Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Results are in

We received amazing news today... God is so good!!! 
We were waiting on the results of Addie's bone marrow biopsy.  When I spoke with the Doctor yesterday she was surprised the results were not in and she said she would call as soon as she knew.  Today she called and these were her words, "Well now I know why her bone marrow took so long, cause they were looking and looking for tumor cells and couldn't find any!" Her bone marrow is cancer free, she no longer has the cancerous cells circulating through her system!!!

Praise Jesus! So many prayers are being said and they are being answered!! Thank you God!! And thank you to all of you praying for our little sweetheart!! 

Prayer request...
We start round 3 of chemo this Thursday and the drugs she will be receiving are different and much harsher to her system!  The main side effects are high frequency hearing loss and kidney damage.  The percentage of children that have hearing loss following this treatment is very high.  Please pray that The Lord would protect her kidneys and her hearing, pray that he would continue to keep her little body strong!  Pray that the therapy will be highly effective and no resistance will be met!! Also pray that she would continue to feel good and her side effects would be minimal, nausea and diarrhea are much more common after this treatment!! Thank you all!! 

Here we go round 3...   


Monday, June 30, 2014

Good News

Great news :) her scans showed improvement!! Her MIBG scan showed less uptake and decreased activity and "Naughty Randall" has shrunk and by the sounds of it quite a bit!! Praise Jesus!! We are still waiting on her bone marrow biopsy!! 
We will get all the specifics this weekend and I will let everyone know the details... But by what we have heard so far it is great!!
Thanks for all your prayers!! Go Team Addie 😊 


On a side note... Her counts were amazing again today and she has been in such a good mood and feeling so good!!  God is so good!!

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Happy Birthday

Our Little Miss is three years old!!  We couldn't have asked for a better day!! So many things lined up perfectly to make her day a success!! She didn't need a G-csf shot, she was home, her counts were "normal," and most importantly she was HAPPY... All answers to prayers!!  
We celebrated with a family birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa's, a special thank you to them for having all of us and for cooking!! Her only request was a monkey cake, a small one and a big one... She is obsessed with "naughty" monkeys, we can thank her Daddy for that!
So blessed to be this little girl's Mommy!! Here is to many, many more wonderful birthday celebrations for our Addie Bean!!


The girls and I made birthday tie-dyes to wear... It was really fun for the girls to do and they actually turned out pretty good!! We will definitely be doing it again!!  I will try and post a picture of the whole crew sometime!

Friday, June 27, 2014

Scans

Scans are underway!! 

She was in such good spirits this morning and I only heard a few times,  "milky warmed up Mom!" There were a few tears after she was told no, but for Addie a few tears is nothing... That girl can really throw a tantrum and we didn't have any of those this morning!!! She requested McDonalds, a Hershey's bar, Cheetos, cheese crackers and milky warmed up when she wakes up!! We have everything but the McDonalds which we will get on the drive home! My wonderful Momma and niece, Kaylee, came yesterday so they could make the trip back and forth with us!! It is nice to have company!
The times when she is taken away from me are the hardest!! Fortunately, we had our favorite sedation nurse, Holly, and a very nice Dr. taking care of her today!! 
We won't hear about the results until Monday and once we know I will make sure and update everyone!!  He hears our prayers and we are going to get some good news :)

We were met with good news... Her labs came back from this morning and no more shots!! Her counts are high enough, which means no shots on her birthday... Praise Jesus!!

My Girl

I love this Little Miss more than imaginable! Thank you Lord for letting me be her Mother!!

I love this picture... My sweet little baby!! Taken by her Aunt TT ❤️

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Stem Cells and Home

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!! That is the tune we were singing today leaving the hospital!! 

Our day started with hearing that Addie's counts went way up... Her ANC was over 1000, YAY!! We also heard that her stem cell collection would be today!  

I was definitely overwhelmed with the stem cell collection... keeping a very busy two year old in a bed for over three hours (not during nap time) would give any Mom anxiety and then I also get the stress of the actual procedure!

The procedure was very rocky the whole way through.  There were multiple points during her collection that we thought her lines were not going to work and that a catheter in her groin would be needed, but once again the Lord prevailed and prayers were answered!!  

We were taking a break for the second time after 2 1/2 hours of collecting to put what I refer to as Drain-O in her white lumen/line (Cath-flow or TPA is what I think it is technically called? It is a chemical that breaks up clots in her line and removes blockages).  Her white lumen tends to be a bit finicky and today was no exception.  It was clogging and causing the machine to shut off.  It was also causing the machine to collect at a very slow rate.  We were told that if the Cath-flow didn't work this time we would have to put the additional catheter into Addie's groin to finish the collection, a surgery that would have added risks and also added pain.  
There is a maximum amount of blood that can be removed during a stem cell harvest.  Addie's collection was going very slow and because of this we were going to exceed that maximum amount before we reached our targeted amount of stem cells.  It definitely isn't beneficial for a little lady who is already struggling to maintain her hemoglobin and platelet levels to have excess blood removed.  
Just as we placed the Cath-flow the nurses received a call from the doctor stating that Addie's blood test had come back and her stem cell circulation was through the roof!! It was so high in fact that the amount we had already struggled to collect (far less than what was planned) was going to be more than enough!!! The amount they require is 20 and Addie had 197... Praise Jesus, what an awesome God we have!! 

So to sum up a very long and wordy story... Stem cell harvest was a success, more than a success, a VICTORY!! Hopefully the beginning of many victories along this road to defeat Naughty Randall!  

Please continue to pray that Addie's scans on Friday show profound improvements and that her bone marrow biopsy shows no circulating cancer cells!! Also pray that she would have minimal pain following the biopsy and that she would feel good for her birthday and the few days she has at home!!

Overwhelmed

I am so overwhelmed right now with thankfulness!!! My heart overflows ❤️ With thankfulness and love for all of YOU, for my amazing family, and for our Heavenly Father!

I can't begin to tell you all how much I appreciate everything that everyone has been doing for us!!! It is unbelievable how much love and support Addie and our family has received!! The word thank you just isn't enough... I wish there was a way I could hug each and everyone of you and tell you in person how much all of your support means to me!!

Thank you, thank you!! We are truly blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing and giving people!! Thank you Lord for these kind and caring souls you have placed in our lives, you continue to shower us with Your blessings and make Your love for us known!  

Go Team Addie ❤️