Radiation Begins

Today Lila had her first radiation treatment. After the full pathology report came back, her cancer was classified as Stage III, which is what we were expecting. They are doing targeted radiation to treat the area where the original tumor was (not the chemo-shrunk tumor), so it's not her entire pelvis, but it's close because the original tumor was so large and they add in a margin around it.

She will have five more treatments for a total of six. These are done for consecutive days except Saturday and Sunday, so our final day should be Tuesday. They will leave her port accessed until the weekend, so we have to be careful with that this week.  For those who don't know--the port is in her chest and it is accessed with a needle that runs into a flexible tube. The accessed area is covered over with a pad and adhesive seal, but we can't get it wet or dirty at all. This is a little bit of a hassle, but is preferable to having it accessed every morning this week. As you can imagine, she doesn't like having the needle put in!

The actual radiation treatment does not take long, but she has to be sedated so she will remain still. This means no food or drink when she wakes up, which is always challenging with a 2-year old. Even with the sedation, the process only takes about 30 minutes total.
Today she did not seem to have any side effects other than being a little more tired than usual.

Lila before her port access this morning.

Relaxing this afternoon 

Meanwhile, we have been busy! Callie's kindergarten play was last week and she had a birthday party on Saturday. She turns six tomorrow! We are very proud of her. The picture of her below is from the play. She was Golidlocks and did an amazing job! If you want to see the video of her singing, email me and I'll send you the link. It will make your day! :)