Things are CRRRAZZZZY around here!

Here's what's been happening----Allie (11) was staying in Bluff with Grandma because Grandpa was working in Monticello last week. But on Tuesday, she had gone on the truck with Grandpa for a run. My sis, Karla, called Mom to see how Allie was doing and she said that Mom didn't sound like herself and when she asked her how she was and what she could do for her, Mom said, "Shoot me." Which is not characteristic of my mom. AT ALL! So Karla dropped what she was doing and called Wendy who called the cancer center, and then she drove to Bluff to get Mom. She had to convince her to come to Monticello to the ER, but she was able to get her there. Mom was running a fever and her white blood count was below 500. She ended up staying in the hospital until Sat. morning. They never could get anything to culture out, so it must have been a virus that was making her sick. She had been pumped full of antibiotics, which doesn't help fight a virus, although it may have been helpful for any other 'bugs' that she was exposed to in the hospital. On Thursday the dr. told Mom how sick she had been and how serious it was. He told Mom and Dad that if she had been a couple of hours later in getting to the hospital, she might not have made it, that at that point there would have been nothing they could have done to help her. She thought that was so crazy because she hadn't felt that sick, just like she was getting a cold. But when your immune system is basically non-functional due to chemo, that's serious. There aren't any white blood cells to fight anything off. None of us realized until that point how important, life or death serious, it is for her to keep away from sick people. I feel so guilty for going down there at the beginning of May with kids who had been getting over colds. It was strange to look at my mom lying there in that hospital bed. My mom, who is always full of energy and going 90 miles an hour and leaving me in the dust. Lying there, with her hair gone and hooked up to heart monitors and IV's, she almost looked fragile. And I didn't like that! My mom has always been the strong, healthy one. It was surreal. Thankfully, her white count came back up exponentially every day that she was in the hospital and she's doing well now. She called me yesterday and she had her count done again to see if she should even come up this week for chemo and it is high enough that they can go ahead with her treatment. Which is good, so it doesn't throw off her scheduled appointments. This will be treatment #4. After this one, they will run a CT scan again to see if the cancer is shrinking. I'm so anxious to hear that they don't 'see' anything. Add to this the regular chaos of a house full of children who are BORED because there's nothing to do, Primary responsibilities including ^%&#*$& Cub Scouts, a husband who is now working two jobs so we never see him and you have some idea of why I don't update my blog very often. In fact, I'm ignoring a crying baby right now because I needed to email a missionary son and thought I'd do a quick post here as well. OK, back to my regularly scheduled life!