In the hospital again

We arrived at the clinic on time this morning for Briley's spinal tap & chemo. But she had congestion & a bad cough that's been getting worse since last week. Her O2 stats were 89% this morning. She had a breathing treatment and then chest x-rays. The x-rays showed some "crap" in her lungs, but not pneumonia. The breathing treatment broke some of the crap loose and her O2 stats increased to 95%. The doctor decided to delay the procedure and chemo until Thursday and admitted Briley once again for breathing treatments. Her O2 is maintaining at 95%. The does get tachy in the 170's after a treatment. She's been a little tachy since diagnosis in the 150's, possibly due to low hemoglobin. We may get discharged tomorrow if her stats stay up. We can't decide if we do get discharged, if we'll come back home or stay at the RMH until Thursday. We've been putting the miles on the Alicia's Explorer of late.

Briley has been in a great mood. Alicia bought her crafts and Briley played with that for 3 straight hours! She's still not trying to walk at all. She says her legs hurt. We'll keep ya'll updated.

She walked by herself!

We are in Grapevine now staying the night at a friends house since Briley's appt. is at 7:15 in the morning. She will have a spinal tap and chemo treatment in the morning. After we walked into the apartment, Briley walked by herself for a couple of minutes! This was the first time in 2 weeks that she has walked without assistance! We were really worried about her not walking, so this was big for us!
We hope to be able to come home after tomorrow's treatment. We will update afterwards. Thank you for all of your support and prayers.

Briley is back home (well kinda)!!!!!

I came home last night to be able to work today. We thought that Briley would get discharged sometime after her treatment on Monday. We thought wrong! Alicia called me a little after lunch today and told me to start heading to Ft. Worth to pick up her and Briley to go home! Thanks to my great co-workers, Ernie covered for me so I could run and pick them up. It was well worth the 5 1/2 round trip!
Briley has been doing so much better today. She has been laughing and giggling and she actually was able to walk to the play room! She said "my body feels good today"! She played all day! She was very happy to be coming home........well to Nana's house. The doctor said that it would be wise to get rid of the carpet in the house because it should help with her allergies. We don't want her coming home and getting sick like the last trip. That was a real wake up call as to how fragile she is right now. She gave us a big scare that night. Plus Bryson has a double ear infection and can't be around her right now. Hopefully we can get the new flooring in this coming week so Briley can be home soon.
While in town, I've had numerous people comment about stuff we put on the blog and on facebook and several people commented today on the video of the bubbles! It's really cool to know that many people care about Briley and are praying for her. Thank all of you for caring!

Briley flying a helicopter...lots of giggles!!

Physical Therapy-Blowing Bubbles!!

Briley is grouchy and hurting some this morning, but she had a good night last night!! She was in a good mood, and she also walked (with help) twice!! She didn't know whether to laugh or cry when she was walking the first time, but she giggled the second time!! They are giving her something for the pain, and she is much more willing to try to bear weight on her legs. She will be getting physical therapy this morning, so hopefully that goes well!! She is trying to sleep right now. She has a cough this morning, and if it's not gone by Monday, her next phase of chemo will be delayed. The doctor thinks it is a cold. That's not what we want to hear, as the doctor doesn't want to delay it too long. Please pray that she quits coughing, and that she regains strength. She is so brave, and I am so happy that I actually got to hear a giggle!! God is good!!

Fever & Treatment Plan

Briley's fever has not broke yet. The cultures have been negative so far. She just had the spinal tap and bone marrow aspirate on Monday, so the fever may be from that. She ran fever the last time all of that was done, but it's just my guess. Of course the good news of the day is that the results from the bone marrow aspirate came back from the COG with zero leukemia cells!!! She is now considered in remission! However, the doctor was quick to point out that if treatment was stopped now, her leukemia would 100% return. Remission just means that there are no visual cells present in the sample taken. But it is great news regardless.

We will be starting the consolidation phase of treatment on Monday. She will have another spinal tap and more chemo then. After that, she will only have 2 more spinal taps with chemo injection in the next 29 days. She will also be taking an oral chemo pill everyday during this time.

She will then start Interim Maintenance for 8 weeks, then Delayed Intensification for 8 weeks, then Interim Maintenance again for 8 weeks. That's 28 weeks (7 months) of still harsh chemo treatments. It's hard to believe that it will be September 5th before this phase is over with. The good news is, we should be home for much of this and at some point she will receive treatments in Abilene. We don't know yet what the treatment plan is after September 5th. Hopefully we will find out tomorrow, but I do know that it should be a walk in the park compared to the current plan.

She will be at Cooks until Monday at the earliest. We are praying that her fever breaks and she will be able to walk soon. Thank you for all of the support! We couldn't do it without you!