Praise God! Clear Scan 10-28-08

Praise God!!!

We are over joyed about Avery's Clear Scan! We truly are Blessed! Thank You for every prayer said for Avery. Prayers are Powerful. God revealed his healing touch in Avery's scans! I've got proof! Please check back later for the photo of Avery's MRI.

Dr. Wetmore was absolutely proud of Avery's progress and the obstacles she has over come. Avery truly has made major progress. Her weight is back, she is walking independently and pretty much doing what kids her age do. Yeah!!! Doctor Wetmore asked if we had any concerns. First time with the response "not really"!

December will mark one year since end of traditional therapy...High dose chemo. January 2008 we were told Avery was in remission. Thank You Lord! She remains in remission!

Thank You!!! For caring about Avery and helping our family through this journey. We could not get through this without your continued support. Positive thoughts and prayers!

Team brAvery

Yes, It's been awhile!

Hello, Everything is going good. We had an enjoyable walk at the Pediatric Cancer Research Time to Fly 5k. We did manage to get a little wet too. Thank You to the Driscolls and Medveds for walking with us. We even got to meet a few other fighters like little Zach White and his family. We can't wait for the Polo match later this summer. I will post photos soon. We have been busy working on the new house. We have just one month to finish and get moved in. Still lot's to do. I hate moving. I do like what we have done to the new house and it is looking very cute and feels just right for our family. Avery has PT on Monday and Wednesday. She is really excited for Joe's fireworks show on the 4th. She loves fireworks...Dad is more then happy to give a show whenever she wants. Or previous nanny Jannelle is our firework hook-up. Considering she now works for the owners of Victory Fire Works! This week our new nanny is off and Auntie Terry is helping us out with the girls. Lily and Avery are so excited to play with her. Hope she can keep up with Lily. Lily is into everything lately.And being naughty. Like writing on the couch with a pen and stealing things from Averya and running away. I did witness her playing with a toy and actually picking it up when done. I was so proud of her. Today we worked on not yelling or crying and being nice to each other. They did pretty good. The grocery store is another story. FYI leave the kids home. Advil anyone? Avery does have another scan coming up on the 15th of July. I'm sure my nerves will get the best of me. We appreciate your prayers for Avery's continued clear scans and NED (no evidence of disease). I believe God has blessed Avery with restored health and she will continue to be here with us. She is our miracle and the reason for the great changes in our life. Remember to cherish your children and never take them for granted. They are truly gift's from God. Ours on loan from him. He can take them back whenever he want's. Enjoy them while you can. Positive thoughts and prayers! We thank you for helping our family through this journey. Love, Team brAvery Check out the photos! ! http://picasaweb.google.com/lighthousefamilyretreat/Retreat4SlideShow www.lighthousefamilyretreat.org www.jacobdmoore.come www.jacobdmoore.blogspot.com

Scan Time

First...Don't you love the photos from the benefit? Uncle Pogie and Auntie Judy with the crew from Filo Productions did a fantastic job. WOW! Thank You again to everyone who gave to Team brAvery. Scan time again on Thursday. Will you please pray for clean scans and for our meeting with doctor Bendel to go well. I'm already nervous and feel sick. I'm sure God has cured Avery already but I can't help but be a little scared. Avery has been doing great except for a little cold. We took her into Children's for a chest x-ray just to make sure the pneumonia was gone. So far it looks good. Avery had a good weekend and has been getting into things like she did before she got sick. She played so cute with Lily tonight. Lily pretended to be a baby and Avery pretended to feed her a bottle and put her to bed. I love seeing her playing and being a kid. Less than two weeks of school left. This is Janelle's last week too. Wish she could stay! We still are not sure about who is going to nanny for us??? So many decisions to make. Please keep Avery in your prayers. The tornado which went through Hugo is right by our old neighborhood. Please pray for the family's who lost their home and for the family that lost their little boy. Positive thoughts and prayers! Team brAvery

Avery's Birthday Party

Cutie!!!

Birthday Stash!! Oh my goodness! Clowning Around ! Eating Crab Legs Again!!!! Horse Carriage Ride in Central Park!

Things are going well in New York City!

Hello, Avery had her first MRI without sedation today at 5:00pm. She continues to amaze me! She did so Awesome laying still for 45 minutes. WOW! Today was the spine and Monday will be the brain. They want a baseline before the I3F8 treatment starts. I am so proud of her for getting through this without sedation. It is so hard on her to have the breathing tube down her throat. She said it was hard to lay in the tube so still for so long but was better than having the tube. Yeah! We had a very special visitor today. Rich from team brAvery Philadelphia! He is in town for a meeting and could not miss this opportunity to meet Avery. Avery thought he was soooo nice! Rich and his son Anderson will be coming out for Avery's benefit in May. Avery is excited to show Anderson around the barn. Thank You Rich for visiting us today!! Tonight Lily and Tom stopped by the new TSC in Prescott. He took photos of the baby bunny's and emailed them to us. Guess who could not stop talking about bunny's? " Well Mom... which one do you think I should get the black and white one or the orange one?" I think someone thinks she is getting another bunny. Avery loves animals just like her Mom. Avery would like to say Thank You to everyone for the cards. She asked to go check the mail only 6 times today! She feels very important when she gets mail. Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa G and Uncle Pogie and Auntie Judy for the presents. Tomorrow Avery would like to do some shopping. Weather permitting. I'd rather internet shop! Also on Saturday mornings they have breakfast for the kids. Tonight they had a beach party. We only lasted for a slice of pizza then it was time for bed. Speaking of bed I think it's time for me to hit the hay! Thank you all for the wonderful support you continue to give us. Please keep Avery in your daily prayers. Please pray these MRI's are clean and she is still disease free. Please pray for her strength to get through the tests and treatments. We appreciate every prayer said for Avery and love to hear your words of encouragement. Positive thoughts and prayers! Love, Team brAvery

Surgery Tomorrow...Please Pray For Avery!

Hello, First, I would like you to know, a sweet girl we got to know from Mayo needs our prayers. Please pray for Danielle. They have found a spot on her lung and are doing a biopsy to see if it is cancer. You can give her support at carepages.com enter HopeforDanielle. Our first appointment with the surgery team went great. The neurosurgeon Dr. Souweidane was wonderful. Very kind and Avery liked him too. We have an early morning tomorrow. Avery will have an MRI of her brain before surgery at 6:30am. This will be her first without sedation. This MRI will help the doctor with the placement of the ommaya. Surgery is scheduled for 9:00. Please pray everything goes great. She will then spend the day/night at New York Presbyterian Hospital in the ICU. Avery is not excited about this overnight. You see here in New York space is limited. In the ICU you share the space with two other patients and only one parent can spend the night. I'm guessing it will be me. We are spoiled in Minnesota. After the surgery appointment we had counts checked at MSKCC. This place was a Zoo today. It was nearly a cattle call. I could not believe how many patients. Cancer Sucks! I was not pleased with the technique of the nurse drawing Avery's blood. I had to ask her to scrub for longer than a second. She was in such a hurry. I hate rushy people, they make me nervous. Avery's Hickman would not draw blood (as usual) so we really had to pull and maneuver Avery. Finally she got all the blood they needed for her labs. No platelets she was at 112,000. We waited another hour to see the nurse practitioner. She was great, very funny. Avery started the medicine to protect her thyroid today. We found out we may actually be here for three weeks. If anyone wants to come out and help me let me know. Avery had fun tonight at the House. We met a few new family's and Avery did several crafts. A group of men from a local restaurant brought food for the guests. It was very good. For desert they had cheese cake and chocolate moose cake. Yummy! If you feel charitable the Ronald McDonnald House is an excellent charity. We could not do this without being able to stay here. The nearest hotel is $300 a night and here it is only $35 plus you get a community feel. Everyone here is going through similar struggles as you. Please, Please, Please say a prayer for Avery. Please pray surgery will go great and that Avery recoverys quickly with no complications. As always Thank You for walking side by side with us through this journey, sharing in the joy's and the sorrows. We could never get through this without the support of our family and friends. Thank you for the positive thoughts and prayers. God Bless and Good Night! Team brAvery

Weekend at Home!

Hello, As you can see from the photo Avery finally got to visit with her horse Tish. The barn is a little to dusty for Avery so Dad brought the horse up to the garage. We all enjoyed brushing Tish and Lone Star. Midnight did not want to get caught today. Avery had fun. Well we did not make it to church today. We tried to make it to the early service but Avery got sick in the car on the way. We tried to make it to the late service but we were 15-20 minutes late by the time we got their. We had a nice weekend at home. Avery went to her first dance at school on Friday night. The theme was cowgirl/cowboy. Avery and Lily wore cow girl outfits and enjoyed dancing and visiting with people. Avery's kindergarten and 1st grade class did a special dance for everyone. Way Cute. Thanks for helping Jill! It is so nice to see Avery having some fun. It is sometimes hard for her because she can't get around like she used too. Avery's eye lashes and eye brows are growing. They are much darker than before. She also has a little growth on her head. That too looks really dark. She has plans to dye it pink. I can't wait for her to have some hair again. She is always so cold. We have no plans for when we are going back to NY. Hopefully we will get surgery scheduled this week. I got a little freaked today. The last few day's Avery has been vomiting in the morning and today she said she was dizzy. I emailed Dr. Bendel and told her. She thinks it is nothing but would do a CT scan tomorrow if it would make me feel better. So please pray it is nothing. Keep Anna in your prayers too. www.caringbridge.org/visit/annameg Thank you for the positive thoughts and continued prayers for Avery's health. Love, Team brAvery

MIRICLES DO HAPPEN!

Here are the facts.

Avery diagnosed May 19, 2007 with anaplastic medulloblastoma brain tumor with spread to her spine and brain. She also was diagnosed with leptomenigeal disease to her CNS fluid or protective coating on her brain. Only 1% of medulloblastoma is this aggressive anaplastic subtype putting her in high risk with a less than 50 % chance of beating this nasty cancer. After 30 days of chemo then high dose external beam radiation to her brain and spine. One round of induction chemo, two rounds on high dose chemo with stem cell rescue, countless blood transfusions, two months of hospital stays, five surgerys, and millions of prayers Avery is in remission!

Dr Wetmore reports that the tumors and leptomenigeal disease have melted away. She was extremely surprized by the results. I know the radiation and chemo played a part in her healing but I know in my heart the prayers she received daily from all of you were what made remission possible. Thank You ...Thank You...Thank You!

Next we do not want this to relapse so I will be talking to Dr's. Bendel and Wetmore to discuss a non toxic plan to keep this nasty cancer from coming back. Avery will be able to heal and be a kid again..That is so exciting for us. Avery does not really get how important this day is...We are going to have a silly string party tonight and take everything in.

Thank You for the Prayers and support this past eight months! We are truly blessed! God performed a miracle in healing Avery! WOW! Thank You God! Love, Team brAvery!

Having MRI ! Are you Praying for Avery?

Good morning, Avery is back at the scan. They got her in late but everything is on it's way. Avery was brave and did not have any problems. A little scared and a couple tears. Thats our brAvery! Update: Avery came out of anesthesia well. Crying a little and very mad. Her throat hurts bad. She ate 3 freezes to help make it feel better. They did counts before she went under. Platelets are at 45,000 and Red at 8.5. No transfusion! Yeah! Her platelets went up a bit on their own! She is doing well. We had to stop at Walgreens on the way home. She deserved and earned a gift. $60 dollars later and way to many stickers. Tonight we are going to hang-out and try not to think about things. We are so nervous and scared. In our heart we believe things will go our way tomorrow. I feel light headed and my GI system has had better day's. Tomorrow I plan on having some help for anxiety with Ativan. If I don't I probably will not make it out of the house. BREATH! Thank you for the beautiful postings today and all the prayers. We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family. Thank you for being here for us. None of you signed up for it and I'm sure it has been hard on many of you too. Thank You for staying with us. Your support means the world to us! I had to tell you about church yesterday. Tom and I were sincerely touched by Pastor Neuman. A few members and us had a circle prayer for Avery, led by Pastor Neuman. It felt so Awesome that people cared enough to put this together. Thank you Jill. Everyone touched Avery, the Pastor put oil on her for head and we prayed. Pastor Neuman said some great things. In the end he gave Avery his holding cross. He holds this cross all the time during his sermon. He told her when she needed strength to hold it tight and ask God for help. I nearly lost it. She brought it with her to the MRI and held it before she went back. Thank you Trinity and especially Pastor Neuman for the beautiful jester. Now we wait! The scan should be done in about 3 hours. If you have time please say a prayer for Avery. PLEASE PRAY FOR CLEAR SCANS AND FOR AVERY'S HEALTH TO RETURN TO NORMAL SO SHE CAN BE A KID AGAIN! LORD HEAR OUR PRAYERS! Love Team brAvery! http://www.teambraverys.blogspot.com/ Check out the new pictures!

Awaiting Counts!

Good Morning! The blood would not draw from Avery's hickman so we are waiting for the TPA to unblock or unclog the line. We tried everything...just short of holding Avery upside down by her feet. Five minutes to go and we will try again. Tom's sister and niece got into a car accident last night. Everyone is fine but the truck. Thank God! We hope Mary and Frankie are healing and feeling well. Yeah...The TPA worked we just got blood. Now we will wait for the results to see if she will need red or platelets today. Thank You for the positive thoughts and prayers. Results are back.....She needs nothing! Platelets are at 39,000 and her hemoglobin is at 8.6. Hopefully this is a trend and her bone marrow is starting to rebound! Avery is excited to get the heck out of the clinic. Avery adores her nurses but she would rather not be here! Off to home we go!!! I will spare you my nerves this weekend and will update on Monday after her scan. Remember we will not find out results until after our appointment with Dr. Wetmore on Tuesday. Our plans for this weekend... Friday - Go to the oncology groups party in St. Paul Saturday- Go to cousin Jared and Joseph's birthday party Sunday- Go to church asking God for his healing touch on Avery. We need him to give Avery an amazing miracle. Please help us ask God for his help in healing Avery too. The more people praying for Avery the better the chance of him hearing us. I know you all understand how important this is to us. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued support and we truly could not get through this with out each of you.

PLEASE PRAY AND ASK THE LORD HEAR OUR PRAYERS FOR AVERY! Love Team brAvery!

I am sooo tired. I promise to upload photos from school and the Xcel. Avery had a blast. She had so much fun being at school and cried when it was time for us to leave. That broke my heart. She want's to be a kid... run around and be silly. I will post more tomorrow. Since I took so much time with the last message that I just lost and my body is telling me to sleep. Lily kept me up last night and I'm sad tonight. Please pray for Isaac's family. Isaac went to heaven today. To many kids going to heaven. Love your children today, spend time with them and be kind to them when they are driving you nuts. MRI just four short day's away. Please put Avery on your church prayer request and tell everyone you know to pray for her too. Please pray for Avery's health to return and no cancer in her body and that the MRI on Monday will show no evidence of disease. Thank you so much! The prayers and positive thoughts mean so much. Good Night