Another week has come and gone and it was another week without chemotherapy treatment. The Gehring’s had another frustrating week that started Tuesday morning when Kathryn took a urine sample up to Children’s Hospital with the hope being that Emma’s protein count had dropped to around 100. Kathryn wasn’t real excited to find that the orders hadn’t been put in the computer correctly so the lab was telling her that they don’t have instructions to test the urine. After a short conversation explaining that this needed to be done the nurse found orders in the wrong location so they were able to accept the sample.
The wonderful start to the day continued when Brent called to find the results from the tests, only to find out that they ran the wrong test on the sample and there wasn’t enough left to run the correct test. This led to Brent picking up Emma and spending the afternoon up at CPC, where we had the opportunity to get another sample from Emma. To say she wasn’t excited about this would be an understatement, she glared at Brent with quite the face when he approached her with another bag. After about an hour waiting for another sample we quickly got results that we were hoping to avoid, not only had Emma’s protein counts not dropped but they have jumped to 394. Dr. A. was out of the office for the remainder of the week, so we were unable to talk to her about the results but because she had graciously taken time out of her day on Monday to call we knew this met we weren’t going to be getting chemo again this week. Dr. had told Brent on Monday that if the counts were below 300 they would be comfortable with giving Emma chemo but if they were any higher that we would be unable to get the treatment.
We are trying to take this bump in the road in stride and are trying to look at this as a much needed break for Emma’s body from the chemotherapy. We will be calling into Children’s tomorrow to have a conversation about what we are going to do next and where we are heading from here, but I would guess that we will be testing again on Tuesday with the hope that it has dropped. If it hasn’t I would envision that we will be waiting to do tests and have a conversation with the doctors in Boston as we are headed for scans on the 15th. The best thing we can hope for over the next two weeks is for the tumor to remain unchanged and for the doctors in Boston to tell us that the counts will drop and this is a situation that they see from time to time. Trying real hard to keep a positive outlook in this situation as we know that Emma is in Gods hands and that his will is being done.
A giant thank you to everyone that has signed up to be part of the 1st annual EmmaStrong "Drive for a Cure." We are slowly starting to get registrations in for golfers and have had an incredible amount of support in the sponsorship end of things. Businesses continue to be amazingly giving in their support of Pediatric Brain Tumor research, with an extra special thanks going out to Union Bank and Trust of Columbus and Omaha as they have signed on as golf cart sponsors for the first year of the tournament.
As all of you consider taking part in the golf tournament on May 24th please understand that you don’t need to wait till you have confirmation of all four members names to go on and register or send in your brochure. We will be able to adjust your golfing roster until days leading up to the tournament. Lets fill Tiburon’s Golf course with people driven to find a cure and looking to have a good time. For those of you that forgot, it is Emma’s birthday and its not every day you get to celebrate the birth of someone who’s been part of a brain surgery. I promise EmmaStrong will not judge those of you that say, "but I don’t golf" very few of us are very good at golfing anyways. Come out and join us anyways, someone you know has clubs you can borrow.
Thanks for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you on Emma’s Birthday, May 24th at the 1st annual EmmaStrong "Drive for a Cure"