in the dish.  She will also now continue on antibiotics until her ANC is 200 which means her days of freedom and unattachement to her lines are over.  All this is to be expected, however, and is precisely what needs to happen to keep her safe.  So far one of her two lines into her chest has tested positive for bacteria.  As the culture grows, they will also test it for response to different types of antibiotics in order to discern what antibiotic course is best.  Hopefully, the antibiotics will be effective and destroy the bacteria.  In a worse case scenario, they would have to remove her Hickman Catheter and have an IV for a few days.  Hopefully we won’t get to this point.  Allistaire has been much more tired and pooky which is quite reasonable.  She also hasn’t had almost any interest in eating.  On the other hand, she weighed 13.3 kg today which is the highest I can remember.  The other bit of good news is that her phosphorus level has gone down from last week and her kidneys have not been a concern.  Of course, I’m now remembering that one of the antibiotics she is on has to be monitored for it’s impact on her kidney functioning.  It is always so hard knowing that nearly every response to a problem creates yet another potential problem.  I was just talking with a mom tonight whose daughter has actually had two bone marrow transplants.  She is on dialysis and it looks like she may need a kidney transplant because of all the damage done to her kidneys in the process of battling her cancer.

I had a lovely weekend at home while dad stayed Friday night for me and then mom stayed both Saturday and Sunday night.  It was such a blessing to have time away and be able to be home.  Sounds like mom and dad had a great time with Allistaire.  Sten and Solveig also have had a nice time together over the last four days.  On Sunday, Sten took Solveig up skiing and said she is really doing well getting on and off the lifts and making her turns.  Solveig says she goes “swooshing” down the hill.  Sten and Solveig used our awesome “face time” feature on the iPhone to call us today.  Solveig and Allistaire didn’t do much talking but did a whole lot of giggling at each other and making silly faces.  I love seeing them interact and can’t wait until we can have Solveig home.  Once Allistaire’s ANC starts to come up we’ll nail down when she can journey home.  Our plan is to make it work one way or another to be home with us during Allistaire’s third round of chemo.  It’ll be a little crazy as she will have to go from place to place a lot but we need our girl home for a while.  Hopefully Allistaire will do really well and we can pray she doesn’t get a fever and have to come back into the hospital for a long time.  Allistaire’s fourth round will be the hardest of them all both because of the type of chemo, referred to as “blue thunder,” and because her marrow will be for worn out by then.  For this reason, our plan is to have Solveig return to Montana during that time.

Mom & Dad giving Allistaire a bath

Solveig up on the ski slope with Sten enjoying lunch