Surgery info

Cousins Cade and Callie came to visit. Callie even took a nap with Rach.
Rachel's surgery went well. She didn't take long to recover and the feeding tube has made a big difference for her so far. She gets fed all night long to get more calories into her. She still eats normally during the day and we only use the tube at night. She is steadily starting to put on weight that she needs and it is giving her more energy. I met with a dietitian and she gave me lots of ideas to fatten Rachel up. We charted her growth and she's not even on the growth chart for weight- I had no idea she was that thin!! The feeding tube is going to be great for her!

We also started a new chemo regimen last week. We give her chemo at home now. She won't have to be in the hospital or get poked with needles for a while!! :) We still have to go to clinic regularly, at least once a week, for checkups but she doesn't mind that. These drugs are not as hard on her system and she is vomiting far less than she was before!! She is on 2 different drugs, Temodar & Etoposide. Both drugs have had good success in children with Rachel's kind of cancer so we are hoping that this will work for her. If it doesn't, we are going to be moving her treatment to Houston at MD Anderson. Our oncologist is already working with them and we will probably meet with doctors there in the next month to look at different options. They have all kinds of cutting edge technology that Rachel could benefit from. We are hopeful that these new drugs will work but if they don't we are working on our next options.