On May 23rd, Bill took Grace for her routine CT scans. They found something. Every once in a while something will come up and they will ask us to come back for another scan . It has thankfully never been anything serious… BUT this time they said come in for a biopsy.
It was the last week of school so we decided not to tell her until we knew when the biopsy was scheduled. We didn’t want to stress her out and wanted the last week of school to be fun with her friends.
We had hopes that maybe it was scar tissue but knew better by the bloodwork results.
Children pick up on everything, little turkeys . They are so much smarter than we given them credit for . Grace proved this at dinner one night, as she prayed for Mia to have guidance through her journey with diabetes, she then added, “ help me with my cancer” . Dumbfounded, Bill and I both just looked at each other. She knew because we never told her that her scans came back clear. So, we sat her down and told her what we knew. She cried, she didn’t ask why , she cried saying I thought they got it all last time.
We went in for the biopsy on June 4th… and they confirmed….It’s back. Located in the same area… and much smaller than it was in 2022.
SO … it’s back and it’s a harder regimen. It’s called ICE .. she has to be hospitalized when receiving the chemo not just in clinic like last time.
its 10 cycles - 21 days in each cycle so its 30 weeks of treatment.
2 different regimens. The 1st regimen are for cycles1,2,4,5,7&9. The Second regimen is for cycles 3,6,8 and 10. The 2nd regimen is 5 consecutive days of chemo .
So today she starts cycle 1 . We left the house at 4:45 am , and arrived at the hospital at 6. Thank you Jenn for driving. She went in for surgery at 8:11 and a little after 9:30 Dr. Chang came to tell me she did great. I got to see her about 10:45ish and they took us but to the 7th floor to prepare for chemo.
stronger medicine requires a hospital stay. All these medication will be given to her three consecutive days.
Etopside-causes mouth sores so they recommend eating ice chips for the full hour it’s being injected. She had to be watched closely for reactions to this medication. ( she did great today)
then she was given mesna which protects the kidney and bladder because one of the chemos causes damage to the kidney and bladder. Hold on.. she has nephroblastoma.. Wilms Tumor.. kidney cancer. She only has one kidney left…
Next is carboplatin
Then ifosfamide.
They gave her three medicines for nausea. Two last for 24 hours and one is every six hours. Last time she was on zofran…. That alone tells me how much more aggressive this treatment is. Chemo was started an hour after the nausea medication is given… so about 5 o’clock pm.
today sucks. It absolutely sucks… it’s raining.. even the weather is sad.
I can’t wrap my head around how this beautiful girl is seemingly healthy, last week she was running around climbing on jungle gyms… and today we are giving her medicine that will make her sicker than she’s ever been before. As they put the IV in ( before surgery) and she looks so sad and miserable . But never says why me.. just” I hate this part…” my eyes swell up with tears… my heart breaks for her. She looks at me for reassurance and shakes her head yes.. yes baby girl we’ve got this. We will fight like hell … I HATE this whole thing. She is so brave and I hate that she HAS to be so brave.
As a mom you want to tell them it’s going to be ok… but it’s cancer and it’s back …. So you can’t make promises.. you can just fight like hell.
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