Halfway In Our Battle Against Medulloblastoma

Rosie has finished 3 of her 6 Chemo Cycles. She had a few visits to emerg. the last 2 months with nose bleeding, fever, and anemia which usually is due to low platelets, low white or red blood cells which required transfusions. (All due to chemo).  The doctor also had to stop one of her Chemo drugs because she was starting to have some poor walking gait and choking issues. Thank goodness these were mild side effects and both reversible. Otherwise, Rosie is still her happy self and enjoys every opportunity we are home with family and also at the playroom in the hospital. Starting next week, Rosie will start her Intensive Consolidation Chemotherapy. This involves strong Chemo medications to replace Radiotherapy. She will have 3 cycles of the intensive consolidated chemo for the next 3 months.




After she receives each of the intensive chemo treatment, she will be given Autologous Stem Cell Transplant. The Stem Cell she will be receiving are her own that was harvested last month. The harvest process done was similar to dialysis: they took some blood out of her system and run it into a machine and filtered out her Stem Cells (which included WBC) and returned her blood back to her body. She had a Femoral Central Line inserted and the procedure was done the following day. She had to stay flat in bed during this period. We were lucky they were able to collect enough Stem Cells in one day (6 hours of collection). She endured it and was very cooperative.

It will take a while for her body to recover from the intensive chemo, so she will have no immunity to fight basic bacteria, virus and fungus. Not even our basic normal flora. So she will be kept in a special isolation area for 2-4 weeks depending on how fast she can produce WBC again. We hope all chemotherapies will be finished by the end of May so she can enjoy her 3rd Birthday on the 6th of June at home. We were also told that for 6 months after her chemo, we still need to keep a close monitor on her blood work as it can still drop intensely. She also need to be immunized all over again in a year as her antibodies will be gone.



This week is filled with appointments to assess her body functions before they proceed further into her therapy.  The tests are Dental, Audio, Kidney Scan (GFR),  Echogram, ECG, and MRI.


Unfortunately today, Rosie had some irritation around her Central Venous Line Site. Thankfully, the tube is still in the right location and its functional.   She also end up having low platelets which resulted in some bruising on her chin and arms and low HgB.  They were only able to give her Platelet transfusion today.  It was too late for them to do all transfusion in the afternoon so they asked us to return tomorrow for her RBC transfusion. So four hospital visits this week and admission on Monday for her 4th Chemo cycle.  We are thankful that we are able to travel back and forth and be with our family this week.

We are also happy that Rosie continues to cope with the stresses of weekly hospital check ups and treatments. She will cry as soon as she knows the next procedure will be painful but continue to cooperate by giving her finger for a finger poke or her arm for her injections. We are blessed to have a brave and strong little girl.


Thank you for your continuous prayers and God Bless!

For detailed events & more photos, please see..

Mom's Journal - Cycle 1            Mom's Journal - Cycle 2         Mom's Journal - Cycle 3