Lauren was up at CHLA again yesterday for a scheduled appointment with Dr. Finlay. A few things have been decided.

1. They were going to start Lauren on her chemo next week, but after her lab results came back, Dr. Finlay said that one of her levels were too high and it indicated that her bone marrow was working 9x harder than normal to keep her hemoglobin at its current level of 8.7 (normal range is 11+). We'll continue to go to CHLA twice a week to check her levels. Dr. Finlay suggested that we might want CHOC to get her labs drawn since it's closer. Not sure if it’s a territorial thing, but CHOC is weird when it comes to servicing non-CHOC patients. I think oncology doctors at CHOC are insulted that we go to CHLA for treatment. The CHOC nurses btw are awesome.

2. They want to move up Lauren's MRI from Nov. 4th to next week sometime due to Dr. Finlay being out of town the week of Lauren's scheduled MRI and since the baby will be coming out on November 1st via C-sec. They made a comment to let the radiologist know that Lauren is on a lot of steroids and to not be alarmed if Lauren's tumor is lit up (an indication that it's alive and active). Great… Speaking of steroids, with Lauren being on so much Prednisone, we're going to accelerate the weaning of her Decadron (which is a lot stronger). This might be a good chance to get her off the stuff. When Hilary told Anna about this, Anna kind of laughed. Everybody, and I mean everybody, thinks Lauren is on such a tiny tiny dose of Decadron, that it's not even doing anything for her, but we (me and Hilary) know it is.

3. They don't want Lauren or Marissa to go to school for a couple of months since we're coming up to flu season. We're thinking maybe not until next year. In fact there seems to be an outbreak of some sort going on now. Outbreak might be too strong a word, but there are several kids out sick in all of the kindergarten classes. With Lauren's low hemoglobin levels and her bone marrow concentrating on making hemoglobin and working overtime just to maintain their current level, it would not be good if she were to catch the flu. In fact, it would be very bad if she did. But for Lauren it might not be too bad, since her school is on a modified schedule of some sort and is off for three weeks in November and a couple of weeks in December (I think). But poor Marissa, who loves school and is healthy and feels good, who can be very hyper, she is going to be bouncing off the walls. We always say what a trooper Lauren is, but Marissa has been just as big a trooper. Over the past year and half, there has been times where she hasn't been without her immediate family for long periods of time, and now with CHLA new policy about no siblings allowed, its even going to be tougher. On the way home from granny's (since she lives way up in the mountains) last night, we could see lots of star. Marissa says aloud, "There is the wishing star!" I said, "Make a wish." I could hear her making her wish, her wish was "I wish Lauren will come home from the hospital soon." It worked because we were on our way to Coco's to meet Lauren and Mommy for dinner. The steroid girl needed her salmon. Marissa also wished that I had 19 wishes. When I made my first wish, I wished I could wash Marissa's hair tonight (which she hates), she got mad. And then I could hear her quietly making another wish from the back seat, the little stinker, wished all my remaining wishes away!