Surgery Complete!

The surgery was scheduled for 1 pm today but they didn't actually take her until 2:20 pm by than Joe & I were starving but couldn't eat in front of her or go get anything because we thought she'd be going any minute. They said it would take an hour to an hour and a half. The doctor came to us around 3:30 and everything had gone well and we were in to see her by 3:40. The nurse in recovery said she had felt nauseated so they gave her a gravol and Meghan said she was very sleepy, and by 4 we were up on the 4th floor recovering, where she slept till 6 and we were released at 7. She's a bit sore but doing well and was very hungry when she woke. We are back down on Monday for chemo and I guess they'll check the stitches than.

Thanks for all your well wishes and prayers!

Michelle

Tuesday, May 30th

Meghan is scheduled for her surgery tomorrow at 1 pm and we have to be there at 11 am. It will take about 1 1/2 hours in length and it is 4 to 6 hours recovery. I will let you all know how it goes as soon as I can. We should be home Wednesday night, anywhere in between 7 - 9 pm. I'm sure it will be a long day :)

Michelle

Sun. May 26th

On Friday we were down for blood counts and they were great. Her surgery is scheduled for Wed. May 30th for the removal of her port. This is a picutre of Connie who takes Meghan's blood every time and her room is filled with pictures of all the kids, so this one will be posted on her wall. We met with our doctor and he's decided that he will hold off on her one chemo med vincristine because it has caused the nerve damage and now the acrocyanosis, which has been slightly better. She has been looking great and feeling great as well. Her hair is really starting to come in and she looks great with short hair but she's not ready to go without her wig to to many places, unless she has her hood on like in this picture. She has such a beautiful face for short hair, not everyone can get away with it. Her next round of chemo is scheduled for Monday, June 4th. She has still been breaking out in a rash usually the 3rd day of her meds and we've realized that it's the large dose of prednisone that's causing that, she had it when she was in the hospital as well.

I hear from many of you when I see you that you have trouble making comments but you still read this and that's wonderful and we appreciate all your love and prayers.

On Friday, June 8th Meghan is going off to a spa for the day that is organized through the social worker at the hospital and all the teenage girls that are lukemia/lymphoma patients go and she is so looking forward to that, unfortunately she can't take her mom :*( I'll have to go find a spa for myself that day, ha ha!

Michelle

HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY MEGHAN!

Today is Meghan's 15th birthday and I just want to celebrate. This is a picture I took the other day of her and the other picture is of Meghan, Jamie, Julie (their cousin) and Granny (Joe's mom) on Mother's Day. She is looking so good and feeling great right now so that's reason enough to celebrate.

We love you and hope you have a fantastic day!















Love Mom, Dad, Josh & Jamie
xoxox

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day, I know I did. Jamie and I went on the Meagan's Walk starting at Ontario Place and walked 5km to Sick Kids and than at 11:45 am there was a human hug of the hospital, it was a very emotional experience, but wonderful and great quality time with Jamie. Thank you to all those who sponsored us, we raised $500! I also have the kids make me dinner which was wonderful, what a great family I have!

Meghan was back down yesterday for chemo and it was busiest day yet. Unfortunately because of her acrocyanosis (I spelt it wrong the other day) they want to hold off on the IV chemos as they checked with the pharmacist and apparently those 2 chemos can cause this and it could lead to Gangrene, which of course they want to avoid. So for now she will have her 2 meds that she has at home in pill form and the next round she'll have the one IV chemo and they may introduce the other med the next time but they also may hold that one permanently, but they will wait and see how things go. She's feeling great and her counts were obviously good. I know this sounds weird but of course I'd prefer her to have her chemo but they say there's a lot of kids that have that one chemo withheld from there protocol because it doesn't agree with them. So we will wait and see how things go.

We are back down on Friday, May 25th for counts.

Michelle

At Sick Kids Again!!!!!

This morning when Meghan woke up at 10:30 she had Vanessa the physio girl come and just about 10 minutes after getting up we noticed that her feet were really red, so Vanessa and I looked at her legs and they were turning purple and they were room temperature. She has had cold feet and hands for awhile now but it's usually been later in the day and I just chalked it up to the cold weather and her not having socks on but today they were extremely discoloured up to her knees and her hands were slightly swollen & red too. So Vanessa encouraged us to call our nurse Lisa and she waited here at home until our nurse spoke to the doctor and called us back and asked us to come right down to clinic or we'd have to go through emerg, which we didn't want to do, so we packed up and headed down to Sick Kids. When we got there they put us in a room and we had a few doctors check her out but by than they weren't nearly as blue/purple as they were at home. So they did some blood tests and were considering doing chemo today if everything went well but they wanted to figure out what was wrong first. So they managed to get us an appt. with rheumatology at 3pm and after lots of doctors looking at her and asking lots of questions, it turns out that Meghan has acrocynoses (I'm not sure if it's spelt properly) and basically it's common with thin teenage girls. The blood is slow circulating, and you just have to dress warm, wear socks, gloves, jackets and it's more common in the winter. She has to keep walking and keep the blood moving. Needless to say we didn't leave until 4:30 so it was too late for chemo so we're back on Monday instead of tomorrow. But the good news is her counts are up so she's ready for chemo and hopefully they'll stay that way for Monday. Oh and as for the surgery it was scheduled for the 16th and than changed again to the 17th, but they cancelled that because that's Meghan's birthday so now it's booked for the 30th, hopefully it stays that way.

Never a dull moment!

Michelle

Counts are still low

Unfortunately Meghan's blood counts were still too low today and she wasn't able to get chemo, so we are heading back on Friday, to try again. Her surgery is rescheduled for next Wed. the 16th, it's the day before her birthday and the nurse that books it said oh I guess you'll want to cancel it than, and we said "NO". We asked about her going to school this week and her doctor said it's okay for her to go, just stay away from anyone who's sick and coughing, it's easier said than done, especially in a school full of germs. We are staying very low key, just sitting in the yard and that's about it and I'm trying to get her to go to bed a bit earlier to see if a better night sleep will help bring up her counts. What is you're suppose to do, visualize, alright here goes, I'm visualizing Meghan having chemo on Friday, ha ha! I can only hope it works, I'll let you know.

Michelle

DOUBLE POSTPONEMENT

Today we were down for chemo but unfortunately her counts were too low so chemo is rescheduled for Monday. She also had the surgery for the removal of her port scheduled for Tuesday and they have cancelled that again, they will call us when they have another date. So by 10:30 am we were heading home. She's disappointed about not going to school today & Monday, but if she catches anything than she won't have chemo on Monday and it will just keep delaying this. It must be hard to be missing so much school but the whole thing is to keep her healthy and out of the hospital. It is very difficult when the weather is nice because you just want to get out and I told her I was going to lock her in the house, well not really but it's almost what you have to do. She can sit in the backyard but she has to be careful of the sun with the medication she's on. Besides that she's feeling fine, looking good and her hair is starting to grow and they figure she probably won't lose anymore hair because the chemo she's on doesn't cause the hairloss like the one she was on a few weeks ago. I hate to actually say it but everything seems to be going well.

Michelle

Thanks again to Elaine for pushing the sponsoring and to all those who have sponsored we really appreciate it and are really looking forward to this worthwhile Walk!

Postponed!

I just got a call to say that Meghan's surgery for tomorrow has been postponed because an emergency came up, and we of all people know what it's like when you have to be bumped because it's an emergency so we didn't mind. Although I've kept her home for 2 days because of her counts being low and we didn't want the surgery postponed, ha ha! Anyhow it is now scheduled for next Tuesday and we will get all the info on Friday when we go for chemo. So thanks to all of you for your prayers but hold them until next week.

M