Thursday, August 27, 2015
Secondary school girls
With new uniforms, new backpacks, new lunch boxes and more! And so another school year begins. Here is the annual photoshoot - with new school uniform and all the paraphernalia. ...and back to the routine we go.
Friday, August 21, 2015
What a roller coaster!
For those with limited time. Here is the short version : following up from last week-end's MRI - no action required, we will continue life as normal and monitor the situation. Another MRI is being scheduled for 6-8 weeks time.
The longer version is that we've had quite a ride of emotions this week and had I written this post on Monday I would have been in a totally different frame of mind! Isabella's oncologist called on Monday afternoon with the preliminary readings on last Saturday's MRI. She began the conversation with "have you got a moment?". Well we all know what that means - shut the office door, sit down and take a deep breathe. She explained that the tumor had grown a few millimeters which represented a 35% increase so we would review the options on Thursday when we visited the oncology department. The good news is that the oral trial drugs - the mek inhibitors - could be used for re-treatment and given the limited side effects and how effective it had been at shrinking the tumor before, this was good news. Yeah, right. Treatment, goodie!
Gregorio and I were convinced of the worse - back to treatment and the depressing drudgery of being in that routine again. All Isabella's vision issues over the summer, along with some dizziness and stumbling began to add up.
Three tense days followed. The worse part of which was telling our teenage daughter who is very happy with life, that her tumor had grown and going back treatment was highly probable.
So we went to children's yesterday fearing the worse. After extensive eye tests, numerous visits and talks with all the specialists at the hospital we have concluded that we will continue to monitor the situation for a couple of months. Despite our fears, none of the symptoms and vision issues that Isabella seems to have been having over the summer appear to be abnormal or normally associated with her tumor and its location. The increase is small and so we will monitor for a couple of months. Isabella will have further eye tests in a couple of weeks and another MRI at the end of Sept/early October. If things are stable we will continue without treatment. If there is a further increase then we will probably start the mek inhibitor. So for now we will return to “normal”, get back into our DC routine etc and await the next MRI. I believe we are all extremely reassured by this.
In other news this summer Isabella gained an A* in her Italian IGCSE (International General Certificate of Education - taken by British students at age 15 or 16, for you non-Brits) and Matilde passed her Grade 3 music theory. This week we have been watching the sunrise over the Potomac - Isabella has been learning to row in the early hours. She loves it, so much so she had no qualms about jumping into the river at the end of the lesson for her capsizing drill!
We had a good summer with friends and family in Europe. A few upsets - pulled tendons, twisted ankles, pretty bad stomach upsets and several things not going quite according to plan, not to mention the very hot temperatures. However there were some wonderful highlights that include Carlo and Gianna's elegant celebration of 50 years of marriage in Rome, a lovely party in Tuscany for some dear friends 50th birthdays, splashing in the Mediterranean in Mallorca, eating and drinking great food and wine as always. We also saw the Sistine chapel (we are American though, we could have done with some AC), the girls insisted on having their portraits done in Piazza Navona (that's what the tourists do, cringes Gregorio), we toured the foods of the world at the EXPO in Milan, we bought new school uniform in M&S and we stocked up on lots of clothes, shoes, edibles and drinkables thanks to the favorable euro!
School begins next week. More news when we have it sometime in October. For now deep sighs of relief and hopefully a week-end catching up on lost sleep this week.
Lots of love
Emma and Gregorio xxx
The longer version is that we've had quite a ride of emotions this week and had I written this post on Monday I would have been in a totally different frame of mind! Isabella's oncologist called on Monday afternoon with the preliminary readings on last Saturday's MRI. She began the conversation with "have you got a moment?". Well we all know what that means - shut the office door, sit down and take a deep breathe. She explained that the tumor had grown a few millimeters which represented a 35% increase so we would review the options on Thursday when we visited the oncology department. The good news is that the oral trial drugs - the mek inhibitors - could be used for re-treatment and given the limited side effects and how effective it had been at shrinking the tumor before, this was good news. Yeah, right. Treatment, goodie!
Gregorio and I were convinced of the worse - back to treatment and the depressing drudgery of being in that routine again. All Isabella's vision issues over the summer, along with some dizziness and stumbling began to add up.
Three tense days followed. The worse part of which was telling our teenage daughter who is very happy with life, that her tumor had grown and going back treatment was highly probable.
So we went to children's yesterday fearing the worse. After extensive eye tests, numerous visits and talks with all the specialists at the hospital we have concluded that we will continue to monitor the situation for a couple of months. Despite our fears, none of the symptoms and vision issues that Isabella seems to have been having over the summer appear to be abnormal or normally associated with her tumor and its location. The increase is small and so we will monitor for a couple of months. Isabella will have further eye tests in a couple of weeks and another MRI at the end of Sept/early October. If things are stable we will continue without treatment. If there is a further increase then we will probably start the mek inhibitor. So for now we will return to “normal”, get back into our DC routine etc and await the next MRI. I believe we are all extremely reassured by this.
In other news this summer Isabella gained an A* in her Italian IGCSE (International General Certificate of Education - taken by British students at age 15 or 16, for you non-Brits) and Matilde passed her Grade 3 music theory. This week we have been watching the sunrise over the Potomac - Isabella has been learning to row in the early hours. She loves it, so much so she had no qualms about jumping into the river at the end of the lesson for her capsizing drill!
We had a good summer with friends and family in Europe. A few upsets - pulled tendons, twisted ankles, pretty bad stomach upsets and several things not going quite according to plan, not to mention the very hot temperatures. However there were some wonderful highlights that include Carlo and Gianna's elegant celebration of 50 years of marriage in Rome, a lovely party in Tuscany for some dear friends 50th birthdays, splashing in the Mediterranean in Mallorca, eating and drinking great food and wine as always. We also saw the Sistine chapel (we are American though, we could have done with some AC), the girls insisted on having their portraits done in Piazza Navona (that's what the tourists do, cringes Gregorio), we toured the foods of the world at the EXPO in Milan, we bought new school uniform in M&S and we stocked up on lots of clothes, shoes, edibles and drinkables thanks to the favorable euro!
Lots of love
Emma and Gregorio xxx
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