Crack open the champagne, we can say goodbye to 2009 and truly look forward to a great New Year. Isabella received the final dose of carboplatin today. We all went off to the hospital this morning. Matilde was entertaining in the backseat and Isabella broke out into great laughter, so infectious that we all arrived laughing. Thank you Mati. There were very few staff today (even doctors and nurses need a break!). Dear Jeanette was the only one available to access Isabella's port. She has not done so for some months, you could have cut the tension in the room, we were all anxious for the day to be free of port drama - great relief all round when she hit the bull's eye first time and pulled back loads of blood.
We'd be lying if we didn't admit we've been imagining reaching this day for a while. But no jumping up and down and screaming for joy, just calm relief for having made it and a special 'end of treatment' bead added to her necklace representing this journey.
This time of year leads to reflection by everyone but I think we've been doing that all year so we will look forward to life without chemotherapy. An MRI is scheduled for January 27th. The neuro-oncology team will meet the following Monday to review the scans of her brain and spine. We'll see doctors then also and hopefully all tumors being stable, if not further reduced, we'll get a date to remove that port as soon as possible afterwards. Thereafter we'll have three monthly MRI's and check-ups to monitor the tumors. We're hoping to get as long as possible before we have to consider more chemo, new drugs currently in trial or radiation.
2010 will be a New Year, I'm increasing my work hours, up to four days a week, we have booked a week's skiing in Utah in February, we're going to Disney for Isabella's Make a Wish in April and all things being equal we're planning a big European trip next summer. Family and friends stay tuned we want to see as many of you as possible over on the other side of the pond. We have made all the usual New Year resolutions, who knows how long they will last! Most importantly we have one big wish for the future, in the meantime we'll take it one MRI at a time.
We'll not be writing so regularly in 2010, only when there is news. If you sign up for the RSS feed you'll get the update automatically.
Wishing you all a very bright HAPPY NEW YEAR.
With lots of love,
Emma & Gregorio. xxx
PS somebody sent me a gorgeous blue table runner for Christmas, but there was no sender's name on the package. Thank you.
1 comment:
So very happy for all of you! Well done - and keep those tumors at bay! Isabella, well done for being such a trooper this past year!!!! I don't know many girls your age who handle weeds as well as you do! to Mati - congratulations on doing a great job as an assistant to your mum - keeping everyone happy and smiling - laughter is as good as round up to kill those weeds! and to Emma and Grgorio - how inspiring it has been to read, watch and listen as you've navigated through the ups and downs of the past 15 months. You deserve gold medals for parenting, but also is "good spousemanship". Bravo to all. Love, Marie-Rose
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