Friday, August 2, 2013

Briley's Port is Out!

First off, let me apologize for not updating in quite a while.  I did get in trouble with one person in particular for not updating.  Won't mention names here, Alice!
Briley had a Cooks appointment on July 19th for a check-up.  Thankfully, all of her counts have stabilized and all is looking great!  Briley was so excited to start taking vitamins again!  She watched Bryson take them every night and she couldn't because of her treatment.  Now she can.  She looks forward to taking them every night.  It's the small things.....
Briley's port removal was scheduled for this past Tuesday, 7/31.  We traveled up the night before and met friends for a Rangers game.  Briley and Alicia made a sign to hold up at the game that read, "This cancer survivor loves the Rangers"!  She even had someone that saw the sign and wanted a picture with her!  The game ended up being one of the best this year and the Rangers won!
The game was lonnnnnggggggg.  It lasted until midnight and we didn't get back to the hotel until 1:00 that morning.  Of course, we had to be at Cooks first thing the next morning.  The alarm started going off at 5:15am.  To say the least, we were 30 minutes late getting to Cooks.  Oh-well.
We went through the motions, got her checked in, and it was time for the day we've waited on for a long time!  She got her silly juice, poked herself in the eye, and off to the back she went.  The doc that put her port in, took her port out.  The surgery went great and we were done at 10:30.  Of course Briley wanted to eat at CiCi's pizza on the way home.  We got home, tired, but very happy that she can "officially" declare that she is now a cancer survivor!!

We had a little scare with Bryson over the past couple of days.  He had two big "bumps" show up on his arm.  Of course, this had us a worried of what it could be, especially the "C" word.
He had a sonogram done this morning and it showed two masses just under the skin.  This afternoon, he was taken back to surgery to remove the masses.  Turns out, it was two abscesses.  They drained them and put drain tubes in.  We are thankful that's all it was.  So both of our kids had surgery within two days of each other.  Maybe we can avoid hospitals for a while now!
I will start work on an article to put in the paper about Briley's journey.  I will publish it onto the blog once done so our out-of-town friends have a chance to read it.  
We appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers over the past 2 1/2 years.  Briley will still have regular clinic visits at Cooks for the next 10 years, but they will just be check-ups.  At some point, there will be a life after cancer study or two thrown in there.  I will continue to update the blog on her progress.  We appreciate everyone that has taken the time to get onto the blog and read about Briley's progress!
Thank You!