Emmy's Story Archive

Recently we have learned that our little Emmy has been diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer.

Little miss Emmy has been put through a number of tests including but not limited to: various blood tests, MRI, CT Scan, PET Scan, and bone marrow biopsy.

Today marks the beginning of her third week of chemotherapy treatment which leaves nine more before we will do all new imaging (MRI, CT scan, PET scan) to see if the chemo is having a positive (shrinking) effect on the tumor.

Off to Denver tomorrow for the next big round of treatment and an overnight at Children's Hospital. This will be the first time she gets all three chemo drugs since we began treatment several weeks back. We are a bit anxious to see how she will react but are simultaneously comforted being at Children's knowing that she is being cared for by the best.

Emery and mama spent Thursday at the doctor for week 6 of chemotherapy treatment and per usual, she did great. How a six-month old can get repeated heel sticks for blood draws week after week and not even utter a whimper is beyond me. I think is beyond much of her care team too since their wowed comments about her behavior and demeanor stay as consistent as her radiant smile.

After the scan, it was determined that said pressure had been eased enough to take the catheter and see how she would do. Happy to report that young Emmy has had no trouble giving us plenty of wet diapers all on her own since. What this tells us is that the chemotherapy is having a positive effect on the tumor and reducing it in size.

So here we are at week 10 of chemotherapy treatment, just two weeks out from new images and a new game plan. This little lady is hanging so tough through all of this, each day blowing our minds with her ability to power through the side effects and flash those trademark Emmy smiles in the face of adversity. She is feeling pretty good day to day, fighting through the nausea that never seems to subside and staying healthy despite the odds.

Surgery went well!

In other news, we met with our care team this week and had a long discussion about Emery's care plan moving forward. The surgery was successful in that they removed the majority of her tumor but the pathology result margins were not clear and some cancerous cells remain. This will result in a number of additional procedures to go back in and remove these mutated cells.

Positive (negative) results from these tests will not alter our current plan which has us continuing chemo through the end of April at the earliest. It is hard as parents to wrap our heads around that many treatments and that many times these caustic drugs have to work their way through our daughter's system but it is what needs to be done to ensure she will someday be cancer free. So, carry on we shall.

They told us right at the beginning of this whole thing, that it would happen. It was said that somewhere along this journey that Emmy would get sick enough to be transported to Denver via ambulance. We've gotten close to the line a few times but have always been able head home from the Vail Valley Medical Center ER without taking it any further. This time, as you might have guessed, was different.