We Give Thanks to God!

Such WONDERFUL news:

This was dated December 23, 2009 7:13 pm on Riley's Carepages.com

Today we give thanks to God for our early Christmas present. Riley had scans today which showed a dramatic improvement of her lung nodule. The right lower lung nodule which used to be 7 mm, crisp, and very obvious is now a faint smudge outline measuring 2 mm in length and not measurable in width. It appears similar to a small faint smudged comma that would correspond to one partial edge of the previous nodule. Radiographically the lung lesion is not very obvious and the physicians do not think that it would be able to be located with surgery. They will review the scans with the surgeon here and get her opinion, but as for now we know we have been given some breathing room. Riley has had wonderful response to her initial chemo and we now can breathe as we wait for her counts to increase and her fevers to resolve. Once her specific white cell count called an ANC raises to greater than 500 without medicines to increase it we will repeat a CT scan of her chest. That CT scan will make the final determination if surgery would be beneficial or necessary before proceeding to the next round of high dose chemo with stem cell rescue. Today God has given us a glimpse of our path ahead and for this we are thankful. We see progress has been made and we see that her tumor is still chemo responsive which is necessary for her to get to cure. The weight of this world seems lifted from our shoulders today. We praise God for this response!
As for the fevers they are getting lower and more spaced out. Her CT scan showed some sinusitis on the side of NG tube for feeding through her nose. We will pull her NG tube today in hopes that the sinusitis will improve without the tube in place. We are also stopping 2 medications which could potentially be causing the fevers. We pray these changes will allow her fevers to resolve completely.
Today we rejoice in the most wonderful gift we could have been given and again we give thanks to God for His constant and unwavering presence and protection as we ride this rollercoaster journey. We also give thanks to all of you who continue to lift Riley and our family up in prayer. All of these are truly our Christmas blessings.
Thankful, Kirk and Kelly