Week One

Hello everyone. This is Abbie, Maddie's sister. I've decided to update everyone on how things are going. Maddie is a few hours away from finishing her first week of Chemo. YAY :) Some of the ups and downs have been:

1. Port Surgery- Maddie had surgery on Thursday and now how a port which is on the side of her chest near her rib cage. Once coming out of the surgery she was extremely sore. They were able to give her some serious pain meds which helped. Glad thats over. She has about 3 hours from the Surgery to when they would start Chemo and she was feeling good. She had her best friend visit and was talking on facebook with friends and family. Chemo started around 10:30pm.


2. Friday morning was rough--the Chemo had taken its toll on her and the nausea hit...and has never left. She spent most of the day with her head in a bucket wanting to throw up but never being able to. It was a day of learning which meds help and which don't. She was given a anti nausea med that ends up giving her hallucinations so we know not to use that one. Maddie has to get up every 2 hours to go to the bathroom. This is because the Chemo can damage her bladder if it sets too long. Because of this she very rarely gets a good sleep. Right when she is in a deep sleep we have to wake her up to go again.

3.Saturday-things have been better today. She is still nauseated and spends a lot of time over a bucket but today she's been able to sleep. Which was a different story from Friday. They say that tonight things may get worse because of her last cycle of chemo. We're praying that she sleeps through most of it.

Maddie had 5 friends show up today who all helped lift her spirits. Although she was vey tired she really enjoyed having them here. We're happy she has such great friends who show her love and support. Its sad because some of the little kids on this level don't have that type of support.

Maddie will be going home tomorrow evening. She will be experiencing nausea for the next 3-5 days. She will back at Primary's in 2 weeks. We are hoping that she will gain some strength back and be able to see her friends at school. Her cute cousin shaved his head in showing his love for her. She's had multiple gifts, blankets, teddy bears, etc. Everything helps at this point. Thank you all so much for the love and care you've shown to our family over the last week. This first week has been a learning process and we now have an idea of what to expect the next go around. I'm assuming Maddie will be giving her next update, right now she is sleeping and we'd like to let her rest :) Love you all so much! Please continue to pray for her to have the strength to get through this we know it's going to be a long road. For some reason it won't let me upload pictures. They'll come next week. Sorry.