A Little Zofran Relief

Much to my surprise and delight, the Zofran has helped my daughter's nausea. She was nausea- and vomit-free Tuesday evening and Wednesday. Timing her third dose (she's on 8 mg 3x/day) has been tricky; we've been giving it when she gets up to pee, as long as there've been at least 7 hours since the last dose. Last night there'd been 10 hours, and that's too many. She promptly threw the Zofran pill back up. The second pill threatened to be a loss, too: she spewed the water and pill out like a whale (it was rather spectacular), getting both of us wet. Fortunately we found the Zofran and it went down fine the third time.

Unfortunately, its magic may already be wearing off. She woke up four hours after the last Zofran feeling slightly nauseated.

She was downstairs for one hour yesterday, at dinnertime. She ate several bites of dinner and a small bowl of vla (pudding). Ingeborg from home health care and Loe, her biweekly volunteer, both played games with her up in her room.

She isn't sleeping the entire time she's in bed. Often if we peek in (in older Dutch homes, doors have a glass panel above them), she's staring at her fingers or staring out in front of her. Yesterday she said she was kind of bored, and I suggested several of her usual pastimes: read, fuse beads, puzzles, TV. She didn't want to do any of them, nor did she want to come downstairs.

I asked her if she'd stopped reading because it's gotten harder to see the words; she said no. I asked her if it's because the story is hard to follow; she said yes.

Her urine is frequently tea-colored now. Not the usual dark yellow of concentrated urine, but an almost amber color, golden orange bordering on red. According to the brain hospice site, this is all part of the process.

She woke and wanted to come downstairs early this morning to wish her sister a happy birthday before school, but as soon as she was standing she changed her mind. So the birthday girl came up to her.

She's standing much more poorly than she was even a few days ago (which was already quite poor; recently, it's taken both of us to stabilize her). The stairs may soon be a thing of the past, unless we've got another burly man or two around to help carry her.