Lauren is still having headaches and her speech is still a little slurred. We spoke to Barbara who works in the same capacity as Anna, our coordinator who left for maternity leave. We have now been instructed to increase Lauren's dose of Hydrocort from 5 mg 3x a day to 7.5 mg 3x a day. And to think we originally started out at 5 mg of Hydrocort 2x a day in an effort to wean Lauren off her .5 mg of Decadron. Barbara did mention to Hilary last night that she has had many of the same conversations with parents who are trying to wean their kids off steroids. If a person is on steroids for too long their bodies become dependant upon them. We've heard cases where kids are on steroids for the rest of their lives. While this is not good news, it at least makes us feel a little better. If this new dosage of Hydrocort doesn't work, we'll put Lauren back on Decadron, and lower the dosage of Decadron in an effort to wean off of it. In case you're wondering, there are long-term affects of being on steroids.

Tomorrow we start Phase 3 of her chemo. This is supposed to be considerably less potent than the first two phases. She'll take a small dosage of Temador (orally) for either 5 straight days and then be off 23 days or for 5 straight days and off two days and then on 5-days. Either way it will be for 3 years and she'll get two other chemos, Irenotecan and Avastin via IV, every two weeks for 3 years. We still have a long road ahead of us, which we don’t mind, it beats the alternative.