Home

Maddy is home.  On Saturday, she did escape the hospital and attended her sister's confirmation.  She drank her whole Gatorade just as she promised she would.  We then all went back to the hospital and brought food in and took over the family lounge on the sixth floor.  Julia never complained about having to compromise on her big day-  she is a very special big sis.  Maddy was discharged on Sunday afternoon.  The mouth sores are taking over and Maddy is tired-  she took a three hour nap today.  As usual though, Maddy is a trooper.

Confirmation Day

Feeling Better

To pick up where I left off- Maddy had her chemo treatment on Wednesday evening as planned. The chemo runs for twelve hours, so when it was done Thursday morning, they sedated Maddy to check out her central line. They discovered once they cleaned away all the blood that what they thought was the cuff of the catheter coming out was actually tissue. They were able to cut that away and resuture. She was then good to go for the next twelve hour chemo treatment. Maddy is sore, bruised, and now tired, but otherwise in good spirits. When she found out that she was not going to get out of the hospital until Sunday, she even convinced the doctor to let her escape for a little while to attend Julia's confirmation. She had to promise that she would keep drinking while she was gone. Luckily, the ceremony is at a church in Toledo very close to the hospital. We will then bring the party to the hospital. I hope they don't mind us taking over the family lounge!

In for Treatment

Maddy's counts finally recovered, but surgery didn't have an opening on Tuesday, so she went went to the hospital today.  She started the morning having surgery to put her central line back in.  Then there were some delays, so she won't start her chemo until sometime around 11:30 PM tonight.  Maddy is hurting which breaks our hearts.  Her site was also bleeding after surgery, so they had to change her bandage already which was traumatic for Maddy. When they changed her bandage, they noticed that the "cuff" of the catheter (the part that holds the catheter in) was slipping out.  Of course, this is not good considering we need the catheter to stay in for the long haul.  The surgeon's assistant didn't want to put Maddy through anything more tonight, so they may look into trying to fix that tomorrow if they can.  : (

All of this, and we are trying to get ready for Julia to be Confirmed on Saturday.  Our hopes were that Maddy would be out of the hospital, so we could be together for the event.  It is currently not looking good...  so the 6th floor at St. Vs better watch out because we will have to bring the party to Maddy!


P.S.-  Thanks to everyone that participated and/or donated to the St. Balderick's event.  It was very successful.  As always, we feel blessed to be surrounded by such caring people!

Update

I just noticed that we had not posted an update since March 3rd and it is already March 18th-  this month is just flying by so fast.  Since our last post, Maddy has managed to stay home for the most part with the exception of a trip to the hospital for transfusions.  We have just been waiting for her counts to recover so she can start her next chemo treatment.  It has been postponed a couple of weeks now.  She is getting bloodwork on Monday and will hopefully go to the hospital on Tuesday.  At this time, she will have surgery to replace her central line catheter and remove the temporary picc line.  Then she will have her chemo treatment.

The delay has allowed us to enjoy the beautiful weather.  We have been able to take walks, play outside, and we went to visit Aunt Alicia this weekend and visited the Cleveland Zoo.  Life has been good!


Tomorrow, Russ is going to have his head shaved at the the annual St. Baldrick's event held at Terry Henricks in Archbold.  All the money raised through this event is donated specifically to finding a cure for childhood cancer.  You can see all the details at:

http://www.stbaldricks.org/events/mypage/4276/2012

We want to thank everyone in advance for supporting this event and for honoring Maddy!!!

Home Sweet Home

We are all home at last!