Feb. 16-17

Wednesday morning we were up and a'tem to get to the nuclear medicine dr. We had to go by wheelchair for this trip and Megan wasn't very excited. By the end of it she was crying in pain to get back to her bed. :( We chatted with the dr. about the radioactive iodine treatment that he will give her for the thyroid cancer. In a week she will stop taking her thyroid medine and start eating a low-iodine diet for the two weeks prior to getting the treatment. So, she is barely eating as it is, and now she will have to have a very restricted diet and manage to get 70 grams of protein each day...should be an interesting 2 weeks. No dairy, fish, pasta, breads, potatoes, beef, salt, etc...ugh. Luckily the dietician came in today and gave us examples of good sources of protein and the right amounts. If only half of them weren't dairy and meat. :( Looks like these Resource drinks by Boost might work but need to check with the dr. to make sure.

Today Megan is wondering if there can be anything else rare about her - she even has the rare O+ blood type. She's just amazed by it all.

The speech pathologist came by and taught Megan to chew her food while having her head turned to the left. This will help keep the food away from the right side of the neck where the trauma from the surgery happened. It actually helped. The dietician said to start slow and work up to more foods, but to try to get as much protein as possible. So she has to give up the gatorade and go for the chocolate milk. I said there are worse things than that... :)

This afternoon Carol went with Ms. Megan over to the eye dr. so he could test her for all kinds of things. It was not a fun appointment. Lots of light. No laying. Delays getting her in the office. Delays with transportation getting her back to her room. By the time she got back she was just crying in pain and needed to laying silent in darkness. Poor baby... Not sure of the results yet...

The oncologist came by and said we should start thinking about getting home. I have to learn how to give Megan her shots in the stomach twice a day, so I'm going to attempt that tonight...and she isn't excited about having me do it...silly girl doesn't trust her mom with a needle. :0)

Physical therapy is going to come tomorrow to help her get up and be more steady on her feet. She's been laying in a bed for so many weeks that she has a hard time walking - afraid her legs are going to buckle under her. Dr. is thinking maybe a walker might help.

Dr. said he can get a nurse to come to the house to take her blood for the labs they still need run very regularly. They have to measure the levels of the blood thinner shots to make sure it's ok. He is going to get all her medicines ready here at the hospital so we don't have to run and get them once we're home. That's a help.

Taking her off the TPN/feeding tube made her blood sugars go back down to normal today. It combined with the steroids were causing her to have 300 sugar levels.

Oncologist gave her the green light to go to Girl Scout camp this summer. He said she'll still be on the blood thinners in June, so she has to be careful, be he thinks she should be able to go. She is sooo excited!