On Tuesday (June 3rd), Dr. Patel checked out Lauren's stomach and said while she is still constipated it looked well enough to administer her chemo treatment. Also, Lauren's blood count on Tuesday showed that her count was going up and not down as expected. Therefore Dr. Patel doesn't think she is going to need a blood transfusion on Friday. However, Dr. Patel said not all patient's blood counts drop right away and that some patient's blood counts drop later. She said Lauren might be one of those patients. If that is the case, her blood count may drop by Monday, the day Lauren is supposed to have her 2nd port inserted (the port is now going to be inserted into her groin area and not her hip). If the blood count drops on Monday or Tuesday then they won't be able to harvest her bone marrow on Tuesday, which will not be good, since Lauren will be very uncomfortable and will have trouble walking with the 2nd port.

Lauren's next MRI is scheduled for Tuesday, June 24. It hurts my stomach thinking and writing about it, but this MRI is very important since it will tells us if the chemo is working. We need the tumor to have stopped growing, or even better to have shrunk in size. If it has stopped growing then they will administer two more cycles of the chemo she is currently taking before starting the serious stuff.