Update April 19

Headed out bright and early (okay maybe not quite so early by the time you dress and herd 4 kids out the door) to the hospital for Cheyenne's bloodwork and physical.  Cheyenne's blood was 0.9 on tuesday and they were hopeful that it would be higher today and we could start chemo a couple days earlier.  Not only had it dropped, she was neutropenic today so we are now on alert for any fevers.  We head back next monday for fingerpoke again and depending on how her blood has recovered will result in when she will be admitted. 
Lesson #1:  Don't plan further ahead than a day, so if you all think I am disorganized just know it saves me from disappointment when my plans change hour by hour.

Lately Cheyenne has been creeping up and walking on her tiptoes.  I chalked this up to her 'copying' Wyatt and 'wanting' braces.  I have reminded her to 'heel strike' and have even starting doing the exercises to stretch her muscles.  Today in clinic the nurse practitioner watched Cheyenne and was concerned because it was continual and when she does step flat foot she has to over compensate and rolls onto the side of her foot.  So we had to see a physiotherapist and the long and short of it is that is is one of the side effects of her vincristine chemo.  Cheyenne will be referred back to Dr Burrows, the pediatric orthopedic surgeon.  The vincristine drug has a lot of nasty side effects.  The most common of which is neuropathy.  This can sometimes linger for years after chemo has finished.  So far it has effected Cheyenne's bowels, and now her feet(because she has no feeling in her heel she wont touch it to the ground, in turn her muscle shortens and she can't).  For alot of kids they cant feel(numb/tingling) their feet so they 'slap' their feet and have a very distinguished gait.  This was one of the first things I noticed when we were in the clinic with the other kids.  Cheyenne is also getting a speech assessment.  They feel that this is another side effect of neuropathy.  Her speech has never been that great, she has a vast vocabulary but her prenounciation has always suffered.  Since diagnosis this has slowly gotten worse.  I can usually understand her but if she gets really excited or upset she is generally harded to understand.
Please pray that her counts will recover over the weekend, that she will be fever free and we can continue with her chemo at the beginning of the week. 

For those who have been following Collin's story, he came out of surgery with excellent results.  What an amazing answer to prayer.  I believe they are planning on closing up his tummy tomorrow if the swelling has subsided.