We Rang The Bell!

Today we had the final scan, the MIBG scan. Thankfully Brynlee's IV was still good and worked, so she didn't have to have another needle poke, or so we thought. Apparently when you go to clinic and don't have a central line or port you have to go to the lab and get your blood drawn. No one told us this, so we had them take out her IV after she finished her scan today. I didn't think she needed it anymore. So we went to clinic, and we were sent to the lab where we had to endure yet another needle poke. Brynlee looks like a pin cushion at this point. It is reminiscent of when she was diagnosed. At that time she had so many pokes on her body for so many different things.

So we finally made it back to clinic, and we waited and waited while they pulled all of the reports together for all of her scans and x-rays that she had over the last few days. Finally Dr. Stadden came in and immediately said he had good news. I said, "Stable?" He said, "Yes and even smaller." We went over all of her scans and nothing appeared to be too different. In fact, the main tumor mass and the cancer spots in her liver appeared even smaller than three months ago. There were a few things that showed up on the bone scan, but the CT scan did not corroborate these findings, so it will be something that we will just watch. The only concerning findings were on the x-rays. Her hip x-rays showed that she has hip dysplasia, and I haven't taken the time to find out exactly what this is. I type it all of the time when I do my transcription work, but I honestly only know how to spell it. Also, her spine looked a little crooked, but that could have just been how she was positioned on the x-ray table. She was putting up a pretty good fight when they did the x-rays, so that is something that we will have to watch. However, we have been referred to orthopedics for her hips, and I was expecting that it would only be a matter of time before orthopedics got involved in Brynlee's care.

We met with Dr. Fluchel, who is one of the attending physicians as Dr. Stadden is a fellow, and discussed Brynlee's excessive sweating with him. It can be a sign of Horner's syndrome, but Brynlee doesn't demonstrate any of the eye symptoms that typically accompany Horner's. Long story short, it most likely could be nerve damage. It could possibly be something that gets better with time or not. We will watch it. We will rescan in three months and will continue to do monthly urine tests.

The biggest excitement of the day was when Brynlee rang the bell. The bell signals the end of treatment, and we hadn't been able to do that yet. The nurses sang to Brynlee and gave her some end of treatment gifts.

Here she is ringing the bell. It scared her when she rang it, so she only rang it once.

Yay!

MegaBlocks, a lamb, and a blanket for her gifts. Brynlee's sister actually has that same exact lamb. 

Here is the saying beneath the bell:

 

Ring this Bell

Three Times Real Well

Its Toll to Clearly Say

My Treatments Done

This Course is Run

Now I am On My Way

Officially done with treatment and on our way. She is such a tough girl.

She is our brave cancer survivor!

Physically we are hoping and praying for some more miracles for this girl,

and we are still hoping to prove the naysayers wrong and get her walking.

Only time will tell what she will do, but the sky is the limit.

(And yes, we did celebrate with some Cheesecake)