basketball

sofie's friend, damon, starts at the 2 guard for jackson hole high school's basketball team. they are ranked 4th in the state and just beat the 3rd ranked team, Worland, 51-41 in a conference win. jackson is now 3-0 in conference play. damon played well despite receiving a small cut over the eye that kept him out most of the 1st quarter. go damon and go broncs!

January 8th 2010

Sof just woke up for the day. Her night was phenomenal. The cisplatin WITHOUT the doxyrubison has proved to be considerably more tolerable to her. She is not sick or doped up AT ALL. Usually by this time during chemo, she is pretty dysfuntional. So it turns out that for her, the doxyrubison was the monster chemo, much harder on her than the "red devil" (cisplatin) It was also so hard on her heart that they may have to completely discontinue. We'll find out after the next echocardiogram.

Bonnie

FIRST STEPS! January 7 2010

Sofie had her first REAL physical therapy.... meaning she did more than stand-up and sit down in a wheel chair to go to the bathroom!! She stood up with her leg down and took her first steps with the use of a walker, BUT, she did it solely by herself and practically took off down the hall with the entire ICS staff cheering!!

It was so exciting. Sofie's PT reminded her that she would still have to turn around and go back so dont go TOO far in one direction!! This was thrilling for Sofie. She had much fear in just letting her leg drop down to a vertical position. Said it felt like her leg was going to drop off.

We loved her physical therapist. First she encouraged Sofie to begin eating her top ramen by herself!! Just kidding. But she caught me feeding Sofie and gave us a hard time over it. By tonight, Sofie will be drugged up and make it difficult for physical therapy to take place. Hopefully they will put in an order for Sofie to get PT in Jackson when we get home. We'll have 2 weeks off starting about next Tuesday.
Bonnie

Results of Testing

Sof sustained more hearing loss, but not enough to warrant suspension of today's next round of cisplatin. Her echocardiogram, however, indicated a sub-normal number which read too much stress on her heart caused by her last doxyrubison treatment. Surprisingly, it is the doxyrubison treatment that will have to be suspended for now. This means she will only receive cisplatin for this treatment. She will be given another echocardiogram in 2 weeks to see if her heart has recovered to a point where she can resume former treatments that have been so effective at killing the cancer.

Up to this point, Sofie has been participating in research which means that her case study becomes part of a national database for osteo sarcoma research. Today we were presented with the option to continue the current regimen and research plan and also commit her to a year of self given shots thereafter. It's an experimental med called interferon that, much like the chemo, causes flu-like symptoms. Doc says most patients choose to finish with the standardized treatment at this point and not continue with the interferon. Once you sign up for randomized treatment and are chosen, the government says what hoops you jump through and when. That doesn't sound desirable, nor do the shots, and since the surgery shows her treatment has been super effective, we have opted out of interferon.

Prayer is power, and God is so good. Sof is in good spirits, albiet she is to the point where she gets frustrated having to train her nurses what to do! Sofie is learning and growing everyday. Can't replicate the learning experience of cancer, even though I wouldn't recommend it!!! It is our journey.

Bonnie

January 7th

Bonnie and Sofie arrived in Utah last night and they stayed the night at Bonnie's parents house. They left for the hospital this morning at 10:30. First on the list today was the echocardiogram and the audiogram.

An echocardiogram measures the stress put on her heart and the audiogram measures hearing loss. If she does not pass the hearing test, she will not be able to continue with the cisplatin. Cisplatin is Sofie's best defense against Osteosarcoma, so we hope and pray that everything goes well so that she can continue with it.


We appreciate all of the prayers and fasting that has been done by everyone. We ask that you continue to keep Sofie in your prayers. Thank you for all of your support and love towards Sofie and her family.

Megan

January 4 2010

Sof has had a wonderful break from chemo and some precious and memorable times with friends. She and I are due to leave for SLC on Wednesday. She will be tested for hearing, then admitted on Thursday. We will be gone about 5 days!

news even better than 98%

so, everybody, guess what: bonnie talked to dr jones (the surgeon) today initially with the intent to address questions about sofie's pain medications. well, in the course of the conversation it comes out that 98% given as the kill rate for cancerous cells of the excised tumor was just the best number the pathologist could attach. turns out that NO cancerous cells could be identified. NONE! and the only cells that were identified as living couldn't be distinguished from normal cells! that, our friends, to us qualifies as miraculous. what say ye?

a big side note: a heartfelt farewell to megan who left jackson today on the shuttle for the slc airport. thanks for everything, megan!

--geoff