Rob, Jess, Max, Eli and Stella: Through Week 8. . .

Yesterday Stella completed week 8 of chemo. She did great as usual. I say it every time, but I am constantly amazed by her. We are back to the loooong chemo days. . . and are at the doctor's office for approximately 5-6 hours each treatment. This is how it will stay for the remainder of her chemo regimen, but that is okay because we get to spend lots of quality one-on-one time with Stella! :-)

I've been a bit bad about keeping up with weekly posts. We don't get home until about 5:30 or 6:00 on chemo days, and then its right back to work the next day trying get caught up, so I've been a bit pooped out and not as motivated to get these posts written. BUT, I am going to try to do my best to get them written at least every other week.

Stella's MRI date has changed. It was scheduled for this Friday, but Dr. T changed it to November 1 so that she will be completely done with her initial 10 week chemo phase and we will have a better idea of how the chemo is impacting the tumor. That is fine with me. I would rather get a good indication of what is happening then go early.

One thing I am really excited about is that we have an appointment next Friday with Dr. Finlay, who is known as one of the best oncologists in the nation working on the type of tumor Stella has. He works at Children's Hospital LA, but consults with Children's Hospital in Oakland. We are going to Oakland to meet with him and go over Stella's scans. We feel very blessed to have a wonderful medical team and have been very happy with the care Stella has received from Dr. Sun, Dr. T and Dr. Hastings, but the more brilliant minds we can have on Stella's case the better! :-) In all, we feel very lucky to live so close to Oakland and have access to their great doctors. And we are so unbelievably lucky that Children's Oakland operates a clinic in Reno so that we don't have to go to Oakland once a week for chemo!!! :-)

As I have said in previous posts, we are also unbelievably lucky to be surrounded by an amazing community of family and friends. The Northern Nevada Children's Cancer Foundation gave Stella a beautiful custom made superhero cape for her to wear to chemo, and she LOVED wearing it all day yesterday. NNCCF does unbelievable things for a lot of families. And today when I got home from work, I found a GIANT box sent from my former colleagues at Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal filled with art projects and other goodies for Stella to enjoy during chemo, as well as a bunch of other unbelievably thoughtful items. To say I was blown away is an understatement. I have so many thank you cards to write.

Below are a BUNCH of pictures from the past few weeks - enjoy!

On our way to chemo for week 7 and we, of course, have to hit Starbucks! :-) Stella put this headband on herself and insisted on wearing it. She cracks me up.

Hot chocolate, I swear! I've created a Starbucks addict. . . like mother, like daughter, I guess!

Stella is all about stickers, glitter glue and coloring at chemo. . . any surface will do, even her feet and legs. :-)

Stella and Leslie from NNCCF. Leslie is such a sweet woman. Her daughter survived lukemia and now she works with the NNCCF assisting other families. The NNCCF is having a superhero cape made for every kid they work with, and Leslie gave Stella one yesterday. It is awesome.