Vacation and other good news!

On Tuesday we packed our bags and left for a much needed vacation. First on our trip list was Caitlin's Doctor appointment to find out the results of the MRI scan, and great news the scans were clear. The spots they saw before on her neck are gone. So we are so excited! Hopefully things continue to go well. After that we headed to the Hogle Zoo, it was fun and a little hot. We had rented a wagon for the girls to ride in, but after about 15 minutes Caitlin wanted to walk by holding someones hands. She walked the rest of the way through the zoo, which is a long walk. We then spent the night at my uncle's house in Centerville. The next day we went to Cherry Hill, which is a waterpark, and other fun stuff like batting cages, a rock climb, and miniature golf. We went golfing first, since it wasn't very busy. Caitlin even wanting to try. Then we went to go play in the pools, Caitlin at first was crying and didn't want anything to do with the water. But after a nap she walked in the little kiddie pool, and put her feet in the bigger pool. Allie loves the water and keep jumping in and out of the pool. Jake and I went on the cardiac canyon which is where you go down a rapid like river on tubes, we kept getting stuck and really wet, but it was so much fun. Allie and I also rode on the Double Dragon water slides, which are tubes that you slide down on mats, they went really fast. After Cherry hill, we got ice cream and then grill hamburgers and hot dogs at Doug's. It was a really fun day, expect we brought the wrong kind of sunscreen so everyone got a little bit burned.
Unfortunately the good news didn't continue for some. On Wednesday we found out the our little friend that I wrote about it my last post, had passed away on Tuesday night. Please pray with us, for comfort and understanding for her family. We will miss her, and wish that she didn't have to leave us so soon. But in our hearts we also know she is now healthy and feels no pain, and upon her beautiful bald head has returned her beautiful curls.
On Thursday we went to the Gateway Theater, to watch Harry Potter (Caitlin and I, my family) Ice age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (Jake and Allie). It was fun, they have a pizza hut inside the theater so you can eat pizza during your movie. I was so proud of Caitlin, she was so good during the movie, she didn't hardly make a sound. After that we head to Boondocks fun center, which was almost better than Lagoon. They have a kid's jungle gym and arcade, where Allie and Caitlin spend most of their time. They have these Bumper boats, that is like bumper cars, but you can squirt the other people. They also have Go-Karts, that was the boy's favorite. Allie like them too, she kept telling me to drive faster. They also had a fun different miniature golf course. They even had little go-karts that Allie could drive, but she forgot to brake when the ride was over, good thing the operator guy was fast and caught her. We also played laser tag, which apparently I suck at, since my score was -1300 at the end. I don't think I really knew how to work my laser gun. Today we were maybe going to stop at the Dinosaur park in Ogden, but everyone was so tired and worn out we decided to save that for the next trip. So all in all we had a really great time, but now we need a vacation after our vacation.

Pray for our nephew and our little Friend!

Sorry its been awhile since I have updated but this week I have been so tired I can't think clearly to write whats been going on. Thank goodness, we didn't have to go back to the hospital for the 4th of July weekend. Caitlin's blood culture from the Tuesday that we left the hospital was negative so that's good news, but they like to keep her on the antibiotics so I have been giving them to her every 8 hours, which makes for long days and sleepless nights. But anyway, we did try to have a little fun last weekend. On Friday we went with Jake's family out to lunch and then to the car show, and then watched the fireworks at my Grandma's house. Caitlin loved the fireworks, she was saying "Oooo, Pretty." On Saturday we went to the Hyrum parade with my family, and then my mom watched our girls while Jake and I went to see Transformers 2. Which was really good but a little long. On Sunday we went to a family dinner at Jake's parents house and Allie and her cousins played in the swimming pool. Yesterday we headed down to Primary Children's for another MRI to determine if the spots they saw before our growing or if they have disappeared. Caitlin did pretty good, except she was a little dehydrated so her blood pressure dropped a little bit, but they just gave her fluids and she was just fine. We won't find out the results of the MRI until Tuesday and then we are going on vacation after that but I will post the results when we get back. Keep your fingers crossed for some good news! To explain this post title, our nephew Ryker's doctor found a lump on his neck and thinks it might be lymphoma, he is having surgery on July 21st to remove it and test it for cancer cells. The doctor believes that it is not cancerous, so hopefully he is right, and everything will go fine.
Since Caitlin has been diagnosed with cancer, we have connected with friends going through the same difficulty. There is little girl who is only a couple months older than Caitlin, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor as well. Unfortunately this little girl has been a lot sicker than Caitlin, the doctors thought that they had got all of the cancer removed. But just recently they found that it is blanketing her brain, and the doctors gave her 1-2 months, and then it changed to 1-2 weeks. We are heart broken to find out this news. Please pray for our nephew and our little friend! Thank you for your continued prayers for Caitlin.

Update on our little angel!

Well since my last post, here's what we have been up to. Caitlin had another chemo appointment on Monday, which was a little long. Sometimes I just don't understand it, there are nurses who have four patients to take care of, and then they are two nurses walking around doing nothing. Who knew nursing would be a field where you could get away with doing nothing. Apparently there are some lazy people in every profession. Anyway enough complaining, on Friday Caitlin and I headed back down to Primary for a blood transfusion. When we arrived she had a little fever but I thought it was cause she had her jacket and blanket on her in the car. Anyway her temperature didn't go down, but she didn't seem to be sick other than that. So they gave her an antibiotic and drew a blood culture before we went home. But at 3:00 in the morning on Saturday, a doctor called me and said that the blood culture came back positive, and to bring Caitlin down that day, so they could start her on antibiotics. So that's where we spent our weekend. They found out that Caitlin had a Gram positive staph infection. Also poor Caitlin gets the red man face which is a side effect of this VancoMycin antibiotic she is on. Thankfully with Tylenol and Benadryl she doesn't get it anymore. Thankfully we were able to come home on Tuesday with antibiotics and hopefully we won't have to go back for the fourth of July weekend. I wish I had a genie so that I could wish for just a normal day at least every once in a while.

More from the Welchs!

Well there is not really much to tell, but a few tidbits. Caitlin had more chemo on Monday and also a eye appointment. Dr. Dries (eye doctor) says that her eyes are looking really good and that he will check her again in a year. Then we headed over for chemo, we were kind of early for our appointment. Since we had tried to plan the appointments for the same day so we would not have to make any extra trips to Salt Lake. Therefore we had to wait awhile for Caitlin's chemo to be ready. Two hours later we were finally out of there, and the medicine only takes about 5 mins to give. Also her counts have gone down again, which means she is on house arrest. I know that sounds weird, but that's kind of how it feels. Today I got a nice break, I was able to go out to lunch with my friend Meghan, we both have been pretty busy and haven't been able to do anything together.( me with Caitlin, and she has a 5 month old little girl) So it was fun to catch up and have life feel a little more normal for an hour. I posted a few more pictures, I hope you like them. I really like the one with Jake and I. I am not very photogenic so very rarely will I let anyone take my picture but this one turned out really cute.

Back to Chemotherapy

Well yesterday Caitlin started her eight months of maintenance chemo. We are still unsure of what the spots are from the last MRI scan, but the doctors decided to continue with chemotherapy and then have another scan done on July 10th, to determine if the spots are changing, growing, or (hopefully) gone. I must of gotten a little confused since I thought this chemo was given in the clinic over one hour, instead we had to stay over night for Caitlin to receive it. Thank goodness, we usually pack an overnight bag just in case, so we were kind of prepared. Everything went pretty good, and she was done with all her medicines by 3 in the morning. So I was hoping that we would be released pretty early this morning. But it seems like they like to drag the feet about discharging us. Its not bad there, but I would just rather spend the least amount of time there as possible. Caitlin seems to being doing really well, except that she has been a little sleepy lately, we are thinking that the radiation treatments are catching up with her. Otherwise our family is doing pretty well, just trying to enjoy the warm weather, well if it would stop raining. Sorry no new pictures I am really bad at taking them.

Good news, but still ?????

Dr. Lemons called me today to let me know the results of the lumbar puncture. Thank goodness, the l.p. was clear, but they are still unsure of what the spot is that the techs saw in the MRI. So they are going to have Dr. Hazard and Dr. Brockmeyer look at the MRI scans again and see what they think. I should receive another phone call by Wednesday with more information on what is the plan or what they believe the spot is. So good news but still a little worried about what the spot is. On another note, poor Caitlin was called a little boy twice at Walmart on Friday, and one lady thought I actually gave my child her hair cut. It does look a little different since her hair is starting to grow back on top, but the back isn't growing in yet. I am not really sure why not, maybe because of the radiation. I am hoping it is not permanent. Fingers Crossed!