Sophie's World

9:36 AM Well, we ended up with more "excitement" in our house last night. Sophie never quite went to sleep and at some point (10-ish, I think), she called Susan into her room because she said she was cold. She was shivering and her teeth were chattering. Susan covered her up with a comforter, but that did nothing. Susan checked Sophie's temperature, which was normal. The first thing I thought of was that Sophie was going into shock (who knows if that is what going into shock is like--maybe I was going into shock!). While I was on the phone with Dr. Gold, Susan took Sophie's temp from her other ear, which was over 102. One ear: 97.3, the other ear: 102. Go figure. Dr. Gold suggested we run up to Chapel Hill, which we did.

Normally, Susan takes Sophie and I stay home with Elisabeth. Since we were scared and unsure why Sophie was acting this way, we decided that we would both go to UNC and called Bob and Patti to see if we could bring Elisabeth by there. Got a few things together and we were out the door.

On the way to Chapel Hill, Sophie threw up twice. Unfortunately, we didn't really have anything to throw up into, but we managed to grab the old blanket we have in the trunk and at least we were able to keep most of the vomit off Sophie and her clothes. Still had a fever at the ER. They took blood cultures, ran a urine sample, and administered some IV antibiotics. At about 4:45 this morning, we left the ER. Sophie definitely has another urinary tract infection (never saw that coming), and we're awaiting word on the cultures. Sophie was much, much better by the time we left the ER and chatted half the way home. Of course, we're all going to be sleepy and cranky today, but we're home (for now).

We're quite anxious to hear about the blood cultures because if Sophie has another line infection, then we may need to have the line removed. We've worried about that before and did not need the line removed, but we also know that with each new infection, removing the line makes more and more sense. From a health standpoint, the line may be compromising Sophie and her treatment more than helping it at this point. The question will be, if the line is removed, will another line be put in? We're nine months out from finishing Sophie's treatment. As Susan said last night in the ER, all she thought about in the car on the way up to UNC was that she did not want to do this--any of this--any more. Maybe because we know that the end is in sight and we are more or less "out in the clear," it makes it harder to accept that, for the time being, this is what we have to do and what we have to experience whether we like it or not.