Reaction

Alexis has made it through 3 full school days in a row. Not only has she made it through the school days, but she is feeling so much better than she was last week. She still gets the stomach pains, but they come and go again (as opposed to just staying all day and night). She finally finished making up the testing that she missed last week and all the rest of the work that she missed. She also got to play at softball practice tonight. Towards the end she started getting some stomach pains but after resting for a few minutes she was right back out there finishing up practice. I am so proud of her. Nothing is going to stop this little girl. =)

Unfortunately, it's not all good news tonight. Remember those bumps on Lex's arm by the PICC line cover? Well, they got worse. Tonight when I took her cover off to start her IV, I noticed that there were bumps under the PICC line's dressing. In the bottom corner there was a little area that wasn't sticking anymore so I lifted it up a tiny bit and I saw that they were blisters under there. They were really red, big (bigger than the 'little bumps' that I noticed Tuesday night) and I just didn't like the way they look. Immediately I called my mom - like I do any time I question anything in life. She said she would come over and look at it. At the same time she called my aunt who is a nurse. She was going to head over too since she has more experience and knowledge in this than my mom and me. They felt it was some kind of reaction but they weren't sure if it would be best to keep the dressing on or change it. So we tried to call Alexis' nurse. I wasn't able to get in touch with her so I talked to the nurse who was on-call tonight. She said it was hard to say what we should do without seeing Lex's arm so she wanted to come out to our house.

When the nurse got here she felt it was a reaction to the dressing that was just put on. Lex's arm was a little swollen, red, very itchy with the bumps and blisters on it. The nurse decided to take this dressing off and put on a different kind of dressing. Alexis hates having the dressings taken off to begin with - having a bunch of blisters under the "taped-on dressing" made it a hundred times worse. The tape ripped open the blisters. When it all was taken off I could see her whole arm. It looked awful - so much worse than I originally thought. Although Alexis was in a lot of pain from having the dressing changed, I was glad I didn't put this off until tomorrow because I can't imagine how many more blisters there would have been under there. Once it all was off the nurse cleaned the area really well and then put a new dressing on it. Although this one is different, it's still on all those blisters. So when Alexis has to get this taken off on Saturday it's going to do the same thing. I wish she could just leave it open and let it air out.

Tomorrow (Friday) night I will be giving Alexis her last dose of Rocephin through the PICC line. Her nurse is scheduled to come Saturday morning to have the line taken out. The nurse tonight told me if this reaction gets any worse tomorrow to call the doctor and see if we can have the PICC line taken out tomorrow instead of on Saturday. Either way it's so close. I can't wait for this all to be over with. This is too much for any 9 year old to be going through.

Alexis always wears a cover over the PICC line. I felt so bad putting anything on it tonight - knowing how itchy and irritated her arm is. Luckily I still had a cover that the hospital gave me when the PICC line was first put in. This one is like netting so it's open and a lot of air can get through. I put that one on her for tonight and I might just let her wear that to school tomorrow too. I feel that it doesn't protect her PICC line as well but it does hold everything in place like it needs to.

Tomorrow Alexis has a concert at her school. She is really looking forward to it - she even has a solo! I am praying she feels well enough to make it through the day again and that her arm isn't bothering her too much. I want her to just be able to enjoy herself like the rest of the kids - without having to worry about all these other extra things.

Things with the PICC line itself have gone so smoothly this whole time - It's just our luck that she would have a bad reaction the last week of her treatment.