Update from Kristin: March 12th, 2008

Taylor is hanging in there in her way... not great, not awful. Nana is with her tonight (Wed) so hopefully it will be uneventful. Taylor was able to receive her radiation treatment today (hurray!). Tomorrow morning she will hopefully get the first of her LAST THREE treatments and during the sedation, they will place another PICC line. The last couple of days, they had been talking about replacing the PICC she had with a port, but a port would require a trip to the operating room (because she is sedated during radiation, but not put under entirely) and the doctors thought that would be too risky with pneumonia.

By the way, a PICC line is a central line that carries the drugs deeper into the body. We need either a port or PICC for chemo to begin again, so we will take what we can get! Chemo can not be done as safely with a regular iv because it delivers drugs to the veins. We are hopeful that she will get the PICC during radiation in the morning, and then her chemo tomorrow afternoon!

Taylor's mucous is so severe and so nasty. We think it is the reason that she is throwing up these days. We weren't certain if the mucous was a result of the pneumonia but we are told that this is a "normal' response to radiation and she is getting a very strong dose of radiation. The next few weeks will probably be rough for Taylor but after that, we hope to start the healing process!

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