Tough Cookie

Here we are almost two months after our first trip to the hospital with Claira. Last month we ended up back at UCLA Children's Hospital for another 8 or 9 days after taking Claira in for an extremely high fever. She was already scheduled for a routine MRI, but she ended up being admitted after they realized she had become extremely neutropenic. This means her white cell counts had dropped to a scary level. Her infection levels had gone back up as well, which of course the Dr's were not happy about.
The Dr's were concerned that the medication she was on had caused her to become neutropenic, so they decided to take her off everything, and would see if her white cell levels would start to come up on their own. A few days go by, and were still in the hospital and the only answers we were getting was that he levels had kept dropping, and were pretty much at a 0. Her hemoglobin levels had been extremely low for a few months now as well, which concerned Dr's.
The decision then was to go ahead and do a bone marrow biopsy on Claira to check for just about everything under the sun. The night before her biopsy I was nervous but I knew that Claira was just fine, and that it was just the antibiotics that had have caused her cell counts to drop. Claira came out of her biopsy just fine, smiling at the Dr's and jabbering away. They kept telling us how sweet and wonderful she was, and what a strong little girl we've got. All things Josh & I knew of course ;)
It was August 18th, Claira's Birthday and we were waiting in her hospital room for results on the biopsy. Josh was working, but I was lucky to have my friend Jackie there by my side when Claira's Dr. came in to the room and let me know her preliminary results came back wonderful. They saw no more abnormal cells, nor any cancer cells of any kind. The Dr hugged me, and told me this pretty much confirmed it was the antibiotics. Its slightly rare that the antibiotics that she was on could cause that effect but it has happened before. She was just a rare case apparently, and it went right along this whole rare situation with her abscess, and staph.
Other wonderful news we received on her birthday was that her white cell counts had gone up some. She was still neutropenic, but they were higher than they had been the entire time she was in the hospital. We we were so excited! They also let us know we could take her home, as long as we didn't take her out anywhere except for Dr's visits. Best Birthday present ever! We were so excited to take our baby girl home, along with taking the boys home too.
Claira's inflammation & infection levels were still up so they had to figure out another medication to use that would not effect her bone marrow, causing her white cell counts to drop any further. We got home and I was taught by her nurse how to give her medication into her picc line with a home pump. Once again Claira adapted just fine, and was playing like nothing had happened. She has been thriving, and taking steps again. You would NEVER know looking at her that anything was wrong. She is so amazing.
Its now Sept, and things are really looking up. We had another Dr's appt at UCLA and was told she is no longer neutropenic, and her infection levels have lowered. They are still not right where the Dr's want, but it looks like she may only have to have the picc line in for another week or two, which means she's almost done receiving antibiotics. Her hemoglobin levels are still very low, which means she's still anemic. The Dr's say she has chronic anemia as of right now but we'll deal with that after she's all off meds, and see where her counts are at that point.
They will be doing another MRI next week, and we will see where she's at, and HOPEFULLY her picc line will come out, and this will all be behind us! I am so incredibly blessed to have the family I do, and to have 3 beautiful children. The last few months have been hard on our family, but we have come out stronger and appreciate all the prayers and thoughts that we received from family & friends everywhere.