Dr. Sholler Rocks

Emily has one day left of this round (round 5), that being tomorrow. We will head to the clinic in the morning, have counts checked to see how her numbers are looking and then have chemo. Hopefully she won't need any blood or platelets because after clinic, we are volunteering our time at the Lemonade Stand. Emily will also get to take a picture tomorrow with the Therapy Dogs Group, "Dogs on Call" that comes in, with her favorite dog Stewie.

Emily during chemo at clinic 7-19-12

Emily has been doing ok this week, she has been falling asleep about 7-730PM this week and then getting up in the morning to go to clinic for chemo. During the day she seems to be doing fine, but during the evening she is a bit more tired. A couple of times this week she has complained of tummy pain, the first time we gave her zofran, but tonight we gave her some peppermint oil that we rubbed on her belly and that seemed to help a bit. As the week has gone on, she isn't eating as much, so we are giving her megace in the morning and evening with hopes that this will help with her eating. Thankfully she didn't have any side effects to the Zometa and overall seems to have done fine with that.


Emily will have her fluids tomorrow evening and then Saturday morning, I will be able to deaccess her. Sue and Jojo will be coming into town tomorrow afternoon to visit for the weekend and we are looking forward to relaxing with them. This round is already proving to be a bit harder on Emily than the last one. We would suspect that the increasing of the Nifurtimox the day before chemo up to 3 and keeping on probably has a lot do with that. We are hoping for no fevers, continued eating habits and no weight loss, so please hope and think about her during this time.

Have you guys heard of Dr. Sholler? She is one amazing pediatric oncology doctor that specializes in neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma at Van Andel Institute and Helen DeVos. When we last saw her last week, she said to us, " Please tell anyone that has been trying to contact me, I am getting back to everyone, it has just been taking some time and I am not ignoring them!" Dr. Sholler has really picked up a lot of patients and we are happy to see her taking these patients in and having "HOPE" and taking care of them. Dr. Sholler not only researches many drugs that can help these children, she also does a lot of research on the natural/homeopathic field of things, and honestly that is just amazing and she shares what she researches. Dr Sholler has a great way with interacting with these kids and most of these kids who don't normally react with other doctors interact with her.

About a week ago, Emily's bestest friend Sue and Jojo, made t-shirts with Emily's Hope Cure Childhood Cancer. They were making them and sending them to us and Sue asked for Dr. Sholler's address because she wanted to send her the Neuroblastoma pin and a t-shirt and a thank you note. Sue and Jojo, you guys rock and we love all that you do for us and other families.

Today we received a text message from Sue with the thank you note handwritten directly from Dr. Sholler. That is right, Sue got a "thank you" note from Dr. Sholler and my favorite part out of this note is "I do hope and believe that together we will make a difference". She said hope, what a woman to take a minute out to say "thank you" to someone who believes in her and what she is doing for our children. Dr. Sholler, we love you and thank you for all that you do for all of our families.
Just a quick update to tell you about how Emily is doing and Dr. Sholler. Please send out your love and thoughts for Emily for an easy Friday with no transfusions and no extreme drops of counts and a great weekend.