Upcoming Scans

Today Kris and I drove to Packard to meet with her oncologists to talk about her upcoming scans.  This will be the second time we get to "re-stage" her cancer.  For anyone who is like I was seven months ago and has no idea what I am talking about, I'll explain.  As Gabriella's cancer treatment progresses, they occasionally want to know if it is working.  The only way to figure this out is to do MRI scans, CT scans and biopsies of the tumor and tissue surrounding the area where the tumor had been.  This is a pretty nervous time for us.  G will go up to Packard on three separate days for the appointments.  Day one will be a CT, day two the MRI and about a week later she has her exam and biopsies.  They put her under general anesthesia for the second two.  Last time this was done, we waited about a week before we got the news that things were shrinking and doing what they were supposed to be doing.
For the time during the scans and the wait on the news after, we will try to be positive and hope that the chemo and radiation have continued to be effective.  But there is always the thought in the back of our minds that the cancer is being stubborn and complications will arise.  It feels wrong not to mentally prepare for any outcome, but the alternatives are pretty unbearable not to mention we have no intention of letting G know we are worried.  So we paint smiles on our faces and push all the worry aside and move through it.  Yippee.

The last couple of weeks have been great.  G had a little bit of a rough time with her last chemo but they gave her two weeks off from the weekly Vincristine doses so we got to remember what it was like to be a normal family again.  We had a couple of rainy days and the girls bundled up and jumped in some puddles and ran around the yard enjoying the beginning of fall.  Kris and I talked a about taking the girls to Gabriella's preschool a little bit during the holidays so she can see her friends and enjoy some of the festivities.  We also booked a few nights in the Disneyland hotel for the week after Thanksgiving and will hopefully be able to take the girls to Disneyland for their first time.  We spoke to the oncologists today about it and they are going to do their best to schedule everything around it for us.  We bought the trip insurance just in case.  Monday will be round 9 of 14 of her overnight chemo's that she does every 3 weeks.  If we stay on this schedule we can be done with her protocol by the first of February but our oncologist told us today that the chemo may start having a more significant impact on her white blood cell counts and we may see it take longer to recover.  Which will cause us to wait longer in between chemo treatments and essentially lengthen the time of her treatment.  Yippee.

Team G

Adam