Chemo #4

It has been a great week. Julia is feeling good and enjoying time with her family and playing with all of her new toys. John came home from KY on Wednesday night and James has been off school since Thursday. Amanda came over for Christmas Eve dinner. Santa brought Julia lots of toys – a Barbie doll house and car and a Princess Tiana doll. She has been playing with them non-stop. Aunt Donna and Uncle Howard came over on Saturday to play and on Sunday, Julia was able to go to a party at Uncle Mike and Aunt Jackie’s house. It was so good for her to see all the family. Today was chemo treatment number 4. All of Julia’s counts were very good and her weight came back a bit this week. This week’s treatment was VinCristin and Docorubicin. The Docorubicin is a new drug and can cause severe nausea. Julia was given an IV with Zofrin before the chemo this week to help with that. She will be able to have Zofrin again tomorrow if needed (by mouth this time). Hopefully, Julia will not need to take this and won’t have any nausea. The great news is that the tumor is reacting just as we want it to – it is half the size it was two weeks ago! Dr. Stern is so happy with Julia’s progress and was amazed at how quickly the tumor has begun to shrink. The other news is that chromosome test on the tumor is back and it does not have any of the markings that would indicate that it is a more aggressive form of cancer. It has been a great day for good news!