Sophie's World

9:00 PM (Randall posting): As has always been the case, Sophie's middle-of-the-night nausea did not adversely affect her today. She had a great day today, even if we did not stick very well to our schedule. We watched less TV, though, and spent more time outside, so we've made some progress. Unfortunately, I still have some schoolwork to do, so I'm not free to spend every waking moment with her right now.

One exciting thing that happened today was that we have new neighbors. For the past few weeks we have been watching as two Kildeer have nested in the backyard. Today they had babies. Sophie and I saw the baby birds first as we came home from dropping Elisabeth off at school. We have all had a great time spying at them from across the yard, which has been very upsetting to the adults.

This evening after dinner we all spent some time outside, the girls playing in the sandbox, swinging, blowing bubbles, riding bikes, and so forth. It was a great time. Then we got Sophie bathed and started working on all her treatments (chemo, dressing change). The dressing change went terribly. At the clinic on Tuesday, they switched her dressing to Mefix from Tegaderm because it looked as if Sophie was beginning to react to the Tegaderm. The Mefix does not appear to be a viable alternative. For one thing, Mefix needs to be changed three times a week instead of once, and for another, it was incredibly difficult getting it off. As if that wasn't bad enough, poor Sophie's skin all around the dressing was incredibly irritated and red, very rash-like. We were all very upset. I spoke with the doctor in Chapel Hill and she suggested that perhaps Sophie is allergic to the Mefix. Fortunately we had a third (sample, from the clinic) alternative, so we stumbled our way through trying this one. Sophie finally calmed down and is on her way to falling asleep, but gosh what an evening! I certainly hope this irritation clears up (this particular dressing needs to be changed once a week, so we've got the next seven days to keep our eyes on it and worry about it).