BobKat History
In case you’ve ever wondered where “BobKat” came from, I thought I’d share the story really quickly. 🙂 Wyatt was 20 months old when Brynna was born, and was a slightly late talker. For months, he called her “Guh-Guhk”…NO idea how he got that from Brynna, but he did, and it was adorable. 🙂 (Also, it is now what she calls her blankie because I just loved the “word” too much to let it go…I named her blankie that and it stuck!). I can’t remember how old Brynna was when he started moving away from Guh-Guhk, somewhere between 6 and 9 months probably. I was working with him on saying “Brynna Kate”, and his real first attempt at her whole name came out “Bobcat”, and it stuck. 🙂 She has always had a flair for the dramatic, and so the nickname just fit perfectly! When her strong will comes out, we call that her “BobKat” side. 🙂 And we just replaced the “c” with the “k” to coincide with her middle name.
And on to the update…
After our unplanned luxury resort hospital stay a couple of weeks ago, we settled back into things at home pretty quickly. We had to check her blood sugar every 4 hours (including at night, which was awful but guys, she is a TROOPER!!), and make sure she ate well to keep it up. By the end of last week, it was starting to stabilize, and we just knew to keep the foods coming for her…if she woke up in the middle of the night, we had mandarin oranges (her fave!) waiting for her, and that was always enough to keep her sugar levels perfect until morning. As a quick side note, this girl would always just hold her sweet little hand out with barely any fussing, to test her blood sugar. Even the nurses had commented that they had never seen a 2 year old do it with such ease…so proud of her!
Last Monday, we went into clinic for labs (checking all her blood counts and chemistry/electrolyte levels). As of that Monday, everything looked really good, but was headed in a downward direction. Some of the chemo she’s given takes a drastically hard hit at all her blood counts, and others don’t (I don’t really know why). The chemo that she had during the first 2 weeks of this cycle hit her counts HARD, so we knew we were in the midst of a downward trend. The doctor told us that we didn’t need to come back until the following Tuesday (this past Tuesday, July 3rd), unless we noticed things out of the ordinary…the main thing being her hemoglobin levels. People with anemia have low hemoglobin levels, and the signs are generally not eating very much, cranky (to the point of inconsolable), and super tired and lethargic. Brynna was absolutely NONE of those things. She was in an incredible mood all week and all weekend long. She was happy, joyful, silly, eating TONS (her weight gain showed that too), and definitely NOT tired and lethargic (she’s the opposite haha). Truly, this girl had such a great stretch of days that we didn’t really think about calling to take her in for more labs.
And then came Tuesday. She was already scheduled for 2 IV’s of chemo (one of which is a 2+ hour process), and I figured she would need platelets because we were starting to notice her bruising a bit more easily. When her lab results came back everyone was shocked that her hemoglobin was at 4.9, which is critically low. To give some reference to that, normal for her would be between 10.2-12.9. The only other time she has been lower throughout this whole process was the night she was admitted, and that night she was at 4.8. The NP that was with us on Tuesday said that if we had a hemoglobin of 4, we would be on the floor. She said kids are resilient, but Brynna was incredible. There was no reason as to how and why she didn’t exhibit ANY of the signs of low hemoglobin. Even the nurses were shocked it was so low because Brynna was walking around happy and easily! She even walked her baby doll in her stroller up from the parking garage that morning! The pictures below were taken during our break that day, between chemo and blood, so she hadn’t yet received her transfusion…look how happy she is! The only thing we can think of that sustained her was your prayers, and God. Truly! There is no “scientific” reason as to why she was able to do what she did.
So, she obviously needed a blood transfusion, but one of the scary things with hemoglobin levels THAT low, is the heart. Her heart rate was pretty high and we were told it was because her heart was having to work much harder because of her low levels…and this also meant that if the transfusion was given too quickly, she could go into cardiac arrest (talk about terrifying). Throughout the course of the transfusion (about 3 hours, sometimes more), the NP came in every 15 or 20 minutes to listen to her heart, and the nurses checked in often as well. She fell asleep about half way through, and took a decent rest, which was SO needed. I had scheduled a chiropractic appointment for that evening, and as we realized that the time wasn’t going to work out, my dad drove in to stay with Brynna (and drive her home) so I could make it to my appointment. And one of my brothers is in town this week to help out and see Brynna, and he accompanied me to clinic that day, which was a HUGE blessing!! Clinic days can be VERY long, and it was so nice to have his moral support, and physical support. I had forgotten one of Brynna’s meds at home, and so he drove all the way back to grab it, also picking up lunch for us. On their way home from clinic that evening (Brynna, my dad, and brother), Brynna threw up in the car and my brother got her all cleaned up and stayed with her. We have such an incredible support team around us, and we definitely do NOT take them for granted!!
We head back in this morning for another transfusion, but this time it’s only the transfusion so hopefully we’re not looking at a full day. 🙂 I’m sure her hemoglobin is still super low, but she’s been a delight! As my dad put it, she is just determined to not let this sickness take her fun away and take her joy out of life…she is determined to live her best life, and she does, buoyed completely by all the prayers and the Lord. THANK YOU!!!!
