YEEHAW! First week done!

Oh how great she did throughout the week! Her peachiness did fabulous with her treatment! One week down 4 to go! We have actually upgraded her bandages to a 4inch band aid. Its doing very well considering that its very hard to keep that sucker on. Hopefully she can go swimming next weekend. On Monday, Daddy and Rachel are coming along to check things out and one of her bestest friend Abby F. is coming on Wednesday(it seems most of her good friends are named Abby or Gabby LOL). The support from everyone has been tremendous, so much so that its almost overwhelming. Today, we did our last T-Ball game at Bungay School. The 90 degree heat didn't bode well with with Beans. We lathered up the lotion and she played 1 inning. Too bad she got overheated and sunburned almost instantly. We will have to talk to the doctor about ways to reduce this. I thought I did good with having her covered and lotioned but obviously we need more than that. We ended up watching the game from the truck with the a/c on high and the window of the tailgate open so they could watch the game from there and have a great view. Now its nap time and I off to work. I consider today a success...of sorts.....

Comments and Email! **Updated**

I know it stinks that there is no way to leave comments or feedback. You all are welcome to email me. IBDAMAMMA6901@AOL.COM is where you can reach me. I would love to hear from you guys!

XOXOXOX

**WOOHOOO!! I figured it out! You can click on a link at the bottom of each post. It will say comments and you can add comments that way! I feel so smart!♥**

A true Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Peachy Beans has proved herself as a little ray of sunshine. Day 1 of treatment she made a friend with Haley, another 5 year old girl who has lukemia. At first there was some tension but after about an hour Mia worked her magic and the girl was automatically drawn to her. They played for hours, had snacks and watched TV. The staff and mother were shocked because Haley was never a happy camper with her treatment let alone other kids. Highschool volunteers played with the kids, which helped me enjoy the time with Mia as well. It was truly a good start. Mia was very sick come dinner time, she was achy and sore spiking very high fevers. ClaireBear came by to pay a visit to the girls and Mia was very happy. Later Claire and I snuck away to have a heavenly late night dinner. It was a huge day and I needed to escape. Again, I was kicked out of my bed. This no sleep thing is becoming second nature.

Day 2, she did it again. Making a new friend Lexi! She is 7 and such a cutie! Kathryn came again to play with the kids which is really wonderful. She volunteers with a group called Miracle Care. They visit offices and clinics to bring some happiness to the children and it does do wonders. It gives the parents time to relax and watch as the kids play. Today was a shorter day which was nice. Mia got to play with the kids at Auntie Rae's. She was in some pain, but with some rest and motrin she did awesome. Showers are done, bandages are changed and now it's time for some Wii!! We love Wii....what would we ever do without it?

Real Athletes Wear Skirts

What started off as a groggy morning, turned out to be absolutely wonderful! Mia and Rachel got to play at Casagrande Field today, and it was way cool! They had a snack bar, a bathroom (with running water), and announcers! WOOHOO!! Mia played her last game of the season, though there is actually one game left. She played about 2 innings and got really tired. Not bad for a little girl who just had surgery on Friday. There was also a little boy who had broken his leg and he played too. He batted while sitting in a green wagon. His dad pulled him along to run bases and play the field. We had more injured players than the pro's. It's all fun and games until you jump off a couch and break your leg!!! It was truly a wonderful game day. After a while Mia was done for. So daddy gave her the best seat in the house....

GO STALLIONS!!!

And we have a port

Yes! After days/hours of being delayed we finally have a port! Mia did extremely well with this surgery even if the surgeon was behind 2 hours. We didn't mind the wait, she played in the play room, helped MeMa with some very important papers (post-it's) and the whole while couldn't eat a darn thing. She got home and ravaged some McDonalds. I felt horrible that I had to rush to work right after getting home but she had the best time with her buddy Abby watching the Jo Bro's Camp RocK! After a few short hours of sleep I was awoken by screams of "GO MIA GO" "ABBY JUMP THERE" I come flying out of Mia's room where I was sleeping to find (at 6:55AM) all 3 girls very awake and playing Mario Party 8!! Good gravy these kids need to sleep, I need to sleep! It was bad enough I didn't have enough room in my king size bed when I got home from work at 2 am. Seems, I had missed a very important sleepover.George declares that there was planty of room for me to fit. I declared he fibbed and I had the photographic evidence to prove my case. Though her peachiness is sore, she has proved her resiliance at 7am. I hope she can show the same come Monday morning when she starts treatments. I wonder if they have IV expresso treatments for the adults. That would be great!

Hurray for healing!

I can't believe how well this all is healing! Yes it looks red and such but that is to be expected. The oozing and goo-ing has pretty much slowed so much. The dead skin is finally coming off and the actual insiscions are healing from the inside out. We change her bandages twice daily and use a tube of bacitracin a day. Unfortunately, the red around her foot is part of the scaring. We are hoping within a few short weeks that we can have her go bandgage-less. As you can tell, she is still wearing the lime green nail polish she had on since her surgery. I try to take it off and give her a pedicure but she retracts her foot like a tape measure when I get too close or even think of altering her toes in anyway. The swelling has almost completely deminished, so her toes don't look like twinkies, which is quite an improvement. She is excited to see Dr. Stahl (her surgeon) to show him how awesome she did taking care of her foot. She is triumphant with her successful healing and her fantastic sense of taking direction. I am sure she will leave out that she has been running, jumping off playscapes, getting bandages soaked in sprinklers etc. Those are small details that he just doesn't have to know.Still no word on her surgery this week. Seems Yale has better things to do than to contact a parent for scheduling.

Thank you Cynde for the Fashionista Barbie. Mia was so excited to have the mailman ask for her at the door! She played with it for HOURS but questioning the whole time why barbie doesn't have to wear "big girl" undies. My husband could do nothing but chuckle and wonder it himself. Poor man has a house full of girls......

A little photo fun!

Yet another surgery this week

Monday we went to get Mia's pick line put in. They did an ultrasound of her veins and couldn't find one large enough to support it. Today, we had a pre-op appointment at yale. She will be getting a port put in. It will be an access type thing that looks like a cap underneath her skin. They will be able to access it once a week, taking the access out on weekends so she can swim and shower. I have spoke with a few people who said that this was awesome, she will barely know its there. Only downfall is that it has to be surgically implanted and removed. This child is pretty much fed up with getting put to sleep only to wake up in pain. We don't know when this surgery will be, but it will be this week. The pediatric oncolgist wants to start treatment on Monday 6/23 so hopefully we can this in gear.

On a happier note, Rachel enjoyed her last day of school with a traditional pizza party capped off with huge ice cream sundaes. Following the last bus ride of the year, she met up with friends at one of the best pool parties of the MILLENIUM! 40+ kids attended and without incident! I think it was super awesome of the Motasky family to host such a cool party. Pretty brave too.

I am in desperate need of sleep but that Wii is just calling my name....anyone want to pimp my ride?

Where to begin?

Hey guys,

Me and George have decided to create this new bloggy thingy to keep everyone up to date on Mia's progress. We have found that our support system has grown tremendously over the past few years, that it is hard for to contact everyone individually. So with that said, I will give you all a little review of what has been happening!

Mia had a growth removed from her foot in April. She had this growth for about 2-3 years but never knew exactly what it was. Finally an awesome surgeon said "Let's get this thing off of her and find out what it is". April 24th was her first surgery and it had went fast. We were in and out of Griffin in about 2 hours. By nightfall she was just a peachy little bean, I swear she was loving all the riches of being immobile. Still in all she was happy to have it off and to have her foot become pretty again.

May 2nd was the day that changed our lives forever. The surgeon called and requested that I come in to get the results of the patholgy reports. It didn't really sink in, and I explained that I would be headed that way in about 2 hours, that I can come in before I went to work. The Dr said that if I could come before a certain time that would be great, if not he would wait. What? Wait? I hung up the phone and my stomach hit the floor. What could be wrong with my Mia? I call George and let him know that we need to go right away to the Dr because the pathology report was in. They don't go callin you in unless there is something wrong. The fifteen minute ride seemed like 6 hours. As we walked into the office, George and I are trembling. The office is empty except for his receptionist. We were brought into a room and the ceiling came crumbling in. Mia had Melanoma, that little wart/boil/mole looking thing was Melanoma? How the hell could that be? She is 5 not 55! How do we fix it? All of these and plus a whole million more questions were running through our heads.

Our First visit with Dr. Joe came the following week. Still Mia is oblivious to what is going on. In the weeks following she had several appointments, meeting all these doctors and nurses. It kinda freaked me out, so I wondered how she would feel about it. After Lymph node testing, she had her second surgery May 23rd at Yale Childrens Hospital. The second plastic surgeon was able to remove the rest of the cancerous tissue from her foot, and 1 lymph node out of a dozen removed was malignant. She spent the night at the hospital and was home the next afternoon. When she came home this time, she was not a peachy bean. She was so confused why she had a cut in her belly, a cut in her leg, her foot had weird bandages etc. She was one confused child.

Because of that one darn node, we have to do a treatment very similar to Chemo. Its called Alpha Interferon. Her treatments are about 5 hours a day, 5 days a week for 5 weeks (play those numbers...555) in Guilford, its about an hour from our house. The support from everyone has encouraged me to create this blog. I am going to post one last picture. You don't have to look of you dont want to, but I think it will help you understand what my princess is going through.