Update on Upcoming Treatments

Isabella’s MRI yesterday didn’t show that the tumor is any smaller, but it also didn’t show that it had grown significantly so our doctor thinks that it is worth it to try another round of chemo.  We were fully expecting that the MRI would show significant growth and that we would stop any further treatment.  So although we will have another rough couple of weeks coming up with the chemo, we were relieved that the scan was “stable”.

We also decided to start the cycle on Saturday which allowed Isabella to go to school today.  Ironically, because of the snow storm hitting the northeast, it’ll end up being a short day since school will be dismissed early.

So although Julianne and I have been pretty bummed the last couple days, we’ve been trying to have some fun.  A couple nights ago, we played hide and seek around the house.  Here are a couple pictures from that.

Annalise and Nathaniel look for Isabella under the couch.

They still can’t find Isabella.

There she is under their nose the whole time!  I can’t believe she stayed still and quiet the whole time they were looking for her.

It took the kids a long time to find Roneil.  Can you spot him in the picture?

Upcoming Treatments

Happy New Year everyone.  After Isabella’s blood counts showed improvement to a satisfactory level last week, we made an impromptu trip to Vermont to visit Julianne’s parents.  We spent a quiet New Years up there before heading back down to CT on Sunday.  Isabella was scheduled to have another blood draw on Monday, then if the levels were at normal levels, would begin a second round of chemotherapy on Tuesday.  This also gave Isabella a chance to have a day at school, which she was very excited (and nervous) about.

Unfortunately, Isabella’s platelet counts were still a bit low to start chemo.  So our doctor told us to wait a couple days to allow the platelets to recover further, have another blood draw on Wednesday, then expect to start chemo on Thursday. 

In the meantime, we told the doctor that we noticed that some of Isabella’s symptoms have gotten worse, which worried us all.  Again, we changed plans and instead of doing a blood draw on Wednesday, we will be getting an MRI on Thursday (they originally didn’t have an MRI scheduled until after this second round of chemo).  They are most likely checking to see if there is any tumor progression that is causing the worsening of the symptoms.  If that is the case, they will most likely not proceed with this round of chemo because they wouldn’t want to subject Isabella to the severe effects of the chemo with little to no benefit.  If the tumor does show at least stable, then we will proceed with the treatment.

One bright side to all this is that Isabella will be able to spend a couple more days at school, which she really enjoys.  The picture below shows Isabella and Nathaniel taking a walk with Grandma and Grandpa.