From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 9/14/2015 Today starts week 15 and we are headed back to The Chilton tomorrow for a 3-day stay. Elaine seems to be doing very well. At our doctor visit last week he said her counts were stellar which is good to hear. Elaine seems to be tolerating the chemo well and her body is responding to the medicine prescribed to help her counts bounce back. Plus the doctor could not feel the tumor in her foot when he wa

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 8/27/2015 We are in week 13 which is a 5 day stay at The Chilton (I've given the hospital a hotel name not because I think it is a hotel but because it makes Elaine smile and roll her eyes). We headed to our doctor's appointment Tuesday with a loaded down car expecting to start our 5 day stay. When they triaged Elaine she had a low grade temperature. 100.4 is the number that makes all kinds of bells go off an

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 8/5/2015 Last week was week 9 and Elaine stayed 5 days in the hospital getting Ifosfamide and Etoposide each day. I'd like to say that it was a breeze and we sailed right through the week but the truth is that the week was very hard for Elaine. She dreaded going to the hospital and she cried a lot of the time while in the hospital even with all the extra provisions I had taken. We had a warmer putting out sce

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 7/23/2015 Last week was week 7 and Elaine had her treatment in the hospital. We were there three days. She got two new drugs (Cyclophosphamide and Doxorubicin) plus Vincristine (she has been getting Vincristine since week 1). It seems they have found the right combination of nausea medicines for Elaine because she didn't get sick once even though she was very nauseous. The Doxorubicin drug is nicknamed The R

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 7/9/2015 We got a good report from the PET Scan today. On the first PET Scan you could see very clearly a very bright red spot in her foot and a very bright red spot in her shoulder. On today's scan there is a light red spot in her foot and a light red spot in her shoulder. The difference in how the spots look on this scan indicate that the chemo is killing the cancer. God is hearing us and answering our pra

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 7/3/2015 We are in the middle of week 5 and we are doing okay. We are still just trying to manage the side effects. Monday was the last treatment for this cycle. She has no treatment next week but we have a PET Scan scheduled for Thursday, July 9th. I trust that we will see then that this chemo is doing what it is supposed to be doing on this scan. Please be in prayer with us that we see visibly on the scan

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 6/24/2015 We are in week four of chemo. Week four is the same two drugs as week one. You may recall how week one kicked us around through week two and to the hospital in week three. I was afraid that we would not be able to keep her feeling as good as she felt in the hospital because they were giving her lots of fluids through her port and once that stops it is hard to get her to drink as much as she needs to

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 6/19/2015 Elaine was discharged from the hospital Tuesday night. She is doing much better. They ruled out infection and determined that her symptoms were late side effects of the Irinotecan that she took the first week of chemo. Fever can come out of nowhere I've learned so it is best to keep a bag packed and ready in case we have to go to the hospital. We are still in the learning curve of managing these sid

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 6/14/2015 We finally made it to MD Anderson and met with a pediatric oncologist. She gave me peace of mind that we were getting excellent care at Children's. She basically said that all the tests she would have run to stage the cancer are the tests that Elaine has already had run. She said that the treatment protocol that our pediatric oncologist put Elaine on is the same protocol that she currently has a pat

From Elaine's CaringBridge Site Journal entry by Laura Roberts — 6/11/2015 I can not begin to tell you what a rollercoaster we have been on this week. It has been anything but fun. As I said in my update earlier this week Elaine is sick, sick, sick from these treatments. Even today, three days after her last treatment she is still sick from side effects of the chemo. Sunday night we ended up in the Children's Hospital Emergency Room. Elaine was complaining about a stomach