UP

Phoebe had another visit to the medical day unit at CHEO yesterday.  She has two appointments per week to test her blood and make sure that everything is still on track.  I am happy to report that her blood counts have jumped up a bit.  Her white count is a whopping 5.9 - still low for the average person, but fabulous for Phoebe.  Her hemoglobin climbed a few counts to 86 and her platelets jumped from 80 to 98.  Go Phoebe go!  It is so wonderful to see her counts moving in the right direction as whenever they drop, even if it is just a bit, we worry.

Phoebe is still making wonderful progress at home, and catching up on lost time.  Today she learned to move from her tummy to a sitting position, and is even rocking back and forth a bit while she is on all fours.  She looks almost ready to crawl and seems to get stronger everyday.   Getting her to eat and drink is still a challenge and we think she will need her feeding tube for many more months.  She is making progress but it is slow as in addition to getting used to eating again she is needing to develop new skills to help her to do this.  She won't drink from a bottle anymore, so she is learning to drink from a cup.  She really likes avocado and has started to get excited when she sees me start to cut one up for her.  This is a wonderful sign as in the past she would cry whenever we would try to feed her.


Mae is still loving being back home and is great with Phoebe.  She likes to help us put Phoebe to bed, and often stands beside her crib singing a very special rendition of "Twinkle, twinkle little star".  There has been no talk of the "city house" since our homecoming, but whenever Jon or I leave to take Phoebe to CHEO, Mae makes sure to tell us "not to go far away".