Last days in Berkeley

Counting down the hours on our life in Berkeley. The packing crew comes at 9 AM on Saturday, and we're planning to have Mina Brigitta ready to head out to the hospital. Our current life is about to end, and we don't know what our new one has in store for us.

The good news is that Mina Brigitta has gotten bigger and stronger. She's gained most of her weight back, and has been running around all over the place. That was our goal for this time at home, and I couldn't be happier with how she's doing. I know it will make a difference when she starts to get sick from the treatment.

Mentally too, she's doing really really well. She's really thrived being at home, to the point that she never wants to go anywhere. She's happiest when she gets to spend the whole day at home, which she did today. She's taken to calling this house "Sissy's home", which makes it hard to think that she won't be coming back here. There will definitely be an adjustment period when she comes back to the new flat, but it'll be a whole new space to explore, so maybe that will be a good thing since she'll probably be immuno-suppressed for quite some time.

Of course, who can blame her for not wanting to go out, when the only place she goes is to doctor's appointments. Yesterday she decided she'd had enough of waiting around for doctors to show up. She couldn't eat breakfast again, because she had to be sedated for her CT scan that was supposed to happen at 11:30. But she had to be seen by the oncologist before that, and he was half an hour late. Then they wanted to do a blood draw, and the CT team was running late, and Mina Brigitta decided to make a break for it. She ran screaming out the door of the outpatient clinic, and had a 45-minute fit before they finally sedated her for the CT scan. I can't say I blame her.

The news from the CT scan is that she still has some lingering issues in her sinuses and her lung from the RSV. The small area of collapsed lung is still there, as is the mucosal thickening in her sinus cavity. Again, they have no reason to suspect a fungal infection, but they'll probably start her on anti-fungal drugs a bit sooner than they might otherwise have. Obviously we'd have preferred a completely clean bill of health, but this doesn't sound like much to worry about.

By the way, I'm totally embarrassed because we have 200 pictures on our digital camera, but thanks to Amber for uploading these photos of Mina Brigitta's 2nd birthday: http://eshare.hpphoto.com/en/home/welcome.asp?JobID=f370f520-c6db-4bc8-8ef5-e2336c2690cf