Update - 6/15

Our apologies for the lack of an update the past few days. We'll try to cover it all here:

On Sunday, we headed up to Boston after dance recitals (Cam made it to hers and even danced!) and they took her for surgery first thing on Monday morning. The surgery was scheduled for 4 hours and they started her around 9:15am. At about 10:10 they made the first incision. By 12:45, the nurse came out and told us that Dr. Goumnerova was coming up to speak to us. This could either be really good news or really bad news.

It was really GOOD news. She was able to get the entire tumor out. In fact, she said when she opened up the dura, the tumor basically popped right up to the surface - which is why the surgery didn't take as long as they thought it would. She did say that it was attached to one of the nerves going to her right foot and may cause some numbness on the instep of her foot but did not anticipate anything substantial.

When Cam woke up after surgery - she said "My legs don't hurt anymore!" - which is music to our ears. She was in so much pain before the surgery that it was such a relief to hear it from her.

The past few days have been progressively less difficult. She had to stay flat for 24 hours post-op which she did not like at all. Yesterday, she was able to incline up to 30 degrees and now she hs up to about 45 degrees today. She is eating well and drinking apple juice like it is going out of style.

This afternoon, they plan on getting her up out of bed and moving around a little bit. They are also trying to schedule an MRI for today or tomorrow to make sure that everything is in order post-op. They will also start to get her off the steroids gradually over the next several days which we hope will improve her mood as well. As of this morning, she is on target to get released by the end of the week and go home!

Neuro-oncology is kind of waiting in the wings for neuro-surgery to release her to them so that we can get started on the cancer treatment. No "official" results back from pathology yet but everything seems to be pointing to ependymoma again. We'll wait to get the final results and then we should have a better idea of next steps in her treatment.

For now, we are so overwhelmed by all of the support and prayers that she has received over the past week. We are truly grateful to have you all thinking of her and the other girls!

More updates will be posted when we have them -

With Love,

Greg, Robin, Caitlin, Caroline & Campbell