February 14, 2011 - Happy Valentine's Day!

Well Taylor was supposed to go home by today, but experienced a little bit of a setback the end of last week. The doctor came in Thursday morning and said that her counts were going up, and as long as she didn't get any fevers or infections she would be home possibly over the weekend or today at the latest. On Friday morning I get a text from Michelle (Taylor's mom) saying that she had been running a fever of 104 since late Thurs night and all morning Friday. They quickly put her on benadryl and tylenol to try to knock out the fever and began running tests to find out why she had the fever in the first place.

Apparently she caught the strep bug...she didn't have strep throat, just the bug that causes it. They said it was possible that somehow it got into her central line in her chest, who knows how that happened. I stayed with her Friday night and she didn't have a fever all weekend and is still good as of today. Unfortunately with her getting the bug, it cut her white blood cell counts in half so we still have to wait for them to come up before she is able to come home again. She was fortunate to be able to get rid of the bug and fever as quickly as she did because it could have been a whole lot worse than it was. There are many kids that I've heard that get infections and it could take weeks or months to get rid of them...so I guess all the prayers we asked for are definitely working in her favor!

I know she was looking forward to being out, especially by today of all days...but I think her boyfriend Justin is going to go visit her this afternoon, so that will give her something to look forward to for Valentines Day!

Here are some pictures of the notes and cards from Taylor's stay the first round. She truly has some wonderful friends and family looking out for her!

February 2, 2011

Taylor has completed Round 3 of chemo, although she will remain in the hospital for a couple more weeks until her blood counts come back up. She had got sick pretty quickly after they started this round since they were doubling her dosage, but the past couple days she has been feeling a lot better. She is back to requesting fried cabbage and homemade mashed potatoes, so that is a plus haha!

She got to be "Queen for the Day" last week. Some of the local pageant winners came to the hospital and gave the girls crowns and sashes, kind of made them feel like beauty queens for the day. It's great to see all of the people that take the time out of their days to come and visit all of these kids. Taylor is blessed to have someone there with her everyday, but I know some of these kids family's don't have the ability or means to do that...so someone making an extra effort to brighten their days is really a special thing for some of them.

These are some pictures from when Taylor was home after her last round:

Taylor and Justin over at her Aunt Tam's house celebrating Nana's birthday:

These are at her Nana & Papa's with Jenna and her bestfriend, Katie, riding her Papa's Polaris



The benefit for Taylor this past weekend was pretty successful. We had a good turnout for the yardsale and a pretty decent one for the dance. Since the yard sale was indoors and we still have a good amount of stuff leftover, we are probably going to do another one outdoors when the weather gets nicer. We will keep everyone updated on it. Thank you to everyone who donated items and came out in support of Taylor. We are honored to have family and friends like you in our lives! Please continue to keep Taylor in your thoughts and prayers!

January 27, 2011 - Bring on Round 3!

Taylor went back in the hospital yesterday to start round 3 of chemo. We originally thought she would be on different medicines than the last 2 times, but found out she will still have 2 of the 3 she had been receiving. Instead of them lasting over 10 days, they are giving it to her twice a day for 5 days. The plus side is she won't have to be plugged up to monitors for so long, but the downside is she will experience flu like symptoms...which have already started as of today. She feels alright, just not much of an appetite for food and her energy level is low (not sure if that the effects of chemo or just normal 15 yr old behavior haha).

Her bone marrow and spinal tap results from last week came back good again...still in remission which is the best news we could ask for! Her blood levels have been staying pretty high, no fevers, no infections.We are almost halfway there!

Some of you may or may not know, but we are having a benefit for Taylor this weekend. It will be located at 4568 Cumming Hwy in Canton (the old Buffington Elementary Gymnasium on GA-20). We are having a community yard sale from 8 a.m. - 3 p.m., we have just about anything and everything! If you have items you would like to donate to the cause, you can drop them off after 4 p.m. tomorrow afternoon and someone will probably be there at least until 8 p.m. or so. Then from 7p.m. - 11:30 p.m. we are having a teen dance. It will be a $10 donation entry and all proceeds go to Taylor's medical fund. There will be a DJ and concessions provided...and it will be heavily chaperoned! Hope to see you all there!

January 16, 2010

Sorry it has been a couple of weeks since the last update! Hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday and safe New Years!

Unfortunately Taylor had to stay in the hospital for both Christmas and New Year's, but on the plus side she was able to come home in time for her sisters 12th birthday. Her and I rang in the New Year together and we are both optimistic that this year is going to bring some good things for her! As long as things keep going like they are, she will be over and done with all her chemo in time for her 16th birthday, giving us more than one reason to celebrate it!

 She came home on January 3rd and is still home as of now. She was supposed to go this past Weds for another bone marrow test and spinal tap, but with all this snow and ice we got, she wasn't able to make the appt. She has it re-scheduled for this Weds, so more than likely she will go back in the hospital for her 3rd round of chemo by the weekend or early next week. It's been nice because the last time she was out for 2 weeks, one whole week of which she spent feeling horrible from the marrow test and spinal tap. At least this time she will have a couple of good weeks home before having to go through all of that. She is a little nervous though because her first two rounds of chemo were the same medications, this next one will be different and she doesn't know how she will react to it. Hopefully things will go as smooth with this next one as the last one.

We were able to spend time today with her, Jenna and Justin (Taylor's boyfriend) for my mom's birthday. She was able to come and see all of her aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents all at once which has been a rarity for the past couple months. It was good to get to see her relax a little bit and have a moment to not have to worry and dwell on everything that is going on. Well, that is all we have for now. We will keep everyone posted on when she goes back in and how things are going. Please keep her in your prayers, and thank you to everyone for everything you have done for her and our family!

December 29, 2010

I know it has been awhile since the last post...I apologize, the holidays have been crazy the past couple of weeks! Taylor is doing great and should hopefully be coming home next week sometime. This time around has been a lot easier on her than the last, no fevers, no getting sick and her spirits seems to be a lot higher. She's been making it a point to go to the teen meetings that have during the week and taking the younger kids to the playroom when she gets a chance to...she is great with kids, so I think that is something good for her to be doing.

It is unfortunate that she had to spend Christmas in the hospital this year, but we made a point to try to make it as enjoyable for her as possible. We set up a little Christmas tree and what decorations we could put up. Ashley and I went down Christmas Eve and brought her gifts down there to her and a lot of my family came down to see her...my brothers & sisters, nieces and brother/sister-in-laws. She got to spend Christmas day with her mom, so it was a busy weekend for her I guess. I appreciate everyone taking the time to make her day a little bit brighter! Hopefully she will be out in time for Jenna's birthday, I know Jenna would love to have her sister home to help celebrate it!

The picture is of Taylor with her cousins Savannah and Jessica. We have some more we took and will put them up as soon as we get them downloaded. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and enjoys their New Year this weekend!

December 9, 2010 - Round 2

Well to start off with some good news...Taylor's results from her bone marrow and spinal tap came back negative which means she is now considered in remission since there are no leukemia cells in her blood!!! She does still have to continue with her scheduled rounds of chemo though, according to the doctors the more they do, the less likely it is to come back.

Unfortunately the spinal tap didn't make her feel so hot this round. Unless she was laying down, she had pretty bad migraines and I think between that and the shot of chemo in her spine, it made her physically sick. The first time she was in the hospital and laying down all day, doped up with benadryl and pain meds, but this time she was sent home with nothing. On the plus side, her boyfriend Justin was able to spend plenty of time with her while she was home so I'm sure that helped to take her mind off somethings. And no, I didn't have to meet him at the door with the shotgun or have the one-on-one, man-to-man talk with him...this one I actually approve of haha...

Yesterday she had to go back in to start her 2nd round of chemo. She is on the same treatment plan as last time, but they are starting them at night instead of during the day. I stayed with her last night and today and so far so good. She got the one medicine that always made her sick, but for now all is good...but that could also be because she hasn't eaten anything today! She ate enough last night to make up for it though, I think she tried to get in all she could in case the medicine did make her sick today. I told her last night that I wanted her to try to get out of the room more and maybe meet with and encourage some of the other little kids that are in here...now that she knows what to expect maybe she can help someone else or talk to someone who may have it a little harder than her. She is great with kids, so I think it might be good for her. But for now, my Taybe-loo is doing good!

Can't wait to see some of you all on Saturday for her bowling benefit!! Again, can't thank you all enough for the love, prayers, support and encouragement!

December 1st

Today Taylor had to go to clinic and have another bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap done (standard procedure). I talked to her a little before lunch and she sounded great, said she had a little pain when she stood up but nothing too bad. Her Leukemia doctor, Dr. Cooper, said that he looked at her leuemia blasts and they were still at 0 so that is excellent news.

Her blood counts are up and if they continue to stay up, they will put her back in the hospital next Wednesday to start her 2nd round of chemo. I asked her how she felt about that and she said that she wasn't upset about it at all, that the sooner she goes in, the sooner she gets out and gets all this over with...so that's the way to look on the positive side of things! All in all, things are as good as they can be right now...so keep the prayers up and thank you everyone for everything!