Back pokes are no fun

"Yesterday was a terrible day" says Hannah after I tell her I'm going to update her blog. She's right. Yesterday was really hard. We are just going to have some of those days.

Hannah had two types of chemo yesterday, one goes into her spinal column, which everyone calls back pokes, and one through her port. They did labs and her blood counts, red, platelet, and ANC (overall immunity numbers) are still pretty high even after a week of this new treatment. Her doctors said that they expect her numbers to drop dramatically for sure by the end of next week.

After two days off from Children's, she was a little apprehensive about going in. She had kind of a "Gggrrr" edge to her the whole morning. Then, sitting waiting for the doctors to be ready, they were forty minutes late, and having nothing to eat made it really hard for her to fight off the bad mood.

After her procedure she had to go to the transfusion room for her second chemo and that was her last straw. She just lost it. Kicking and yelling for around 20 minutes. I held her on my lap and let her kick in the air and yell for awhile. I felt like she needed to get it out. I would be pretty mad too. After that we watched Peter Pan until her chemo was done. We got to go home and she feel asleep. Because of the reaction she had after anaesthesia they instructed me to bring her back if she stayed asleep too long. I think she had just worn herself out. She only slept an hour.

Later at home, she went to the bathroom and didn't come right back out. She was sitting on the bath mat sobbing. She said that it is not fair they poke her every time in the back when she is asleep. The loss of control and the fact that what is happening to her actually hurts, is so hard. I need to find away for her to some control of the back pokes. We have so many more of them. Every Friday for the foreseeable future. Any suggestions?