Some Good News!

We received a little bit of good news today. I was able to speak with Dr. Staddon (I think I spelled his name right this time) today, and he informed me that Brynlee's bone marrow biopsy we had done a couple of weeks ago showed no cancer in the bone marrow. It's good to know that at least one part of her body that had cancer is now cancer free. Dr. Staddon did not believe there would be any reason to do another bone marrow biopsy since it was negative unless there was something that showed up in the future to indicate it was needed.

Brynlee was also presented at the tumor conference they hold once a month, and there is no change in her treatment, which I had to ask for a clarification on because we had never been given a definitive treatment plan. Basically Dr. Staddon (who is the pediatric oncology fellow assigned to Brynlee) said that Dr. Bruggers (who is Brynlee's attending oncologist) just wanted to get the radiation oncologists and surgeons on board as we are getting closer to the end of chemo. They are planning on eight rounds of chemo, but they will still do an MRI and CT scan after round six right before round seven, which should be the first week of January. We will have the full scans (i.e., bone scan, MIBG, another MRI and CT) about three weeks after round 8. At that time, it will be decided if we will do surgery and/or radiation and that would happen fairly quickly after that is decided. The hope is that the main tumor mass in her chest will be small enough that they can just go in and take it all out; however, her main tumor is near a lot of vital organs and her spinal cord, so there is a chance that they won't be able to take it all out with surgery and will have to do some localized radiation, which I have been very worried about radiation and the effects from it, so I am praying for as little radiation as possible. I am also concerned about her liver spots as it was hard to see much change on those on the CT scan, but we have been told they are getting smaller, and I am not a radiologist, so I will just have to believe them when they say they are smaller.

So here is where we stand. If we stay on schedule for her chemo, round 8 will occur right around her first birthday. Kind of a bummer, but at least it should be the last round of chemo (hopefully).

A lot to be grateful for as well as a lot to continue to pray for. In case you missed it, make sure to check out Brynlee's Song of Love on the previous post. Brynlee loves her song!