May 30th

Hello all
Things are looking up. After a week and a bit of feeling absolutely lousy Caitlyn is on the mend again! (we hope we aren't jinking ourselves). She is down a few pounds from not being able to eat for the last couple of weeks. She is back to eating but not a great amount. Her energy is definitely lower but should improve now that she is eating and feeling better.
We attended the Cops for Cancer tournament at Saugeen Golf Course this weekend. What a great day! Caitlyn and Bryanna came for the dinner (not that Caitlyn ate) and Caitlyn was able to shave off one of the local police officers.
Caitlyn also attended the high school on Monday for a shave off of Victoria Bertrand and Becki Angel. These two girls shaved off their long hair in honour of Caitlyn and at the same time raised over $2000 for Cancer research. What a great job girls!!
Caitlyn was able to attend school for this afternoon but is a bit tired tonight. She will be starting back with physio and occupational therapy tomorrow, she has been off the last 2 weeks because she has been feeling so unwell.
She now has a rest until June 28th when she has the next chemo, so we are going to enjoy each of those days.

The Cobeans

2nd Round of Chemo

Hello all
Caitlyn has had a bit of a rough time with round 2 of her chemo. She started the second round started last Thursday night and ended on Monday night. During that time she felt pretty lousy. She has had very little appetite and ended up in emerg on Sunday with a severe stomach pain. She was started on a medication for her stomach which has decreased the pain slightly. Then on Monday night when getting ready for bed she had a fever, so back to emerg again. That time she had bloodwork and a chest xray which both turned out alright. The fever broke and we were home by 1:45am. No real good reason for the fever other than possibly??? a reaction to dehydration. Anyway she is feeling somewhat better today. She is starting to eat a bit more and no more fever. If only the stomach pain would leave!!!!
Well there is 5 weeks off now in order to recoup!! We will keep you posted.

the Cobeans

Meagan's Walk

Hello all!
We spent Mother's Day in Toronto, surrounded by many friends and family participating in Meagan's Walk. What a great time!! Thank you to all who make the trek to Toronto with us and those who sponsored us or someone on our team!! There was 43 members on Team Caitlyn. Meagan's Walk is a fundraiser for Pediatric Brain Tumour Research. This was the 6th year running and would have made it over the 1 million dollar mark. Our team was able to collect a little over $5000.
Caitlyn had a great week last week. She went to school on Wed and Fri. Her strength and stamina was up. Her right side is coming well, and she is starting to be able to pick coins up now with a bit of work which is great to see, but starting to be a little expensive because when she picks them up we don't generally see them again. Now today she is extremely tired but to be expected after this past weekend!! All of us are tired, no wonder she is!!
Now we head to Toronto on Thursday of this week as this is the 6 week mark and she starts chemo again. She will be taking it for 5 days ending Monday night. We will keep you posted as to how she is feeling during it.
Thanks again to all our great friends out there who are always cheering us on!!!

The Cobeans

Another check up

Hello all
We have returned from Toronto, once again. Caitlyn had an appointment yesterday with the neurosurgeon (doc that did the biopsy) and with oncology (chemo doc). The neurosurgeon was happy with her incision and we don't need to see him again in clinic but said he is there if we need him.
The oncologist just needed to see her yesterday as she is coming off the steriod and they wanted to make sure she was okay. She will be finished with the steriod on Thursday which means she will be done with the Zantac to protect her stomach from the steriod. All in all she will be down to 6 pills a day from approx 20 a day. She has had a couple of headaches over the last week but we were told yesterday that this is part of going off the steriods not anything related to the tumour.
Her blood counts are still low but her white blood cells (for fighting infection) is on the up swing now. Her platelets (for blood clotting) are still low but nothing to be concerned about yet.
She is back to school part time again. She has physio 3 days a week and finds those days to be tiring so she is trying to go the other 2 days. She is very excited to be able to go to school and be a kid again, not to mention that in grade 8 there is too many fun things to do. Her physio is going well and her leg and arm is getting stronger.
Thanks again for the support and love we are receiving from this great community!!!!

Rona