The Friday Report

Georgia had a nice, short day at the clinic today - just a blood draw and IV medicine through her port. One thing we learned from the CBC is that she is currently "neutropenic," which means that her white blood cell count is low, specifically that her neutrophils (the white blood cells that help fight bacterial infections) are low. When a patient's Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC) (total number of neutrophils) drops below 500, the risk of infection is high. Today, Georgia's ANC was 40, so needless to say, we are being extra vigilant in our efforts to keep everything and everybody around her clean. Lots of handwashing! But low ANCs are a normal, expected part of treatment because for all the good chemotherapy does in destroying the bad cells, it also damages or destroys some good cells, too. We'll be monitoring her temperature throughout the next few days, but she feels fine, just tired.

That said, Georgia was absolutely NOT too tired to pull her 13th tooth this evening! She's really very good at it (she's way ahead of me now, 9 to 4), and she'd been itching to pull one ever since Ivy's first tooth started wiggling last month. She could barely keep her hands out of Ivy's mouth! I think now she's got her eye on a molar that might be moving the tiniest bit - stay tuned ...

In other news, Georgia "Skyped" with her class yesterday, and it went really well. So cool to be able to see her friends and teachers! We plan to check in every so often and maybe do some projects that way as well. And if anyone else is interested in visiting with her over Skype, let us know.

Also, we've added a map in the sidebar to show where all of our wonderful readers and well-wishers are located. If you're writing from outside of Texas (or the country!), make sure you tell us in your comment, and we'll add your state to the map. Georgia wants to reach all 50 and beyond - spread the word!

Finally, we've ordered orange "Keep Georgia on Your Mind" bracelets and should be getting them soon, so reserve yours today!