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.