Thankful

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone and we can both honestly say we have so much to be thankful for. This last year has been a chaotic rollercoaster of emotions, but we are so thankful that we've had it easier than some, mostly due to our ferocious little girl's vitality and determination, but also due to all of you. Jeremy and I would not be where we are without the support, prayers and get up and fight attitude's that you all have brought to the table. (ok and sometimes my meds are part of the solution too : )) As you all sat down to stuff yourselves full of turkey and pie, we hope that a little piece of you felt that gratitude from the Christiansens.

Avery has had a good week by far. It started rocky with our losses and a vacation at CMH, but has ended rather pleasantly with high counts, lots of giggles, and too much food. We visited with family and friends this week and stuffed our bellies silly. Harry Potter was also a huge deal - as it always is for this family...ok well for me -- and I was able to catch it twice!! With Nana in town we were able to put up the Christmas Tree and let me tell you what a treat that was for Avery. According to Jeremy I have a lot of "crap" on the tree -- but the more crap you have, the more it looks like a tree from the Macy's window display. Who doesn't want that?

This week is a stressful one for us. We always talked previously about the "Scanxiety" that we feel prior to her MRI's but this one is nothing compared the the last 15 of them. Tomorrow we will go in first thing for a Lumbar Puncture. She will be sedated for this and we hope to have results by the end of the day. The lumbar puncture in October is what showed us the cancer cells had moved into her spinal fluid and were beginning to form. The goal for tomorrow's procedure is to see a dramatic drop in the number of cells present in the fluid. If there is a significant drop, then we can continue the salvage chemo and look at other clinical trials. If there is not, it means things are not working and continuing will not offer us more time as we had hoped. Her MRI is on Wednesday morning, and we are looking for no change on these scans. All along, these have been clear of any additional tumors, including October. We are praying that this is still the case. We hope to get results the same day, however it all depends on the dr's. As soon as we know something we will post. Please put on you extra special praying gloves tonight....call on any and all angels you know of...and kiss your kids like you really mean it. Mircales do happen & we are expecting one here soon, so stay tuned.

And just for the record -- I won the wishbone wish.....anyone want to guess what I wished for??


Jenn