Julia had her weekly doctor’s appointment and labs Monday afternoon. All her labs are great and her counts have rebounded well since last week. Julia also had a chest x-ray in preparation for next week (more about the results later). Julia will be having surgery next Monday or Tuesday (waiting for the surgery scheduler to call) to have a chemo port placed. This will be outpatient surgery at CHOP in Philadelphia. Julia’s new port will remain accessed and she will have round #3 of chemo for the next three days – a new cocktail of Carboplatin and Etoposide (no Cytoxan for this cycle). As usual, her chemo will be at the King of Prussia CHOP clinic. Julia has been full of energy this week and thi

Julia had her lab work today and all her counts are holding their own – ANC 1216, platelets 153 (reference 150-400), hemoglobin 10.2 (reference 11.5-15.5), and white blood cell 1.6 (reference 5.0-14.5). Although some of the counts are lower than the reference, all is good. We just don’t know if she has hit bottom yet before she will begin to rebound. Keep your fingers crossed that we are at the lowest point after this cycle of chemo. The meds are working well to subside any nausea she is having. Think we have the right combination going. Julia’s energy level has been great and she continues to amaze us with her resilience.

Three chemo treatments down and two to go. Julia got through the first three treatments with the same IV. We flushed it in the evenings and luckily we were able to keep her accessed with the same line until the end of today. There was a little scare this morning when we first got to clinic, the line had started to move out, but Moy (one of Julia’s nurses today) was able to do her magic and secure the line. Yesterday, they added a type of steroid to the mix when they gave Julia Zofran. This seemed to make things better this morning. Julia’s appetite was better mid-day and into dinner. Hopefully, we have a good plan in place and the right combinations of drugs to help subside some of the bad s

Julia had a great time at Hershey Park this weekend, even though the weather was a bit wet. She had a big surprise when our friends Tracy and Blake, with their daughters, Brooke and Kate, came to join the fun. When they came to our hotel room, Julia wasn’t sure what to think. When Tracy said they were going to join us at Hershey Park, Julia’s face lite up and she gave Tracy a big hug. For the rest of the weekend, Julia had to sit between either Brooke or Kate and alternate who she road with in the car. She had a blast! Today was a full day at clinic and the start of the second round of chemo. We had placed the patch of Scopolamine behind Julia’s ear last night to start to offset any nausea t

Julia had an appointment with her oncologist, Dr. Stern, today. She had to get her weekly labs taken. All her counts are great (ANC 3200). Julia had her exam and Dr. Stern mentioned that her right lung sounded unrestricted and no longer “crackled”. We won’t know for sure if the tumor is shrinking until scans or x-rays are once again completed, but this is a great sign. Julia will most likely have an x-ray completed the week of August 22. Also, Dr. Stern mentioned that Julia should be able to have her port placed on August 29 with chemo (Round 3) happening the days that follow. This past weekend we saw more physical signs of chemo. Julia’s hair started to thin out on Thursday morning. On Frid