Hedder’s Update

Greetings from Santa Monica. Today is Wednesday. Heather was admitted last Friday for round 5 (7 admits) and will hopefully be discharged tomorrow. It has been a rough admit. She will be getting more of my blood today. I am kind of bummed cause for as much as she has gotten from me, she still doesn’t like Dr. Pepper! Go figure. Anyway, here is the run down of the plan…
Her last scans again showed shrinkage, no new growth, and nothing in her head…Duh! While this is fantastic news and the chemo regiment has been working very well, we do need to change things up. Because of the intense chemo and bio chemo she has been on, her body just can’t handle any more of the toxicity. So what she will do is a small maintenance regiment 1x/month until August. These will be 3-5 day admits of IL2 and Interferon. In August, she will then begin a clinical trial. So while it is a little frustrating to stop something that is working so well, we also understand that it must be done. We have tremendous faith in the plan her doctors have for her, and we just need to take this step by step. The once a month short admits will allow her to go home to Idaho and return here just about 1 weekend a month. She is stoked on that. It will also allow her to finish up some teaching, visit with friends, and just be at home with her kitties. She will stay here at mom’s until this new regiment starts as we have to see how she / her body handles it.
Well, that is about all for now. Beck has been amazing in taking care of her. She is quite a trooper.
Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes. Keep ’em coming.
Melissa