Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A Little More Good News

Elle had her PET scan today. This is a full-body scan to determine where the active disease is located. There were some worries about it extending to other areas of her chest.


If you have never seen this or been through it, you get injected with a radioactive dye. You have to sit still for 45 minutes to let the dye course through your body. Then you get loaded onto a metal shelf that slides into a tube where you have to remain completely still for up to a half-hour. The nurse and techs were telling me they have seen grown adults, including athletes, be unable to stay still and act like blubbering fools.


Elle fell asleep. PET scans? Not a problem with The Toughest Four-Year Old in the Universe.


And the result was great, in that the cancer hasn't spread. So now we have a solid baseline from which to work. Add in the clean bone scan from the other day and we got a couple of days worth of good news.


The fluid in her chest is dropping as well, which means her tube may come out soon. And that would leave just the central line in her chest, which delivers the chemo treatments. This would thrill her to no end as she is sick of that tube.


She is feeling well today. We had McDonalds for dinner again after she requested "a cheeseburger with onions". Between that and the multiple viewings of her Spongebob and Tinkerbell DVDs, she was quite content. And right now, that is about all you can ask for.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness for even the slightest bit of good news I would say! I'm glad things are starting to look up for all of you. Little Elle, keep up that attitude and I just know you'll beat this nasty thing. Dave and Beth, there is a card in the mail for Elle so you know to expect it.

Kevin Smith said...

That it is localized is awesome news. I hope that all the news continues to trend in this direction.

Anonymous said...

yay!!!