1/4/10

Well it appears to be a roller coaster experience. About the time that William and Audrey think Talitha is close to being released from the Hospital a new series of events or doctors step in with new plans. Her sodium is low but stable so they have once again removed the sodium treatments as they are not able to get it to rise regardless of what they give her. They removed the tube that went to her heart where they were doing the blood draws so now she is really free of almost every tube. Today she was visited by therapists, occupational therapists, and oncologists. They have decided that they would like to actually start the Chemotherapy treatments this week or within the next 7 days and so they are now going to have her do a number of tests to determine if everything is okay to proceed.

Tomorrow they will do a heart echo test, a hearing test, and a kidney test to specifically prepare for the chemotherapy. However, she will need to be sedated tomorrow in order to do this. While they have not seen any issues with the fluid that was being drained from the head previously they will do a spinal tap as well to ensure that there is no cancer evident in the spinal cord. The oncologist said that there are three things that are critical for them to get a survival rate of this cancer up as high as 70%.
1) The majority of the tumor needs to be removed (That has happened)
2) They need to start the chemotherapy within 30 days of the operation (This will most likely happen)
3) There needs to be no cancer in the spinal cord (That appears to be the case)
The only thing going against Talitha at this point is her age. They cannot do the radiation therapy which would really make a fairly quick impact on eliminating the cancer.

The oncologist told William and Audrey that Talitha has a very treatable cancer. However, they need to get things moving as soon as possible to keep the chances as high as possible.

Talitha is speaking constantly and is using her left side more all the time. She is also sleeping better which is encouraging. She is able to put food to her mouth with her left hand which is also good. She can hold her head up by herself but she does not like to do that. She will need to continue to learn how to hold her head up, sit up, crawl and walk again. The therapist is specifically trying to help her use her legs more as that becomes very critical in the development.

This is quite an update but it appears that Talitha is rapidly moving to the next stage of treatment. She will need the continued prayers of all to help her through these challenging times. Miracles have truly taken place. There is no question but what the prayers of so many have been answered and William and Audrey are so grateful for the support, the help, the thoughts, the fasting and the prayers of all.