Kassidys Road to Recovery: September 19, 2012

Happy 17th Birthday to our sweet Kassidy!

Last Wednesday, was Kassidy's 17th birthday. Oh what a great day she had! The day started off with her feeling pretty good that morning, that in itself is always fabulous.

In her first period at school, she received flowers and a singing balloon from one of her coaches and teachers. We just love her coaches, they are so good to her!

Since she leaves 5 minutes early from each class, to prevent from tangling her tubes with other students going from class to class; she was alone in the hallways carrying her backpack, binders, flowers and singing balloon. She had so much in her arms that the balloon kept hitting her head and letting everyone know that someone outside had a birthday. Hahahahaaha She loved it!

The singing balloon & flowers!

Also at first lunch, coaches and a couple of the softball girls had a surprise party for her where they sang happy birthday, had cake, donuts and milk. Talk about sugar overload! But it was her birthday, but otherwise her sugar intake is quite controlled! We let is slide.

That evening we took her and two of her good friends to her favorite place, Cheesecake Factory. We had a great night spending time with the girls and just thanking God what a blessing it is to have Kass with us each day. We never knew how our little girl would impact our lives. I know that we sure appreciate things so much more now. Special memories mean the world to us now.

Kass good friends Kayla & Bailey

It was so great to see her open the little knick knacks we got her and especially the big surprise we had in store for her for her special day; tickets to the Ellen Show.

Do you think she was excited to get tickets to Ellen?

This weekend ended being busy for her as well. Her friend Tori came home from NAU, so Kass got to spend the night on Friday at her house and Tori came over Saturday to our house, of course with Ryan and I stressing a bit because she was away from us for a Friday night. We prepared her medication before she left, but she still would have to hook the new bags and program the pump herself. She did amazing and I think we underestimated her a bit!

When she got home Saturday afternoon she gave us a scare. She came home with a splitting headache where she was having a hard time seeing and her feet were numb. Ahhhhhhh! She asked for a dose of IV decadron, something she never does. That seem to the trick and she felt better after a couple minutes. She's learning to listen to her body! We are so glad, even though deep inside we were wondering what the heck does this mean; tumor growth or .....

Sunday we also had a small bbq for friends to celebrate with those we couldn't celebrate with on Wednesday. Thank you to all those who were able to make it and share Kassidy's birthday celebration with us. We appreciate you.

Happy Birthday!

Friends Trinity & TJ

This week was again the dreaded MRI week. On Tuesday, Ryan actually took Kass to her appointment, he decided to take off Tuesday and Wednesday to be home to help me thru those two dreaded days. Kass had it rough on Tuesday, she ended up throwing up in the bathroom at Steinberg before she had to go in the magnet, but she made it thru her MRI and came home so we could continue her treatments. She also had a mishap in her car after coming home that day from her hyperbaric appointment, she got an urge to throw up and couldn't pull over and got it everywhere in her car. That was not so fun for Ryan and I to clean up. LOL!

Today we anxiously waited to MRI results, every time the phone rang we would jump. Dr. Barbara called and gave us prelim results of the MRI and said the tumor is stable. Sigh!!! I don't think we've ever been so happy about a stable MRI. I guess July's MRI when she had 14% increase in her tumor scared us to death. I guess we have learned to love stable! She said since Kassidy has only been on full dose for 3 weeks she hopes we see better results next scan. We are hoping and praying and trusting God to guide us with the next step!!!

I wanted to remind you of two fundraisers coming up for Kassidy:

Kass will be this year's face of

Ride for Life

Saturday, October 6