No Evidence of Disease

We met with the oncologist Wednesday afternoon. Short story, no evidence of cancer! We can breathe again and live another three months. The cysts that were identified in the brain last time (June) are still there and not substantially changed from last time. Last time, it was noted that they were more pronounced than previously. We asked doc about them and did we need to be concerned. He indicated that they are something that needs to be watched, but he isn't particularly concerned about them. In areas that are radiated (which this area was), the body "heals" in different ways. One of those ways can be to form these cysts. So for now, we wait and don't worry.

Doc spoke with the radiation oncologist about Rebekah's radiation treatment and how much radiation Rebekah's brain had received. Doc always thought of the hit to the brain as "scatter" and therefore considered its damage to the brain "minimal". Our impression from the radiation oncologist was that it wasn't insignificant. Anyway, the radiation oncologist wouldn't call it scatter, but rather unavoidable. So Doc is changing his thinking a little about it.

Oncology will be helping us with the insurance appeal on the Tango!, so that is good news. And doc eased our minds about the new medication we wanted to try for Rebekah, so we started that today. We will see how it goes.

We are in the camping trailer at Candlelighters Family Camp. Actually, Family Camp doesn't start until tomorrow morning, but since Mommy and Daddy are on the Camp Committee we were able to come down early and be ready to help first thing in the morning. The girls were both very excited to go to Family Camp. They seem to look forward to it for quite a while. If you don't remember, Candlelighters is a group for families with children with cancer. We have about 300 people who will attend camp this year. That is up from previous years.

Both girls seem to be looking forward to school starting next week. In the last week, we've gotten bus pick up and drop off times and worked out some of the details. We purchased school supplies. We found out that Sarah's class will be Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We were able to get Sarah's speech therapy scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that will be good. It won't start back up until the middle of October.

Hope you all enjoy your holiday weekend and can spend it with those you love.