28.5%

Today marked day 4 of treatment and 8 needles are now in the books. That's 28.5% through Phase 1, praise the Lord, and after tomorrow we'll be more than a third of the way through. We're mentally breaking up Grace's 7 weeks of injection treatment into 3 phases, corresponding to the schedule the doctors have given us. Essentially, it's 3 weeks of focused treatment and 4 weeks of weaning from this powerful steroid (kids that aren't weaned go through a tough withdrawal).

Phase 1: 2 shots a day for 2 weeks (28 needles)
Phase 2: 1 shot a day for 1 week (7 needles)
Phase 3: 1 shot every other day for the remaining 4 weeks (15 needles). We also start reducing the dosage per needle during this week as well, gradually giving less and less medication over the final weeks.

Michelle and I switch off doing the shots, me in the morning and she at night. The Lord is giving us the grace to poke our little munchkin and He's helping Gracie to persevere and endure.

Here's a shot (heh, no pun intended) of one of her needles. They're pretty long but thankfully we only need to push them in half way.

-Derek