Christmas in the hospital

Well it looks like we’re here for Christmas. Christmas in the hospital shouldn’t be too bad, right? During rounds the doctors told us that it is very common for children’s ANC’s to get really low in the induction phase of chemo. So knowing that Jillian is pretty much on the same track as most children at this stage is reassuring. We were trying to stay optimistic in hopes that she would excel in her treatment and get home sooner rather than later. But that no longer looks hopeful. She will most likely stay in the hospital for the full induction phase which last 28 days. We could get lucky and leave early but that all depends on her numbers. We have to continue to stay in the hospital because if her number are this low and we go home she could catch any type of infection and we will not be close enough to the hospital  to treat her. I asked the doctors about the drug that could up her white blood cells but she stated she didn’t think it would be best for Jillian. This is because the drug will overload her white blood cells which would be great, but it can also overload her Leukemia cells if they are still present in her bone marrow. So when hearing that, there was no way we would go with that drug. Which means….. more hospital time!! We have already decided if we had to stay in the hospital that we would just celebrate Christmas the day we get home. Who cares if Christmas falls in January for us this year. It will still be just as special! My parents have decided to get rid of the real tree we bought (a day before we went to the hospital by the way, if we had waited one more day we could have saved ourselves 80 bucks!) and they are going to put up a fake tree so no matter when we go home our tree will still be up so we can celebrate Christmas on any day! I seriously love my parents! I don’t know how we would have gotten through any of this without them there for us!

I found this amazing group on Face book today. It’s hard to find families such as ourselves because Jillians diagnosis is so rare. This grouped consists of 100 members and they are all affected with Ph+ALL. There are children and adults and they all have experience! It’s AMAZING to finally have some point of contact with people who are going through similar situations. It will be so nice to have support when this battle gets really tough! Thank heavens for that group!

Since we know now that we will be here for Christmas we have had several people ask for Jillians address so they could send cards and stuff. I wanted to wait because I didn’t want anyone to send her anything and us not be here when it got here. But now we are confident that we will so if anyone would like to send her a Christmas card or anything to help boost her mood (because she is having a rough time this weekend, we hope it passes) feel free to do so. The address here is:

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital
Jillian Garcia
1 North, Room 1455
725 Welch Road
 Palo Alto,CA 94304

My husband and I just want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. We wish we would be around to celebrate it with you, please keep Jillian in your prayers!