Day 1 Round 4

We decided to go ahead and do the third injection.

We have just now settled into our room here. The day usually starts by checking in to the surgery floor at 6 or 7 am (today it wasn't until 745). We do pre op stuff and then 2 hours later Gracie goes for her EUA and today she got her last subtenon carboplatin injection (also under anesthesia). It takes about an hour. Then we get called to a little room where Dr. P. discusses with us what she saw during the exam and how everything went. After that we go to the recovery room. If all goes well we're usually on the surgery floor for about 4 hours. Then we start waiting for a bed to become available. We've had to wait in various places including the cancer clinic and recovery room. Our wait has usually been between 4 and 6 hours. It seems like forever. So by the time we get our room we're usually very grateful as we can finally settle in for the remainder of our stay. It's too bad cancer beds are such a commodity. We could stand a lot fewer children having cancer.

So back to our discussion with Dr. P. in that little room. Basically we haven't seen any change in either eye. Things don't look great for her right eye and now we're a little concerned with her left eye too. We've always been prepared for the worst with her right eye although we continue to hope and pray for the best. But Dr. P feels that her right eye will most likely need to be removed. The results from next months EUA will probably be the deciding factor. The 2 tumors in the left eye were just supposed to melt away with chemo and they're not exactly doing what they're supposed to. They responded to the first couple of rounds, but not much to note after this one. Kind of frustrating. But they are still small enough (B tumors - "A" being the smallest and E the largest) that we have several treatment options available. Next round they're going to try a different laser. Then they have cryotherapy and radioactive plaques still to go to. She said she used more of the laser today hoping that that would make a difference. We'll only do more than 6 rounds of chemo if those other local treatments don't work and the tumors actually start to grow again.

Gracie is doing remarkably well this time. After the procedure she even ate some toast and usually she doesn't eat anything until Saturday morning just before discharge. She saw Santa Claus on her way between the cancer clinic and the inpatient unit. He gave her a stuffed cat with a Santa hat on it. Good deal considering we left her Miss Piggy at home on accident. Crisis averted. She only got one dose of morphine and that was still in the OR. She's doing really well on just tylenol 3. She's not skipping and jumping or anything, but all thing considered she's doing really well. Dr. P. tested her acuity in both eyes while she was under anesthesia too. That's really the most accurate way for small children. She still has great acuity in both eyes. Go figure, with all that she's got going on in those little brown eyes they're still working better than mine. We're going to get her glasses on Wednesday for safety purposes, but they'll just have plain glass in them.


James and I are doing really well too. We feel such peace and comfort. We know where to look to find that, and to quote some of my favourite lines from a hymn "We doubt not the Lord nor His goodness, we've proved Him in days that are past." We really have proved him time and time again, and he will never fail us. We have so much to be grateful for.

Stephanie