Home for 48 Hours ~ Snowman 365

Caroline was discharged today after a relatively uneventful week of inpatient admission for her IL-2 infusion.  Her only side effects this week were: mid-grade fever, nausea and some pain/discomfort, all of which were managed effectively by medication.  She was feeling so well today that she was playing football for a few minutes this afternoon with her brother and friends in our yard!

We will be re-admitted in 2 days (Monday) for a much harder tandem round of Unituxin and IL-2 infusions (click here if you want to learn more about the antibody and side effects).  We expect this coming week to be very difficult on her body; it's apparently harder than the first round and she will again need to be on a Dilaudid pain pump for the entire week-long stay.

Today, November 24th, marks the 1 year date since Caroline was officially diagnosed at Vanderbilt, with Stage 4 High-Risk Neuroblastoma.  We are now one year into a (minimum) 17-month treatment protocol, and are very grateful that Caroline has responded relatively well, so far, to a very aggressive cancer that has an overall survival rate of around 35% for her diagnosis.  We continue to pray that this last part of standard treatment, Immunotherapy, knocks out the rest of the active cancer in her body.  After discharge today, we went back to the exact spot where Caroline wanted her picture taken 1 year ago, as we were leaving the hospital after just learning about her diagnosis (she did not know at this point)...Frosty and Caroline are still standing strong together!

Thank you, again, to all of our friends, friends-of-friends, family, and even strangers, who continue to support our family through this long, hard journey against a very nasty cancer,  The meals, donations, prayers and words of encouragement have been and absolute blessings during a very unstable time in our lives.  It truly has been "the best of times, and the worst of times."

And yes, we did eat Thanksgiving together as a family, albeit on top of the Wilson's Yeti cooler in the corner of a hospital room! Very thankful for the Olivos/Hagues/Stanfords, who went out of their way to make us homemade food on Thursday...it was much better than eating at Subway (no offense Brent), which was the only place open at Vandy that day!

Much Love!
The Lantz Family
#carolinestrong
#ftgf

Same snowman, same strong girl!

A commemoration pie (homemade by Andrew!), and a video message from Caroline...

Thanksgiving Dinner

"Nurse mommy" changing Caroline's central line dressing.

Sending out some positive vibes!!!