A walk down memory lane

We are on Day 2 of being at the hospital, and I already feel like Bill Murray on Goundhog Day. Even though Fernando sits on the other side of the not so large hospital room, I have already started to IM him rather than talk. We recognize about 1/3 of the staff here since it has only been a year since we were here with Maddie. Initially, we would see someone and say hi and try to remember where we knew them from - college, friend of a friend, etc. However, it is always that they helped care for Maddie last year. Walking through the halls and on runs to get food is way too familiar - as Heidi would say on Project Runway - "and not in a good way."

Yesterday, the nurse was unable to get the PICC line into Elle (re-run of what happened with Maddie last year), so we move to plan B which is to get a portacath on Wednesday. The portacath will be used to get blood samples, administer her chemo, and to potentially administer any other drugs in case she gets an infection. Today was a medically uneventful day except that we discovered that Elle's IV came out. The site had already clotted, so we have no idea when it came out. So, tomorrow at 3 AM, Elle will get a new IV in preparation for tomorrow.

We took the opportunity to get Elle baptised by Fr. Tom (pictured left). As he is from Long Island, I like to call him Fr. Tommy. We had plans to baptise Elle last Wednesday in Seattle, however, Fr. Jordan caught a cold, so he had to cancel. They do the baptisms enough here that he showed up with a fairly sterile ziplock bag baptism kit with a felt gown, candle, shell to hold the holy water, oil and rosary. Unfortunately, Elle's God parents (Michael McDonald and Fernando's sister Theresa) could not be here, so we will try to do another ceremony for both Maddie and Elle as soon as their immune systems can handle the germy crowd in the church.

Tomorrow starts the first of the 5 days of her therapy with the portacath insertion and bone marrow harvest. On Friday, she will receive her chemo if they are able to get enough stem cells from the harvest. On Monday, if there are no problems with the gene transfer, then she will receive the transfusion. Any prayers and good thoughts and vibes totally welcome.

Everything is fine at the home front in Seattle. Fernando's mom is really enjoying looking after Maddie. She does take about an hour to go to bed and keeps looking for us - which breaks my heart. However, I know she is enjoying spending the quality time with Avo.

The nurse we have today told us about her prior job in Hollywood at a high-end emergency clinic that catered to the wealthy and movie stars. Management asked her if she wanted to get preventative Botox, and nutrition told her at 5'7", she should weigh in at 116 pounds. She knew she needed to get a new job. It reminded me about the 15 minute screen interview at Andersen Consulting. Everyone knew it was just 15 minutes to cut the unattractive ones...