Sierra rang the bell today to signify the end of her treatment.It was such a wonderful experience. We were blessed to have many of our family and friends attend and show support to Sierra. Throughout this whole experience we have been blessed to have the most loving and generous people surrounding us all, offering support through meals, or childcare, and especially through prayers. All of you have helped to buoy us up and encouraged us to be able to meet all of these challenges and conquer them. THANK YOU!
Friday, December 21, 2012
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Finished
Sierra has been doing amazing in the last few weeks since her surgery. She was hospitalized for a week, a few days longer than the doctors had predicted, but exactly what we had planned for. I feel like we were so blessed with Sierra's lung surgery experience and I know it was because of all of the prayers being said for her. She had an epidural that worked perfectly for the first few days, allowing her to get over the hump of the worst pain from surgery. She had no complications and never required oxygen after coming off anesthesia(though she wore the cute penguin oxygen mask just for fun). Sierra used oral pain medications for the first few days after coming home from the hospital, but by day 10 post-op she hasn't needed anything at all. She went back to school on day 12 post-op and has been so happy to begin getting back to a normal routine. Sierra will have her 3 month follow up scans at some point in February, until then she only has to go into the clinic once a month to have her port flushed, and once she has her scans, and they come back clean, we can schedule to have her port removed. We will travel to Portland again in January to work with the prosthetist and physical therapist to get her on her finished leg. She hasn't been doing a whole lot of work with her prosthesis lately, but now that we have no other medical stuff to worry about we are back to focusing on exercising and practicing walking. She has moments where she works very hard, and then has moments where she just wants to be able to walk again, I can't imagine how she feels as an 8 year old who wants to do so much, but feels so limited. She doesn't let things hold her back as much as possible, and is very adaptable about most things, but I do see her get frustrated from time to time that she can't do the things she wants, or that she always has to ask for help. Hopefully over the next few months, she will be back to walking and will be able to be more independent. Tomorrow is a very big day for her as well, as she will be ringing the bell at the Children's Hospital. This is a special rite of passage for all of the sweet kiddos that go through treatment and she has looked forward to it since all of this started. I will be taking lots of pictures, and video, and will post them tomorrow.
For now we are looking forward to the holidays together as a family, and are feeling so blessed to have Sierra here with us.
For now we are looking forward to the holidays together as a family, and are feeling so blessed to have Sierra here with us.
Family picture from our trip to see Christmas lights at the Coeur d'Alene hotel
Love this girl and her sweet smile
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Update 2
Surgery is complete. She is doing well and we are waiting to go back and see her. They had to remove the lower right lobe of her lung, but she is not in pain due to a great working epidural. The larger spot was osteosarcoma, but three little spots removed were benign. I can't wait to see her. The doctor was very impressed with her and how well she is handling all of this. She has a way of winning people over.
Update 1
They gave her some Versed, and she got really giggly. We gave hugs and kisses and they wheeled her out, no tears. They said it takes quite a while to get her prepped and they will let us know when the surgery actually begins.
Lung Surgery Day
Sierra is having her Thoracotomy today. They are doing just the right side, where she has a spot that is about 7mm by 11mm. Surgery will be a few hrs and her hospital stay will be 4-5 days. I will update as soon as syrgery begins.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Done, But Not
Sierra finished her chemotherapy like a champ. She didn't clear it from her system as quickly as we had expected, but that just meant a few more nights in the hospital to see her wonderful nurses:)
This weekend she had all of her post-treatment scans done. She had a chest CT, Pet-CT scan, Bonescan, X-rays, and Echo. We don't have all of the results back, but from just the CT scans the doctors can see growth in the one larger spot in her lung. All of the other little spots are still there, but haven't changed. We had hoped that they would all disappear, and that we wouldn't have to worry about a lung surgery, but we knew it was most likely going to happen. AT this point, Sierra will likely have a lung surgery in the next few weeks to remove at least the one larger spot. Once we meet with the surgeon I will know more, but the consensus of all the osteo parents I have asked is that getting any spots out of the lungs is the best plan of action. We are very hopeful that removing any spots from Sierra's lungs will be the end of her treatment and that she will not have any relapses. Please continue prayers, that Sierra will not be anxious about this upcoming surgery and that she will heal quickly, and that she will be done with this awful disease for good.
This weekend she had all of her post-treatment scans done. She had a chest CT, Pet-CT scan, Bonescan, X-rays, and Echo. We don't have all of the results back, but from just the CT scans the doctors can see growth in the one larger spot in her lung. All of the other little spots are still there, but haven't changed. We had hoped that they would all disappear, and that we wouldn't have to worry about a lung surgery, but we knew it was most likely going to happen. AT this point, Sierra will likely have a lung surgery in the next few weeks to remove at least the one larger spot. Once we meet with the surgeon I will know more, but the consensus of all the osteo parents I have asked is that getting any spots out of the lungs is the best plan of action. We are very hopeful that removing any spots from Sierra's lungs will be the end of her treatment and that she will not have any relapses. Please continue prayers, that Sierra will not be anxious about this upcoming surgery and that she will heal quickly, and that she will be done with this awful disease for good.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
The Beginning Of The End
Sierra goes in tomorrow for her final chemo treatment, for the longest time this moment seemed so far away and now it is here. Sierra has had 8 months of chemotherapy, consisting of 18 rounds of chemo which included 24 hospital stays lasting from 2 to 11 days each. We are so blessed that she has done so well, she had the "normal" side effects from the chemo and had a few delays, but she was able to finish the full protocol. We have had such amazing support from family and friends, church friends and neighbors, and online friends and other osteo families. We are happy to be coming to an end of this journey, but are still apprehensive about where we go from here.
Sierra will have scans done in the next 2 weeks to check how her body has responded to these last 8 months of chemotherapy. The Chest scans are the ones we are most anxious about, if by some grace from God the spots that were in her chest have disappeared(prayers)we will be done with treatment and graduate NED(no evidence of disease), if the spots are still there, Sierra will have a thoracotamy(lung surgery) to remove and nodules in her lungs. After the surgery, or if she doesn't end up needing it, she will have scans every 3 months for 2 years, and every 6 months for the following 3 years. Osteosarcoma is known for coming back and is very aggressive, so we have to watch carefully, though the likelihood of it coming back after 2 years is lower, and so on as time goes by. We pray that Sierra will never have to deal with this cancer ever again, but we know that it is always a possibility that it will return.
Sierra has been doing amazingly well over the last month or so. She had her final Doxorubicin chemotherapy as an outpatient chemo, and it went really well. We had to go into the hospital 2 days in a row for her chemo to be administered and then we were able to go home and sleep in our own beds. I wish more of the osteosarcoma protocol was as outpatient chemo, I like being home at night as a family. Surprisingly, even though her blood counts did drop after the Dox, Sierra didn't end up with a fever. This was the only time she was able to stay out of the hospital when her counts were low, and she felt amazingly well the whole time. She didn't get the mouth sores she usually does and only needed to go in once for blood transfusions(though it took all day).
Sierra has been making a bit of progress with her prosthesis. She doesn't wear it as much as we would like, but she is getting more comfortable with it, and building strength to be able to wear it for longer periods. It is kind of a struggle to wear clothes with it, because she struggles to get her pants over it, and she can't wear it and use the bathroom, so we have some logistics that we are still figuring out, but it is a work in progress, and once she is done with treatment we will be able to focus more on getting her up and walking again.
Sierra will have scans done in the next 2 weeks to check how her body has responded to these last 8 months of chemotherapy. The Chest scans are the ones we are most anxious about, if by some grace from God the spots that were in her chest have disappeared(prayers)we will be done with treatment and graduate NED(no evidence of disease), if the spots are still there, Sierra will have a thoracotamy(lung surgery) to remove and nodules in her lungs. After the surgery, or if she doesn't end up needing it, she will have scans every 3 months for 2 years, and every 6 months for the following 3 years. Osteosarcoma is known for coming back and is very aggressive, so we have to watch carefully, though the likelihood of it coming back after 2 years is lower, and so on as time goes by. We pray that Sierra will never have to deal with this cancer ever again, but we know that it is always a possibility that it will return.
Sierra has been doing amazingly well over the last month or so. She had her final Doxorubicin chemotherapy as an outpatient chemo, and it went really well. We had to go into the hospital 2 days in a row for her chemo to be administered and then we were able to go home and sleep in our own beds. I wish more of the osteosarcoma protocol was as outpatient chemo, I like being home at night as a family. Surprisingly, even though her blood counts did drop after the Dox, Sierra didn't end up with a fever. This was the only time she was able to stay out of the hospital when her counts were low, and she felt amazingly well the whole time. She didn't get the mouth sores she usually does and only needed to go in once for blood transfusions(though it took all day).
Sierra has been making a bit of progress with her prosthesis. She doesn't wear it as much as we would like, but she is getting more comfortable with it, and building strength to be able to wear it for longer periods. It is kind of a struggle to wear clothes with it, because she struggles to get her pants over it, and she can't wear it and use the bathroom, so we have some logistics that we are still figuring out, but it is a work in progress, and once she is done with treatment we will be able to focus more on getting her up and walking again.
At the church Halloween party, Sierra led the costume parade that evening, walking with her new prosthesis, and was very proud to show off to all of our supporters from church
LOVE
Sierra's Pumpkin
Trick or Treating, the kids had a blast, we stayed out for 2 and a half hours and got a TON of candy.
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