<>Well Jenna's dreaded day has finally come to an end, and she is ever so thrilled! Her MRI went pretty good. She got very worked up when they tried to start the IV, and we ended up having to hold her down while they got it started.As if that wasn't hard enough to do, she was crying and screaming" this isn't fair". Well nothing she could ever say could be more true! This isn't fair one bit, she shouldn't be going through this, no nine year old child should be used to having IV's and MRI's. Although, this is reality and she will have to get used to IV's and MRI's.  Once they got the IV started she calmed down and relaxed a little. She did really well through the MRI, and layed perfectly still. We went to the mall  and went out for lunch, and then explored the subway shops underneath the mayo building between her appt.'s. We met with Dr. Raffel and he showed us all three of the MRI"s and told us that it is really hard to determine anything from this MRI, mainly because he has nothing to compare it to, so this MRI will have to be her baseline MRI. He showed us that there is still something there, but he is not sure if it is Tumor or scar tissue or both. He recommended that we have the next MRI in six months instead of three months, because this is such a slow growing tumor, he will be able to tell if whatever this is has changed at all. If it has changed, or ever does change he said that he would recommend a type of Radiation called "Gamma Knife". It is a type of radiation that can only treat small lesions, because it targets just the tumor, and doesn't affect the rest of the brain tissue like regular radiation. He said it would have little if any side effects for her.  The spot that is there is sort of horse shoe shaped, and very small, It sort of looked like half a cantaloupe or watermelon after you have scooped out all of the fruit and only have the rind left. It seems as if that is what he had to do with Jenna. Scoop out all of the bad that he could get without touching the other three sides of the tumor that were attached to the brain. He explained to us that the tumor was in a hard place to be able to get a complete resection because it touched some pretty vital areas like the Thalamus, and another part that controls her facial function.  I feel like we are very blessed that he didn't touch or damage those vital areas, and that we will deal with what is left when and if the time comes. She is very happy to have all of this over with and we know that God has a reason for all of this, although we may not like it or understand it. We will just take it a day at a time, and cherish the next six months. She can have the whole summer to not worry and just be a kid. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, you'll never know how much it means to us.

I am so excited. I have finally made a contact in Harkin's DC office, and things sound pretty promising that he is on board. We are quickly running out of time, so I am pleased with what we have accomplished so far. This could mean so much for so many children.  

I received the proof of the cookbook yesterday, and it looks fabulous! I was hoping that I could get a picture of it online, but it came as a black and white copy, and I can't get a good image to download, so I guess it will be a suprise to you all.

We also have received our shirts. We are in the process of sorting them right now, but I hope to have all of the info up on the How You Can Help page this afternoon. They really did a great job with them.

Jenna continues to be the amazing little girl that she is. She is dreading the MRI and visit to Rochester, which is understandable! We are going to try to make it a special visit, so she can see that it's not so bad. A friend of the family made her an autograph quilt, so she could have all of her visitors sign it, and the same friend e-mailed and asked if Jenna would like to take one to another little girl in the hospital when we go so she is excited for that. She is also working on some little fleece blankets, and we made a whole bunch of little activity packs with games in them to take to the hospital also. 

We have also been working on the walk that we would like to do, and now Tyse has decided that he would like to do it as a walk/bike ride. So it looks as if June may be too soon to pull them both together, so  I am going to shoot for September, because I don't want to do it when it is too hot. We are going to need a lot of volunteers for this so if anyone is interested in volunteering just let me know.

I will post Thursday after we have seen Dr. Raffel, and let you all know the good news, because I have faith that it will be only good news!