This is a hard post to write. Then again it's a hard place to be, so I guess we can expect that. Today we did the scan, which was a bit of a long story, and I might get to that later, but it's hard to focus on that when we got the results unprecedentedly quickly. The doc is supposed to be on her day off today, but she called us in with the results anyway.
Backstory: she's doing chemo (duh) to reduce the size of her tumor (duh). If her tumour decreases in size to 50 percent we get to stop the slightly toxic cure and I'm betting there would be much dancing. Anyway, the doc called back and gave us the good news: it is making great progress, it has shrunk to just shy of the mark. But wait, their are two ways of measuring size and it has shrunk over 50% in one sense and not quite in the other. But wait, 50 percent is kind of an arbitrary line anyway. There are a few more details as well, but the end synopsis is that a very nice lady with a PH.D. two prestigious fellowships and some 14 years of experience in the field came to us and basically told us there were two acceptable paths forward. Wow, that was a run on sentence... Anyway, so yeah, a highly trained professional told me that she had a "suggestion" about what to do next.
Now, to be clear, I don't want it to sound like I'm focusing on the bad here. Let's take a moment and gain a little perspective. Cambria has done 2 sessions out of an 8 session itinerary. This wasn't created for Cambria, this is a tried and true series. However, it unfortunately doesn't always get the treated tumors where they need to go. A lot of kids in similar scenarios have to go on to more harsh treatments and even to some of the clinical trials they are doing in Australia. Sometimes that doesn't even get the job done. Out of that long and brutal series of treatments our daughter has barely anteed up and we are already debating on whether she's done or not. Seriously praise the good Lord.
So yeah, back to the confusing. We have been given two options. give our daughter two more rounds of chemo, which are a tid bit more difficult then the last two. This of course has the risk of side effects, blah blah, we all know to fear the word Chemo. Down the second path is more of the wait and see tribe. This of course runs the risk of having the cancer strikes back be the sequel to our little drama. Of course, no one wants that.
What do you do when both the disease and the cure make you want to hide? Up until this point everything has been clear set and defined. Of course we go to Children's, of course we get whatever scan they ask for, of course we do chemo if surgery isn't an option. I guess we got a little used to the comfort of those of course's.
I would like to ask something of all of you guys and gals reading this. What I'm asking for is prayer. Prayer for confidence, and prayer for peace in the decision, and prayer in thanksgiving for all the progress that has been made in such a short time.
It's shrunk a whole bunch, Our God is an awesome God.
P.S. in other news my daughter has made a flying leap in the field of communication. She has developed a way to convay that she is undergoing the action of defecating. Just to describe this scenario when my daughter poops she sounds like a pterodactyl in a fight, or what I imagine that would sound like.
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