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.

12th Treatment, D-Backs Game & Toy Drive

12th Treatment

Makenzie got her 12th treatment this last Wednesday. She is doing about the same... nothing really new to report. We are still tapering the steroids. We found out she will definitely get a 3 week break (that is skipping two appointments) from chemo after the 14th treatment.

Baseball Game

Last night Makenzie and family (minus Brayden, he went to Grandma Betty's) went to a Diamondback's game at Chase Field with tickets donated by the Phyllis Foundation and Phoenix Children's Hospital. We got pretty decent seats in the Diamond level. They even threw in food money so everyone got to stuff their face with yummy expensive food. You can see from the pictures that Kenzie and Carson enjoyed their pizza. Everyone had a great time and the DBacks even won the game 5-2. Brandon Webb pitched a great game. It was fun to see him pitch.

Toy Drive

Makenzie's friend from church, Alex Peugnet, and Makenzie are collecting toys for Phoenix Children's Hospital as a service project. Alex is doing this service project as one of her projects for her young women's group. These toys are given to children who are patients at the hospital to make their stays a little more enjoyable. Anyone interested in donating toys email wcmtlmaz@yahoo.com and we'll let you know how. The toys do have to be new but they don't need to be expensive. We've found stuff at the dollar store. Many kids enjoy crayons, coloring books, art supplies, etc. as a way to pass their time in the hospital. And many of those items are on cheap right now if you watch the back to school sales.

11th Treatment

Kenzie got her 11th treatment last Wednesday. She did not get a two-week break from the chemo. She will probably get one after the 14th treatment. She is doing about the same. She's been keeping busy making cards and coloring pictures for her family, the doctors, nurses, and others at the clinic. We are still tapering her off of the steroids. So far so good. Thank you to all of you who have been helping our family with meals, cleaning, baby sitting, prayers, and other support. We appreciate it more than you know and it makes things easier for us right now.

Touching

I saw this video clip on another blog. Without fail I cried. It is a beautiful story. I heard they were on Oprah. I know I have heard their story other places. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

Trip to the Circus

Makenzie and Carons went to the Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Baily Circus last Friday with other kids from Phoenix Children's Hospital. Kenzie got to get a clown face, learn clown tricks, play games, meet the mayor of Phoenix, and she got a gift bag from the circus. Kenzie and mom actually got to go out on the floor during the show and sit on the circus train. Carson was fascinated by the elephants, zebra/donkeys, and all the other animals. All of us managed to get front row seats. Kenzie and dad had tickets for the front row and it just happened that the two seats next to us were empy. Everyone had a blast.

10th Treatment

Makenzie got her 10th treatment yesterday. The doctor said her blood counts are doing well enough that she will not need a two-week break before continuing treatment. The purpose of the two-week break is usually to let blood counts build back up and her counts are good enough right now (due to the steroids she is on) that she does not need the break. We were looking forward to the break but we suppose it is good that she will be able to continue treatment. We are still tapering the steroid dosage hoping to get her off of them soon. They are nasty drugs. They increase her appetite and they make you gain weight in the face and tummy and lose strength in the limbs. Please, pray with us that she will be able to get off of them and still be able to feel well. Kenzie had a fun fourth of July. We went over to our friends the Hunt's for a barbecue and swimming. Kenzie saw fireworks twice this year. Saturday night at Lake Pleasant and Tuesday night at the Peoria Sports Complex. Tomorrow, Kenzie and Carson are going to the Ringling Brothers Circus at US Airways Arena. Kenzie will get front row seats and get made up as her favorite circus character. She will probably even get in on the act.

9th Treatment

Kenzie got her 9th treatment last Wednesday. Everything looked good and she seemed to be doing a bit better than the previous week so the doctor saw no reason to change anything. We are starting to taper off the steroid dosage. Hopefully we will able to get her off of those. Wednesday is her 10th treatment as long as her blood counts are good, then a welcome two-week break from chemo. After the 10th treatment she will get 2 weeks off after every 4 treatments or so and hopefully she will do better with more breaks from treatment. Here is a note from Makenzie:

we just got back from san diego last week we had a lot of fun it was so cool we went to sea world and the beach and the san diego zoo it was awesome at the beach my grandma got me a hot choclate at star bucks