Wednesday, March 28

We are halfway there, today was Hannah's treatment #15. Hannah is doing great with her new phase of treatments. The first day of no anesthesia was a bit nerve wracking, just getting used to the adjustment of the mask on her face, and exactly how it should fit. Hannah and I were just a bit nervous since we were used to the old system of going in and falling asleep. Now I get to stay while they position her on the table, adjust everything, put her mask on and strap it down. There is really no room for error, since the mask fits very tightly to ensure there is no movement during the aiming of the beam. If her head would move and the radiation accidently was off even by a slight amount, it could damage her hearing or her growth or her cognitive ability. Since she is awake for these treatments, she listens to a book on DVD, right now it's Felicity, the American Girl.

She is having a bit of a problem with nausea. I have learned not to push her to eat, otherwise she just throws everything up. She does take medicine twice a day to combat it, but the area of her radiation is at the area in your brain that controls the nausea center, so it will continue to be an issue. We also have to be careful about certain foods, even smelling them now can cause her to get sick.

She did take part in a cooking class they held on Tuesday. As part of therapy, the kids organize different events. Hannah put together a scavenger hunt last week and handed them out for people to complete. Two of the older kids put together this lunch time cooking class. Here is Hannah helping with making chocolate chip cookies. Her occupational therapist, Sophia is with her in the first picture. They made hamburgers, french fries and cookies. Eveything came out great, but Hannah got sick and didn't eat any of it.


As you can see her hair is pretty much gone now, just one small patch on top. Nicholas brought her about 12 hats and other hair bands from the Jimmy Fund yesterday. He was so excited about giving them to her. One of the knitted hats has a little purse to go with it, and even though the hat is too small, that's the one she likes the best. She doesn't wear them a whole lot, unless we are going outside usually, so she doesn't really care about the hair.

Today she made a calendar to hang up in our room. She has really been having issues with when we can go home, so I suggested she make a special calendar that she can hang up and mark off the days. She heard me tell someone we have 3 more weeks of treatment left, so she had been telling everyone she is going home in 21 days. We have 15 more treatments, which is 3 weeks, as long as all goes smoothly. We marked off day one today, and she was very happy about it. It seems to be calming her anxiety about missing home a bit. She also has any visitors marked. Colby and Dad are coming up this weekend along with special visitors Diane and Abby. Then next weekend Grandma and Grandpa are coming for a few days with Colby during spring break. She so looks forward to visits, especially from Colby. xoxx Kim