Hi all – Sally’s back, and in more ways than one. First off, Sally is home! She was released this afternoon after chugging milk and eating for 24 hours straight without painkillers and minimal IV fluids. In addition to being back home, Sally is…well…back. She is smiling, laughing, clapping hands, holding herself up, eating a ton. She’s the happy and fun baby she was before all this happened. Our doctors and nurses got to see this finally, so understand what we’ve meant by saying she wasn’t herself. As Nicole said, they now have a benchmark of what Sally is like when determining how she’s doing. She even learned to wave this weekend, which she does the Queen Elizabeth light bulb turning wave that would make my oldest brother proud. This period is what other parents have come to know as the “good week”, when a cycle of chemo is ending and the kids have a week or so to recover. Sadly, the good week is followed by another cycle that knocks their counts and health down again.

In addition to us getting out of there, our newest roommates (who were very nice) and Scarlett got out. We were actually joking with Scarlett’s parents about it being a race of who would get out first as we both had our stuff packed and were just waiting for the discharge papers. Sally managed to get released first (we win Shannon/Elliott, ha!) but only by a few minutes. We’re all looking forward to what will hopefully be a quiet week for our daughters.

Nicole will be bringing Sally in on Tuesday for a quick blood test, and potentially a transfusion. Sally had to get another plasma transfusion before leaving today. She also has bruising on her back from her central line, the tube that runs out of her back that the chemo and IV gets delivered through. I included a photo of it below from when Sally first got it installed over a month ago as we always refer to it and most probably have no idea what we’re talking about. Nicole put a thick sock on the line so Sally has what looks like a puffy tail. We’re going to see if the staff can make it a bit longer on Tuesday so the pieces at the end aren’t sticking into her back.

Thursday will be the long day with treatment, a spinal tap, and a bone marrow biopsy to see how the first cycle went. On Monday, they plan to start Cycle 2, so are anticipating being back in the hospital by the end of that week or early the following.

We’ve managed to enjoy some quiet time with Sally this afternoon/evening with the boys spending the day with our friends (thanks Gattis!) at the beach. Am sure they will love seeing their little sister in the morning.

Please keep Sally in your thoughts and prayers. If you don’t hear from us, it means all is well and we have nothing to update. Hopefully you don’t hear much from us this week, I’ll post quick updates and photos on Sally’s Facebook page if anything interesting happens: https://www.facebook.com/SweetSallySunshine

Matt