Update

Posted by Aunt Stacey

Just a quick update on ViviAnne...

Brent and Kristen took her for another Bone Marrow Aspirate yesterday. It will be a few days before we get the results back from that. Her last test indicated that she was 9.9%. The goal is to get her down to 5%, which the doctors think will be the case when we get the results. Then she will be considered to be in remission.

After the Bone Marrow test, she was given another Chemo treatment through her port in her chest. Kristen said she did very well. She was scared and nervous, but still did well. She kept saying, "I'll just hold onto Mommy."

Her counts are down a little so she is Neutrapenic right now. Below is an explanation of what this means,

Neutrapenia is an abnormally low number of neutrophils in the blood. Neutrophils serve as the major defense of the body against acute bacterial and certain fungal infections. They are the
“first responders” and quickly appear at the site of infection, ingesting and destroying foreign particles. Without the key defense provided by neutrophils, a person has problems controlling infections.

A normal neutrophil count (ANC) is between 2500 and 5000. Neutropenia begins at 1500 and below.

ViviAnne's count was 900. So this is what Brent and Kristen are referring to when they mention her counts are down. This is normal and will happen from time to time.

Other than that she is doing pretty good. The steroids make her moody and incredibly hungry ALL the time. She is cracking us up with her obsession with food right now; especially cheese.

Brent wrote me saying,'' Kristen and I laid in bed for a few minutes last night and tried to guess how many times she said mac&cheeze. We agree that it was easily over 100, probably somewhere around 135. At some point it became a stammer 'I want my mac&cheeze mac&cheeze mac&cheeze mac&cheeze."