Back to School, End of Break, MRI, New Chemo

Makenzie has been in school now in 2nd grade for over 2 weeks and is doing well. She is making it all day and has only missed days for and MRI and a treatment. She likes her teacher, Mrs. Guevara. Makenzie has enjoyed her 4 week break from chemo. It has helped her feel quite a bit better. She is also off of the steroids so that should also help her feel better. Her appetite is not so out of control and she should start slimming back down and gaining strength. The results of her MRI last Friday were mixed... the swelling around the tumor has gone down, and there were some cysts in the tumor that are smaller. But there has been no shrinkage and there is an area of the tumor that has progressed ever so slightly, less than the tip of a pinky finger. But that was enough for the doctor to decide her current chemo regimen was not as effective as he would like and to change from carboplatin/vincristine to vinblastine. So she will get vinblastine weekly for a year, without breaks, unless future MRIs show that to not be effective. One good thing is that her appointment times will go from over 3 hours to about an hour since Vinblastine does not have to dripped in slowly through an IV. Please, continue to pray for Makenzie to be blessed with miracles, that she will be healed and she will feel as well as she can.

Toy Drive

You should see my living room!!!! WOW!!! We have had so many generous donations for Phoenix Children's Hospital. I love just looking at all of this stuff and thinking about what a difference this will make. It will make their stay a little more bearable. We have not taken the donations to the hospital yet. It is not too late to donate. If you would like to donate please remember it has to be new. I just found a list of items that are needed. Here is a link: https://www.phoenixchildrenshospital.com/support/specialwaystogive/wishlist.html

A big Thank You to Alex Peugnet for doing this wonderful project. Makenzie is so excited go with Alex to deliver the donations. Thanks to everyone who has donated. I will post pictures soon of everything we have received.

Camp Rainbow/Toy Drive Update

Makenzie and her family are enjoying the four week break from chemo. Makenzie is feeling a bit better. She'll get another MRI on the 25th and if all is still going well she'll continue chemo on the 30th. Dad and Makenzie went to Camp Rainbow in Prescott on Friday. We got on a bus at 8:00 in the morning and rode to camp. At camp Kenzie did arts and crafts, went down to the lake where they canoe and fish, did a scavenger hunt, ate lunch, had a sing-a-long, took a wagon ride with two mules named Dixie and Liz, and got to help paint Dr. Etzl, her doctor at the clinic. We headed home at 3:30 and had a little nap on the way home. Alex and Makenzie have collected truckloads of toys and collected over $1000 in donations that they are working on spending. It is still not too late to help... either by donating toys or money. They'll be delivering the toys to the hospital probably sometime this week.

13th & 14th Treatment/Toy Drive

Kenzie got her 13th and 14th treatment. Everything is still going about the same. We get a 3 week break now. She won't have to get another treatment until August 23rd. Hopefully the break will let her recover from the chemo a bit and help her begin feeling better. We will probably get an MRI during the break just to see what's going on with the tumor. We are hopefully just about done with the nasty steroids... maybe another week or so.

Alex and Kenzie are still collecting toys for the Phoenix Children's Hospital through August 7th. They've got quite a collection so far. Anyone wanting to help can buy toys and drop them off at Makenzie's or just donate money and Makenzie can buy the toys. Email wcmtlmaz@yahoo.com for an address to send checks or drop off toys. The toys do have to be new and suitable for kids ages 0 - 17. Thank you to all who have helped so far.