2nd Round

We went down Thursday to Milwaukee for Addison's second round of chemo and a hip ultrasound. The ultrasound came out perfect, she had to have it to make sure her hips were okay after being breech. And we got some additonal great news that the tumor has regressed slightly. We can't see this visually but by physically measuring the hemangioma and comparing it to last weeks measurements they can tell it has shrunk. We are very thankful that it has not only stopped growing but has started to go away. We are looking forward to next week as that is generally the time frame in which you start to see visual changes. Her second round of chemo went well and her PICC line looks great. She did get a small skin tear when they took off her dressing so we hope that heals well and next week the dressing will come off a bit smoother.

What a tough little bugger. She was smiling and cooing while the nurses took her blood pressure.

Today, she has been sleeping a lot and is pretty uncomfortable when awake. Last week it took two days to hit her and this week it only took one day. Hopefully this means she will be feeling better a lot faster this week. The Dr. also switched around some of her meds to help with the side effects. He thinks her anti constipation meds were giving her stomach cramps which might have been what make her so uncomfortable last week. He took her off that med completley and told us to use prune juice if she seemed constipated. He also said we didn't need to give her the antibiotic which prevents against pneumonia. The antibiotic tasted terrible and we tried everything to get her to take it last week. He said he's not that worried about her not having it so for now we'll hold off on it. She's been having really bad gas which seems to hurt her so he said we should give her Mylicon drops a couple of times a day to relieve this. Additionally we felt her oxycodone given for pain was making her wired so Dr. Kelly discontinued that and said to give her children's Tylenol for the pain and gave us a Rx for morphine if the Tylenol doesn't work. We have to be really careful with the Tylenol though because it masks fever. And a fever is a sign that her PICC line is infected. So we'll use it with caution. We'll see how it goes this week. Her current Meds:

Zantac twice a day to decrease the acid reflux

Tylenol as needed for pain, Morphine if Tylenol doesn't work

Prune juice as needed for constipation

Outside of Children's Hospital in Milwaukee. It's cold here!

I've been continueing to do research on hemangiomas and Vincristine (chemo med) and I am very happy with the results. Every research paper, study, etc. I have read I always look to see where it was done and who conducted it. The majority of the time (here in the US) Dr. Drolet and Dr. Kelly, Addison's Dr's, names appear. It just reconfirms in my mind that this is the reason we were sent to Sturgeon Bay, for Addison to be able to be treated by the top Dr's in the hemangioma field.