Happy 2010! Even though Lauren spent more time in the hospital in 2009 than in 2008, all in all, 2009 was a pretty good year - definitely better than 2008. The highlights of 2009 was Lauren started her maintenance chemo, requiring her to get chemo every other week. This is definitely better than the high dose chemo she was on in '08, which wiped her out and made her hair fall out. Her tumor has remained stable. She is now off the powerful steroid, Decadron. Both girls started school (Lauren - kindergarten and Marissa - preschool). And lastly, a healthy baby Finlay was born in Oct.

The low-lights of '09 included: Lauren being admitted for a week (twice) for para-influenza, four weeks for pancreatitis, and four weeks for an auto-immune disease. The last issue requiring her to be loaded back on steroids, while it wasn't Decadron, it still caused her face to become puffy again (Our pharmacists said they call the effect on her face, full moon or something like that). And even though the last MRI indicated that the tumor was stable it did indicate some enhancements, which could indicate activity, and that may not be good. At times it feels like every step forward, we take two steps back, but it's more like for every three steps forward we take 2 diagonal steps back. And while everything may not have been great in '09, keeping things in perspective, it's better than the alternatives.

As for 2010, I'm afraid we haven't got off to a very good start. On Friday, Jan. 1st, we went over to the twins' (Hannah and Hailey) house for dinner. While the women were out picking up our pizza, I was stuck at the house with the five girls. As can be expected, there is a lot of fun yelling and screaming (I must be getting old, because it was very LOUD). So as I am sitting there holding Finlay trying to watch the Oregon and Ohio football game, I heard a high-pitch scream coming from down the hall. I didn't really think much of it, until I notice all of the girls were in the room except for Lauren. I plunked Finlay on the ground and ran down the hall and found Lauren lying face down screaming on the tile floor. I carried her back to the family room and when she finally calmed down she said she had gotten dizzy and fell. She complained her arm and leg hurt. I put some ice on it. I asked if we needed to go to the hospital, she said "no." The next day it was still too sore to touch. Yesterday at her physical therapy, the therapist did not like the way her hurt arm hung crookedly to her side. She thought we should take her to get X-rays. We said we're going to the hospital on Wed. for Lauren's chemo so we'll have them check it out there. On the way home, the PT called Hilary on her cell and said, after thinking about it she thought we should call Lauren's pediatric doctor now. So we did. Lauren's pediatric doctor thought we should get x-rays to make sure it's not fractured, but thought we could wait until tomorrow. Because if it is fractured, they'll have to wait until the swelling goes down before they can put a cast on it anyways. I sure hope it's not fractured, Lauren has gone thru enough.

Other stuff:

- After two months off from school, Marissa is restarting pre-school today. She is soo excited. It's very cute.

- Tomorrow, after two months off, Lauren is going to back to kindergarten. She is very excited. Me and Hilary are not really comfortable about it due to her issues, not just her dizzy spells, which is obviously one of our main concerns, but there is still the fear of her catching the swine flu, not to mention the regular flu. Also, mobility is not the greatest, even great granny, who moves as fast as a slug, looks like a spring chicken compared to Lauren. Of course, I can't imagine a day when we'll ever feel comfortable about letting Lauren out of our sight.

- I measured Lauren last night, she has grown about an inch since June of 2008. As we watch the other kids shoot past her in height, we've become more and more worried about her height. And while based on her genes (granny is probably closer to 4ft than 5 ft., and they say Japanese are short people), we never expected her to be a giant, we do hope she'll be taller than 3 1/2 feet. Her height issue can be caused by a number of things including her chemo, her tumor and of course the steroids. I've read, depending on the tumor's location, it can affect her pituitary gland and hypothalamus, which can affect her growth. I know her height is beginning to bother her (welcome to the club), but it will be sad and hard to explain to her why, if and when Marissa passes her. Anna (PA) has said in the past that they can always give her growth hormones, when she reaches puberty, but I just read on someone else's blog, who is having the same issues, that the growth could cause the tumor to start growing again. Just another thing to add to our worry list.

- Lauren's next MRI is scheduled for Feb. 4th, however, I think we're going to see if we can move it up a bit, for our sake of mind.