Teagan completed her 30th session of radiation today! We are so grateful for this chapter of treatment to end. She handled radiation great though she experienced some nausea last weekend where she threw up 8-10 times for the first part of Sunday, but then with the help of two anti-nausea meds we were able to reel it in and she was able to continue to keep food and liquids down. This week she is showing increasing tiredness, but at the same time she is continuing to try and walk and practicing her squat stands beautifully. We are so grateful her body will now get to rest, recover, and build strength after 8 incredibly long months of combined chemotherapy and radiation on her little body. Teagan is one tough cookie we have learned through this! We are most hopeful she will learn to walk again, but continue to work with her towards this goal. Her words are continuing to explode, and her cognitive abilities always continue to impress us.
We are oh so hopeful but also realistic that we have a long and unknown journey ahead of us which will include scans every 3 months for the first two years, every 6 months for the following 10 years, and possibly scans yearly into her 20's. We will be overjoyed to have her alive and scanned and are willing to live with what we have learned is called "scan-anxiety" that exists leading up to her scans which will determine if there is an "evidence of disease" (aka cancer has returned).
Teagan will continue her physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy as long as needed. We hope to qualify her for special needs preschool which she would start after her birthday in December, allowing her an additional year of preschool "aka early intervention". The hope after that would be to put her into a "mainstream" preschool the following year. All the therapists stress to us the importance of early intervention and we believe at this point this will assist her best, but are open to learning more options along the way.
In terms of what we know now, August 10th Teagan will get her double Hickman lines removed from her chest which means we can go back to taking baths again! I am so excited about this as sponge baths for 8 months have gotten really, really, old. On August 17th, she will have her end of treatment meeting where we learn about all the side effects we need to be looking for throughout her life from the treatments she has received. Our Pediatrician, who we LOVE, will get to join us for this meeting which I am so thankful for. Then on August 25th will be her next scan to check for any evidence of disease. From here on out, the scans will continue every 3 months for the first two years, etc.
We are so incredibly thankful for all of you who have been reading Teagan's updates and for all of your support along the way! Jeff and I are often talking about how we can ever pay our thanks back to you all and are still trying to come up with ideas knowing we received so much support, that it may take years to thank you all in a meaningful way. I can say I have gained an amazing glimpse at humanity through all of this. Despite what has happened to us, I believe the world is a great place and I believe there are so many amazingly nice and gracious people out there. I can say I never realized how many caring people are out there and we are so thankful for you all. This world is such a great place and we have so much to be thankful for. I also must make sure to thank my big sister, Meg, who was so gracious to write some of our updates for us throughout this, much better than I could have ever written them, and much more frequent than I likely could have during this whole process.