Every girl needs a little pampering

We all thought it would be fun for Hope to get a little pampering before starting her treatment next week.  Pampering began with a great new haircut and some feathers courtesy of Missy, and then we finished with a delightful spa pedicure. Hope, your toes look great!

Waiting for the CAT Scan

Today was the full body CAT Scan. Here is a picture of my mom and Hope at the "Healing Gardens" at the hospital. Hope had to drink that yummy juice 2 hours before they could do the CAT Scan. They spent pretty much the whole day at the hospital waiting. They did have to sedate her to do the CAT Scan, but my mom said she woke up feeling pretty good this time. No headache or sickness. As soon as we hear the results I will post them, however it may be a few days to get them back.

Full Body MRI results

The results of the full body MRI and 2nd brain MRI came back good. Based on those it looks like nothing has spread, it is still just in the pituitary area. The Oncologist would still like to do a full body CAT Scan to be certain. This full body CAT Scan will be on Wed 7-27.

WHAT!!? NO TACOS?

So if you know our family at all, you know that no matter what the occasion...Birthday's, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Family Dinner...if you are are having dinner with us, you are getting tacos, it is just what we do. Well I have breaking news... we had a family get together last Sat. and there were NO TACOS. I don't even know how it happened, but it did.

We had a little get together at my Aunt's so everyone had a chance to spend some time with Hope before she starts feeling sick. In addition to spending time with Hope we had 2 very large cakes to celebrate all the July and August Birthdays in our family while we were all together.

The time was nice. Hope was able to join in on a light game of volleyball, and then we spent some sister time chilling in the hammock.

Biopsy Results

On Thursday 7-21 my mom met with the doctors at the hospital to discuss what they had found with the biopsy. To be honest the news was not quite what we were expecting to hear. The tumor was malignant with a very rare disease. I am not sure about specifics quite yet, but it is an HCG-Secreting Germinoma. In addition to that there were also abnormally high levels of HCG in her spinal fluid. With this  disease being so rare there really isn't much information on it and there are hardly any statistics. One thing that they do know is that it is a fast multiplier and so they want to take a really aggressive approach in treatment. Hope will start Chemo on Aug 2nd, she will spend 5 days at the hospital and 2 weeks off over the course of about 6 months. It will probably be the highest dose of Chemo. After Chemo they will do radiation and then another surgery. Hope is aware of everything that is going on and she understands that she will be losing her hair and will be very sick. Hope will also not be able to go to school in the fall, and it will be difficult for my mom to work because she will need to be there to care for Hope. They will be doing another MRI, this time on the full body to cover all the bases. I will post the results of that MRI shortly.

The Beginning of Hope's Fight

(Hope 11 days after surgery)

Hi All!
 Thank you for taking the time to check out Hope's Blog.


As many of you know on Friday 7-8-2011 Hope was rushed to Legacy Emanuel Children's Hospital in Portland by ambulance from the Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Salmon Creek where the ER had discovered a large mass on Hope's brain. Hope had been feeling kind of sick for about a month leading up to this, throwing up, headaches, losing weight and had even made a few visits already to the Urgent Care. At one point they thought she just had the flu and was dehydrated. About a week before the ambulance ride Hope was playing in the neighborhood pool when a couple of middle school boys jumped in and landed on the back of her neck. So my mom took her to the Urgent Care again where they thought she maybe had a minor concussion. As the week went by she just wasn't recovering from what was thought to be a concussion, she wanted to sleep all day, she threw up once a day and had a serious headache. On Friday morning Hope once again woke up with a painful headache and was throwing up, so my mom again took her back to the Urgent Care. It was there that Hope began screaming in pain because her head hurt so bad, the Urgent Care told my mom to take her to the Emergency Room. My mom took her to the Salmon Creek Legacy Hospital ER and Hope herself actually begged for a CAT Scan. After the results of the CAT Scan they felt it was urgent to rush her to the Children's Hospital in Portland where Dr. Monica Wehby performed an emergency surgery to put a tube in Hope's head to drain the spinal fluid to reduce the swelling around Hope's brain. Waiting at the hospital was one of the hardest parts, not knowing what was going on, not even really knowing exactly what they had found. After the surgery Hope was so sweet, saying to everyone "Thank you so much everyone for supporting me" I think she just felt a lot better, she was so grateful.
After that surgery we were faced with the results of the MRI. The MRI revealed there was a tumor the size of an egg behind her pituitary gland on her brain. The surgeon knew just by where it was, that it was malignant and surgery to remove it was needed right away. On the following Tuesday major brain surgery went underway. We were told that the surgery was going to be really complicated, the tumor hard to get to, and was going to take all day. With 100's of people praying, the surgery went really well and only took 3 hours. Her recovery was remarkable. She was talking and moving and breathing on her own practically right away. She did spend a couple weeks total in the ICU, but it was only a short while after surgery she was discharged and free to go home.
Dr. Wehby was amazing, she even did the surgery in a way that they didn't have to shave Hope's hair. At this point we were under the impression that she got most of it and there was only a small possibility of radiation. We were simply waiting on the results of the biopsy of the tumor and Hope was home, trying to get back to enjoying her summer.