Cycle One Inpatient Complete - Home

Caroline finished her inpatient stay for Cycle 1 of treatment for relapsed Neuroblastoma today! She's at home resting and recovering from a brutal 6-night stay at Vanderbilt. The side effects have been nausea, diarrhea, occasional rash, fever, loss of appetite, overall pain, and discomfort.

In the past week, she's had her port placed, a bone marrow biopsy, 2 chemos each day for five days, and the antibody treatment infused over 20 hours per day for four days.  Beginning today, for the next 7 days, Caroline will receive Leukine shots to help her immune system recover. She is also on more than a half dozen other medications to help with the treatment side effects and infection prevention.  Cycle 2 will start in about two weeks (mid-May), with weekly outpatient clinic visits to check her counts in between.

She will spend the next few days recovering at home, and we are hoping she feels well enough to get back to school soon, although she'll have to limit her physical activity due to the port (located in the upper right side of her chest), and she also had to stop playing spring rec soccer.  

Please continue to pray / send good vibes / hope for the best possible outcome for Caroline. In addition to needing the treatment to kill off these aggressive cancer cells spread throughout her little body again, she is really just so sad.  This time around she is more aware of what she's "missing," and she has a lot more "big" feelings about what's going on.  Although we have faith and will go to the ends of the earth to fight this, we all know too much and are scared.

We are so grateful for her amazing care team at Vanderbilt…as always, they have been gracious, patient, and compassionate during this entire process.

As we mentioned before, we have received some packages in the mail without sender information…please know we appreciate every one of you, and the outpouring of love and generosity! We know we can’t do this alone, and there is much comfort for us in numbers.  We definitely can feel all the love and support, and know Caroline has an army from all over behind her!  

The Lantz Family
#carolinestrong
#ftgf

Donate Blood in Caroline's Honor

Contribute to Medical Expenses via GoFundMe

Family Meals via UberEats (email to margaretlantz@gmail.com)

Misc Treatment Needs via Amazon Gift Card (email to margaretlantz@gmail.com)

Recovering at home

Beside EKG after some chest pains on night 5

Bedside X-Ray after chest pains on night 5

How she spent most of her time inpatient...

Caroline got a VERY special visit from Squid, the hospial's emotonal support dog.  He spent almost an hour laying in bed with her on one of the hardest days of the cycle.  As soon as she saw Squid coming into the room, her face lit up - and words cannot describe how much seeing her smile meant!  Thank you Mars Petcare and the Better Cities for Pets Program for sponsoring Squid at VUMC!