Week One Done

May 27, 3008

I had intended to call this post "Week 1 in the Can" because I assumed Erin would spend more time in the bathroom than she actually did. As it was, she had an hour of diarrhea last Thursday and two other moments that we cut off with Imodium before she ever reached the State of Diarrhea. The rest of the time was "Normal. Full Speed Ahead." No nausea either. What I have noticed (for anyone who may be considering adopting The Rhino into their own household) is that Erin's energy pattern and eating habits have done some time shifting. She used to eat most heavily at breakfast and dinner and go pretty lightly at lunch (no criticism intended of her school cafeteria). Now she eats about the same at breakfast, pretty heartily at lunch and after school. If I wait too long on dinner, however, I have to toss most of it out. By about 8:00, her motor slows down considerably. We'll see if that pattern holds this evening. We have an event with Chet and Lea Ann Edwards that doesn't start until 7:00. She's resting now so she can keep the party going.

I didn't have any idea what to expect when we had counts done today. Surprisingly, she posted decent numbers:

HGB 9.4
WBC 5200
ANC 3920
PLT 376,000

As usual, Erin's hemoglobin is the least robust of her blood numbers and almost two points lower than two weeks ago. The chemistries were still pending when we got the signal that we could hit the highway. Not needing to hear that message twice, headed out, leaving instructions to let us know if anything fell out of range. No calls so far. We didn't see Dr. Russell today, who had some days off coming, but Dr. Murali seemed quite pleased that Erin is not longer taking anything, including plain old tylenol, for pain. He may have been pleased, but I have been virtually ecstatic for the past two pain-reliever-free days.

The Mystic '97 didn't pass on to the Houston Open semis, but the last two weekends have shown much improved play and great promise for next season. Erin has tryouts next week for next year's team, then we (the team, not just the Buengers) will take a month-long hiatus from practice. We managed to double up on Memorial Day cook-outs, spending Sunday evening with Erin's good buddy Jesse and his family and their delicious ribs and Monday at the Burchill's pool with Nico and Co., the Foote Clan, and hamburgers and hot dogs.

We checked blue bird boxes yesterday morning, and believe it or not, those mama and papa bluebirds are still getting after it on the egg laying/chick raising front. My mom's friend Manuelita took this photo of Erin and also the one after of our bird friend (blue heron). If you look carefully you can see that she also caught two bluebirds in the same frame (on top of the kickback goal).