Chemo is a scary word. I remember when we first walked around the corner to the office where Dr. Heym is located in Ft. Worth in the Dodson Clinic. I had originally been told he was a hematologist. So, when I saw the word "oncologist" under his name, I almost lost my cool. I tried to play it off, but my mom totally called my bluff. A mom always knows her kids so well. She could see it in my eyes and asked Dr. Heym for me if we were seeing him because they were fearful that Seiden's situation was going down the "C' word path. He assured me that that couldn't be further from the truth. But, the fact that everything that she has is lymphatic, chemo is just a normal form of treatment.
So, after we got through the cold/flu season and Seiden was fully healed from the last sclerotherapy treatment she had on November 9th, we called Dr. Heym's office to see where we go from our current place in time. Obviously, before he put her on any sort of medicine, he wanted to see her for a regular visit. Just to do a routine check-up on her to make sure all her vitals were normal and she was healthy enough to be on a new form of treatment, especially chemo. We made an appointment to see Dr. Heym at the Cook's Specialty Clinic here in Abilene. Dr. Heym is the first doctor Seiden's had from Cook's that came to Abilene every quarter. We had the opportunity to see him in December of 2015. But, Seiden was still so swollen and bruised from the last sclerotherapy treatment, and it was so close to Christmas, we just decided to wait and let her heal some more and enjoy the holiday season, doctor and medicine free.
Our appointment was at 8:30 on March 4th. I took a half day off so that I could go and not be rushed. Plus, I wanted to take her to get donuts and see my mom and come up to my school and meet my co-workers and some of my students after her appointment. I try to make doctor visit days fun for her so that she doesn't dread them so much. That sweet little angel knows exactly what's going on and I can only fool her for so long. As soon as we pull up to a hospital or doctor's office, she knows exactly where we are. Thankfully, this time, she had never been to this office before. So, I just told her we were going to run an errand, then go get donuts, see Bella, and go up to mommy's school. That was good enough for her and she believed me until we walked into the waiting room. She knew exactly what type of waiting room it was and then told me that she didn't need to be fixed and she just wanted to go home. Ok...seriously...tear my heart in two! These are the kinds of things that just break my heart about all she's been through. She plays with her babies and with us like we're at the doctor. She takes everyone's temperature, draws our blood, listens to our heartbeat, drives her babies to the doctor in her shopping basket, etc. But, then I also look at how blessed we are and that she is far advanced in her learning and development with all her speech and fine motor skills and that we have a sweet, loving, brave, strong, kind, caring, funny, smart, Jesus-loving little girl, and it makes it all 100% better.
Thankfully, what made this appointment be ok was the fact that she wasn't going to get any "pokies." That's what we call blood draws and shots. This was really just a consultation with Dr. Heym for him to talk to us about her situation and the pros and cons and possible side effects of the chemo. Dr. Heym told us that it was really up to us as far as putting her on the medicine goes. He told us that she looked really good and was looking more symmetrical even from the last time he had seen her. But, that the medicine would also have a really high possibility to clear up any of those tiny, micro-cysts that were still lingering and couldn't be gotten with sclerotherapy. At this point, she was almost 2.5 and we had always said we wanted to try and do anything for her before she started school. Just because we wanted to give her the best chance for those cysts to be cleared up and for them not to swell if/when she gets sick when she's in school. Plus, we didn't want to have to pull her out of school as much as we are now for doctor's appointments, treatments, and then time to heal from those treatments, if needed. Because the dosage of the chemo would be so small, we decided to go ahead and give it a shot. On top of the chemo, she would be taking bactrim, an antibiotic that combats the immune weakening of chemo. Which, she already has a weakened immune system from the effects of all of the cystic hygroma, micro and macro cysts, and the multiple treatments she had already been on. We would start her off taking .4mL and then she would go back in late April for a blood draw to see if her levels were on target for the medicine. It was a decision we had prayed about and felt confident, once again, that God had laid this plan out in front of us when he put Dr. Mac in our lives when we met with Dr. Thomas in the spring of 2015. If it weren't for Dr. Thomas referring us to Dr. Mac for the sclerotherapy through interventional radiology, and then Dr. Mac referring us to Dr. Heym for the chemo therapy, then we might still be at square one and not have gotten Seiden the help and the therapy that she needed to be where we are today. We've always prayed for her to be healed. And, if it weren't through miraculous healing, for medicinal healing through God providing us with doctors who would help her in the best, yet most non-invasive way possible, then we would follow God's path for her healing. How could we deny what we had prayed for and what God had put right in front of us? So, we went for it and are going to see where this new path takes us and our precious baby girl. #seidenstrong
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