Lisa Rocks...we are done with Motts for the week!

Wow...Lisa rocks. She got thru all her tests this week...only shedding tears on Monday when they poked her repeatedly trying to get an IV line in...and had a grand finale today as she lay perfectly still for 1.5 hours as she did her MIBG scan with no anesthesia. She is amazing!!!

This is what her life was like this week.

Monday...she went to school for an 1.5 hours and then we headed to the hospital. She had blood drawn in the clinic at 10:00 (no tears) and handed the nurse the vials for the blood. After, we immediately raced across hospital to the xray department, got 12 oz of contrast which she had to drink over the next 2 hours so she could get CAT scan. Raced all the way back to the clinic to sign in to see her doc. At 11:15, saw her doctor and we talked about precautions for flu season and Disney trip. We left the doctor and raced all the way back across the hospital back to xray to get CAT scan. Spent the next hour at CAT scan because although the techs tried their hardest, they just couldn't find a vein to run the IV for contrast. After poking Lisa 5 different times (each poke causing more pain and tears) they paged the "swat" team. Using all their special tricks and equipment, it took the "swat" team an additional 45 minutes to finally get a line in. After that it was clear sailing, the CAT scan itself only took 15 minutes. As we finished up the techs were getting ready to pull the IV and I told them "no way". We had tests for the rest of the week and Lisa was not going to have to endure torture every day to get a new IV. While the techs agreed with me, they were not in a position to "approve" leaving the line in because it could lead to infection. Fine by me...we just went to a higher source. With her doctor's approval, the line was left in which made the rest of the week pretty much pain free and school free (the docs were concerned about contamination and possible injury if we sent Lisa to school and apparently other people might be a little freaked out seeing an IV line protruding out of a kids hand...hmm...I forget not everyone sees these things on a regular basis!)

Tuesday was an easy day with just an injection using the IV that was already in place.

Wednesday was a long day with an MRI and MIBG scan, but things went smoothly because the lovely IV line was still in place which made it easy to put Lisa under anesthesia. We started the day at 9:30 and left around 4:30 with Lisa still a bit groggy and very grumpy.

Thursday was a spectacular day because even though the IV was in place....LISA DIDN'T USE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!! The MIBG machine is very quiet and it is not enclosed. It is a narrow "bed" that has a big "camera" that quietly moves around you, similar to the radiation machine and you have to lay perfectly still for the scan. To remind Lisa not to move, they took a big piece of tape, tacked it on one side of the bed, across her head and then to the other side of the bed, they also taped her feet to the bed and secured her arms to her sides. She closed her eyes for the first 10 minutes while they scanned her head. When they were done with that, she was so quiet that the tech asked if she was sleeping. Nope, just being very still. Once her head was done, they moved the bed out a bit, and we were able to pop in a video for her to watch. She lay still the remainder of the time until the scan was finished. TWO hours of being still...wow, I'm impressed and proud and very happy. After the scan, that was it, we just walked out. No recovery time, no paperwork advising us on the side effects of an anesthesia, no grogginess or grumpiness. Yahoo...we were home by 12:30...the earliest all week...man, it's good to be home!

It's been a mixed week of emotions. While I hope and believe Lisa will be clean, I keep remembering others who have hoped for the same thing only to be slapped with the harsh reality of the recurrence of this disease. Even as we left the hospital, we met one of our Motts buddy who, for the third time, is fighting her cancer and she is only 4 years old.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed and pray, pray, pray that the results come back CLEAN!

Thanks!