Baby - she was born this way

Well, the scans came back showing some improvement! We're not in remission, but there was definite progress and shrinkage of the lung nodules. The full report hasn't been written up by radiology, so our oncologist couldn't elaborate too much, but so far so good. He seemed pleased with the results, which is also promising, as he is notoriously pessimistic. Another plus is Eleanor's kidney function. It is back up within normal range, which is pretty awesome. Go, kidney, go!

There is talk of modifying her chemotherapy down the road, specifically the cisplatin. Apparently her hearing loss is putting her in the range where they have to make changes. I'm not entirely sure why - at this point, who cares about hearing loss? I just want her to survive. But there must be some other reason beyond deafness for the modification. We will wait and see, but I will keep pushing for the cisplatin. Anything that makes her barf that much is bound to be helping!

We also got a preliminary report back from the geneticist. While our oncologist didn't go into details, he did say that they found a mutation, and we have every reason to believe it is Li Fraumeni. Our bodies are always developing anomalies, but they have a whole bunch of resources to stop tumours growing. Eleanor doesn't have that. Her condition makes it very hard for the body to stop growing tumours, so any occurrences will continue to grow out of control. This means the risk of developing another solid tumour cancer in her lifetime is very likely. I am told it will not affect her treatment, so she has the same odds of beating this as someone without this condition, but it means lifetime supervision and Kris and/or I could be carriers as well. We will have to be tested at some point. I have to say, it's pretty handy to have a genetic counselor as one of our closest friends! She has given us tons of info already, so it has made this revelation a little more palatable.

I am quite happy about the regression of the mets in her lungs. It really is great news, and yet I can't help feeling a bit down. Genetic conditions are hard to wrestle with - I now know why they have counsellors to help people deal with them. We made a cancer baby. That's kind of sad. Well, not sad... A little sweet with a little sour, I suppose. A cancer baby with the biggest smile and the cutest feet and the most ridiculous lone tooth and the most expressive eyes and the prettiest fingers and the softest belly and the fattest cheeks... okay, a little sour with A LOT of sweet!