Day 73 - End of Cycle 2

A busy, busy week. Madeleine got everything completed on her checklist. Here are the results:

Smiling at Daddy

* MRI's of her brain and spine - we were SO HAPPY to report on Monday evening that the MRI came back without ANY evidence of disease or spreading. For all intents and purposes, she is cancer-free!!! That was really the biggest news and happy dance of the week.

* Another lumbar puncture - She did amazing on Thursday. We found out Friday afternoon that the tests all came back negative, a huge plus is the right direction.

Sitting on her own looking at her puppy

* Audiology test for hearing - this may be the next biggest news of the week: at this juncture of treatment the doctors were expecting that Madeleine would have more hearing loss into the speaking levels of hearing. Well, last month she had signs of high pitch hearing loss, and Thursday's test showed NO HEARING LOSS AT ALL!! As her Nana says, "when God heals, He doesn't half-way heal! He is going to heal her completely!" We were surprised and overjoyed we're not picking out hot pink hearing aids just yet ;)
* A surgery to replace her CVC, the line in her chest - removed from the left side of her chest and reinserted into her neck on her right side. Because of this re-positioning, it's not likely that she'll have the same problems as before with the line moving out of place, difficulty drawing blood, etc. She's been a little bit sore on both sides of her chest and back but that should heal up quickly.

Notice the leg lifts! 

* Be completely off the morphine and IV nutrition - she's off the morphine as of Thursday and has her last wean from the IV Saturday morning, if necessary! So far into the night they have NOT put her back on it!   
* Be 100% recovered - just about! She's been getting back into the swing of things eating and a recovering belly and gut certainly doesn't help. We have to feed smaller amounts more frequently again, so that has been the focus of her recovery since Thursday afternoon. As long as Madeleine can take in enough calories by nursing, she will be discharged Saturday morning and we'll get to be home for a couple of days as a family. This weekend is supposed to rain, so it's just our kind of weekend: crock pot meals, movies and staying in! :) Annalise will be happy to be home too with her stuff and her bed. She sometimes has difficulty being home for just an afternoon, she doesn't want to leave to go anywhere thinking we're dropping her off and going back to the hospital. So we are all really looking forward to the weekend.

Playing independently with her toys

Today is day 73 inpatient, and many more to go, but right now we're all doing pretty well and gearing up for chemo again next week. Looking forward to the weekend :)