little sunshine

Carys had a bit of a rough day yesterday. She was not her usual self, and all she wanted to do was snuggle with us. She felt a bit hot, so we monitored her temperature, and by around 5pm, it spiked to 38.4. Any reading over 38.0 requires a call the the cancer ward, so we did that and the nurse in charge asked us to bring her into A&E. Since it was around dinner time, I wanted to feed her and give her milk before we left, because I knew there would be nothing for her to eat at the hospital. But once we'd done that, her temperature came down again. I called the ward to tell them we would not be coming in and they were not happy. I just felt that the best thing for carys was to rest in her own bed. Our previous experience of A&E was pretty awful. The bright lights, loud noises and freezing cold air conditioning were not good for her or me! We monitored her temp throughout the night and of course, if it spiked again, we would have brought her in, but luckily it didn't. This morning when she woke up, she was back to her usual happy self.
We saw Lisa Orme today for another check up, and Carys continues to do really well. Lisa could hardly feel the tumour and said it was way in the back of the abdomen. She also had a look inside Carys's mouth, but couldn't find any ulcers. This is a common side effect of the chemo, so it's good that Carys hasn't suffered from that as it can make eating and drinking difficult. She needs all the nutrition she can get at the moment. Although she's got a good appetite and eats well, she's not putting on any weight. This is probably because of the treatment and the tumour itself. It's not until we see other babies around her age that we realise how petite she is. Once this is all over, she'll have lots of time to catch up, I'm sure. But we do love her tiny little feet - just the right size to nibble on!
Carys's next round of Chemo starts tomorrow and will run over three days to finish on Friday. This round will be like the last, one long day and two shorter days, all done in the day oncology unit.
The weather in melbourne has been a bit cool and rainy lately. The other day, when Carys woke up from her nap, so did the sun. We though how nice it was that the sun wanted to say hello too!