A Weight Off

When Fiona was diagnosed in August of 2006, she went through a battery of tests. They weren't able to sedate her because the way her tumor lay in her chest, they were worried about the weight of the tumor collapsing her lungs. They did a bone marrow aspirate, which ruled out leukemia, as they didn't find any cancer cells in her bone marrow. They removed a lymph node in her neck because it kind of looked suspicious. They didn't find any cancer cells there, which again was a relief because it was one of the closest nodes to her tumor. So, they came out and said they had to go in and remove a bit of her actual tumor. For this, they did have to put her under. Hubby and I spent a nervous 2 hours waiting for them to come out and tell us if we still had a little girl. After everything was said and done, they found the tumor in her chest was T-cells enlarging her thymus gland. They took her in for a cat scan later and found a couple of dots on her kidneys. They never verified it was cancer, but she was stage-3 according to everything I found online. They are reluctant to stage blood cancers, unless it is found in the cerebro spinal fluid (CNS), at which point it's the worst and labeled stage 4. This still isn't an automatic death sentence, it just(!) means you get radiation to your head. The blood cancers like to hide in the CNS and that's the reason she got all of those lumbar punctures, to put chemotherapy in her CNS.
Last month we went to Texas Children's and the doctor said she wanted to get a CAT scan with contrast to check everything out and make sure things are going to plan. She gets a blood test every month, but it has never shown up in her blood and by the time it did, things would be catastrophic. Friday, we showed up very early and went to the Radiology department where Fiona got a scan in one of the coolest rooms I have ever seen (trust me, I have seen more than my fair share of radiology rooms) They had a projector that showed a real of butterflies in different pastoral settings moving across the scanner. I stood there praying fervently that everything was going to be okay and I got a feeling of total peace. I have never felt peaceful about her cancer. Which worried me. We got upstairs and met with our doctor and she already had the results. The chemo is working, Fiona is cancer free and we only have 6 months left. I am so grateful.
PS- I am more than happy to answer any questions you guys might have about what she's going through.