A very early morning and a good day

Lauren's mom bought Emery this "First Valentine's Day" outfit. Emery says "Happy Valentine's Day" to everyone.

Today we were up at 4:45 AM and out of the house by 5:30. We were so proud of ourselves for arriving at the Clinic at 5:50 for Emery's 6 AM appointment. Unfortunately, the elevator would not take us to the assigned floor. The women at the desk informed us that it is locked till 6 AM, when a timer unlocks it, so we might as well have a seat and wait till then. Darn, we could have slept for 10 more minutes!

Today was CT scan day; sorry for the misinformation earlier in the previous post. We got our procedures and days mixed up somehow and were thinking it was time for Emery's MRI, but that's tomorrow. When we got checked in for the CT scan, the technician told us that Emery would have to drink three 2 ounce bottles of Pedialite with contrast solution in them. She had an hour and a half to drink one every thirty minutes. Bonnie and I just looked at each other because we knew there was no way this little girl would drink that much! We told the guy we weren't sure about that but he wanted us to try. Emery drank the first one in about 30 minutes and was fairly hungry since she hadn't eaten since 2 AM. She then went to sleep and was not interested in any more. Later, Bonnie tried again and she drank a tiny bit of bottle #2. The whole hour and a half went by without any more success. We called the tech and told him the situation. He came back in and said the doctor really wanted her to have all of the solution. Bonnie asked if he could just put the rest of it into the second bottle because we didn't think there was any way she'd take all three. He agreed and said we could have another hour if we needed it. Emery did wake up and finish off the second one eventually and we finally went in for the CT at maybe 9:30.

Not interested!

Emery did great for the CT scan. She was not asleep but didn't fuss or squirm at all. They swaddled her and had Bonnie hold her arms and talk to her while they sent her into the machine. They also projected some sort of psychedelic swirling outer-space themed light show onto the scanner to catch her interest. Some of the images were a little freaky. We figured an older baby might be scared but she was quite enthralled with the display. After the long prep period, the actual scan took no time at all. While Bonnie and I had to wear protective aprons and Bonnie was nearly leaning into the machine herself, the nurse counted down, "3, 2, 1!" and sprinted out of the room before the scan started. Kinda made us think about what we might be exposing ourselves to!

Then up to the Oncology Clinic for lab work. We were very excited that all of Emery's levels were very good and she was recovering nicely from the last chemo. In fact, good enough to be ready for the next chemo. Since she'd had trouble with her platelets for the last two weeks, we were very happy.

Oh, yeah, she also gained some more weight! She was weighed before the CT scan, so it was on a different scale and she had her clothes on, but even allowing for that, we think she gained about 5 more ounces! Yay, Emery!

Tomorrow morning, we will be up at the same time again and off for her MRI. We think we will have results for both CT and MRI sometime tomorrow.