We had a great Christmas and hope that everyone else did as well! Ours started out with an early Christmas present from Abigail. On Dec. 23rd, Abby had her third MRI Scan of her tumor done and we were again very pleased with the results! After the tumor shrunk by around ½ between the first and second scan, it shrunk by around ½ again!! The scan also shows that the tumor is not as dense as it was earlier either. The tumor was not as white as it was in the previous scans, and Dr. Limbrick told us that was because it’s not as thick, which is good.
Before the scan, Abby’s blood counts dropped again. Her ANC counts went down to around 400. Since this is the second time that her ANC has dropped, the protocol for the clinical study states that she can no longer take the chemo again. We asked her doctors what that meant, and they said that a lot of it would depend on how the tumor looks on the scan. They said that if the scan shows that the tumor is shrinking, then they will just “observe” Abby, until any adverse effects start happening. If it were to grow, then they would all get together and have a meeting and figure out the next step.
So, since her tumor has shrunk, they are going to start observing Abby by taking MRI scans every 3 months for a year. After this year, as long as the tumor doesn’t grow and Abby does not start showing her symptoms again, they will do MRI’s every six months for either one year or three years. After the six month scans, then they would go to yearly scans every year for 10 years. After that period, they would do yearly checkups with Abby. So that is the hope and plan for now. If any symptoms start showing and the tumor starts growing, then they said that we would be back at square one and then go from there. So we are hoping that we get many years of good scans in our future!
The girls had a wonderful Christmas! Children’s Hospital had a new group start up this year called Leaps of Love which found a family that “adopted us” and bought presents for the entire family! The family that adopted us got the girls a HUGE doll house that some friends of ours put together while we were in St. Louis so that when we got home, the girls came home to find a huge doll house! They were very happy with that. They were also very happy having had just come from opening Christmas presents at my parents’ house. They got a Nintendo Wii Fit game with all of the Nickelodeon characters doing different exercises. The girls love doing it! The girls, Maegan and I all got some great presents from Grandma and Grandpa Jensen and enjoyed spending time with them!
We then drove home Christmas Eve through the snow which was very pretty, but not fun to drive in! We made it home and after the girls played with the new doll house, we went up to Grandma and Grandpa Miller’s house for Christmas. It was nice because it was the first time that Abby was able to spend time with her cousin’s and Aunt Amber and Uncle Bobby. After a great dinner, we exchanged presents and had a great time hanging out with family! We then came back home just in time to not miss Santa showing up! Christmas morning was a blast watching the girls opening the presents we got them and the i-Carly guitar for Mary-Beth, a pink princess guitar for Abby, and a new baby stroller and Baby Alive for Emily.
It was definitely a great Christmas, and now Abby is anxiously awaiting her birthday tomorrow! My parents will be coming down for the birthday girl and we are just going to have a small party. We then are going to have a bigger birthday party for Abby during the summer where we can have her friends come out and celebrate with us.
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