April 26th Tuesday: MRI Day

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Charlotte had her MRI today.
We got up early and were on the road by 5:40, so it has been a fairly long day!

The MRI itself went well, Charlotte took the anaesthesia well and woke up happily. The results left us feeling a little unsettled. There was no sure sign of cancer at least. There was a "thickening" of the edge of the cavity all the way around which seemed to be expected, or at least explained. There was one little area at the back- bottom of the cavity that was thicker looking than the rest of it. This thickening is a layer around the perimeter that acts like a barrier or scar tissue between the brain and the cavity left from surgery. Charlotte's oncologist checked with her surgeon before speaking with us to see if he had any clues, he has not come back with anything. She also put in a call to the radiation oncologist to see if he had any ideas about why this could be. She is wondering if it could have been affected differently because of where the field of radiation was in her head. Hopefully we will know a bit more tomorrow.

Since today was inconclusive and we know that this tumour is very aggressive our oncologist asked to push our next MRI up a couple weeks, the original plan was for every six weeks. I guess we will be back within a month to take another look.

Thank you all for your prayers, Allison

April 8th Friday: Nice to be home!

 We came home to find some signs of spring. Its so nice to be back. We have picked up where we left of with the basement renos, its starting to really look good. Hopefully we will never have to worry about flooding again!

 Charlotte is looking so good (in my opinion at least) the weight she gained while in the hospital seemd to kind of kick-start her system. She has a little more energy and is eating much better. Now if we could only improve on the sleeping!

Thank you all for your prayers and support, we really appreciate hearing from you!

April 1st Friday: Yolandas Birthday

It was Yolandas birthday... not much  of a party but she had some fun in the midst of it all.

This is how we set Charlotte up each night. She refused to use the nose oxygen prongs so we made a little tent and hooked up the tubes to blow by her face all night... this was far from peaceful for any of us! The oxygen also has humidity bottle hooked up... so every once and a while the tube drips from condensation, right onto her pillow or face. Then if she rolled facing away from the oxygen she would not get enough into her system and the monitor would BEEEEEP. This was every night, then whoever was spending the night had to get up, adjust the hoses (or the sleeping girl) try to get the oxygen levels back up.

 Here is the birthday girl, she got to open a couple of gifts and daddy took her out to get "THE" new movie (Disney's Tangled.) She has been talking about Rapunzel even since we went to see it in the theater.

 Charlotte watching the unwrapping, not much energy yet.

Some very enthused "Tangled" viewers... the camera just didn't capture the excitement very well. Rob especially was on the edge of his seat!

 At least Charlotte started eating a little more. Everything had to be cut tiny and dipped in honey for the princess for a few days. You can see my finger splint, I cut the tendon over my knuckle and now it needs to be splinted for 6 weeks... then they will see about surgery. (I had a cheese grater accident back in December- so lame!)

 This was the first day Charlotte was actually up, she sure had fun having Yolanda to play with.

 She was not stable enough to stand or walk yet, she had been laying down for a week. We had her up once but it was greatly protested. Yolanda and I tried to do a puppet show outside the door to get her to stand with Rob to watch, but she was pretty shaky.

Although I don't particularly like it, I feel like this last picture really represents my life right now. Sitting. Waiting. Not much going on... The picture looks a little washed out, appropriate for how I currently feel. Charlotte's hooked up to her hospital pump, hooked up for how long we dont know- we will never know. There is some food tucked in there too. We are relentless at getting her take a bite of anything- there are snacks tucked in the bottom of my purse, diaper bag, truck console, upstairs, downstairs. There are some stickers... this girl loves stickers, especially puppies and kitties... at the end of each night I pick them off of everything, clothes, furniture, toys, my washing machine is lined with the ones I have missed. Its fitting that this picutres cropped tight too, there is nothing going on outside of this scene that we are able to focus on right now.