We are finally home! It is so nice to be back home. We are all settled back in and we are relaxing. Jenna is feeling good, really tired but feels good. I cannot believe that she is not in any pain. I don't know how to thank you all enough for your prayers, we know that is why things have gone so well! Please continue to pray for her continued healing and for future clear scans.

Sorry so short tonight, but I think it is all finally hitting me, and I am exhausted. I will post more later. Hugs to you all!!!

Hello Team Jenna!  More good news!! We got up this morning and had a little girl that wanted nothing more than to start for home. So we decided that we would start for home. We left Columbus at about 10am Iowa time and we are in Peoria Ill. for the night. We decided we didn't want to do the whole trip in one day and wear her out, so we stopped about halfway. The best news is that we should be home tomorrow afternoon!

She is doing amazing. We were a bit concerned about her incision, since we had trouble with it last time, but things really look great. Her strength is absolutely amazing!

I did get some pics up last night but they are kind of backwards in order so I will get them fixed up with captions when we get back to our hi speed internet.

Well I guess that's all the news for now. I will post again when we are oficially home!

Many thanks to all!!!!!

Hello All! I have great news!!!!!!!!!!! We are out of the hospital!!! Dr. Raffel came in this morning and said that she looks great and that we could go. Jenna jumped on that and we were out the door a few hours later. He called this morning and spoke with our pediatrician in Des Moines and he is going to do our follow ups so she is free to come home. We haven't decided when we will actually head home. We have talked about tomorrow or Sunday, but we don't want to rush things. We would like to stay close to Dr. Raffel for a while just in case. I am going to try to get some pictures posted on the website tonight now that we are back in the hotel and have a better internet connection. She feels really good and looks even better. I can't believe how much more quickly she is recovering this time around.

We got our copies of the MR scans yesterday afternoon and sat down last night to look at them. We were amazed to see NOT MUCH!!!! The scans looked so different. The Scan from Tuesday before surgery showed that the tumor had grown since the last one in March, and the Hydrocephalus had increased significantly. I really do not know how she was not having headaches and vomiting again. The good thing is that the scan after surgery showed just a small rim, and no contrast enhancement. Contrast enhancement is bad, and we do not ever want to see enhancement. T2 signal could mean that there is swelling, it could mean tumor also, but we won't know for awhile. He told us today that in an average case like this he would have gone back in there and done another surgery today to remove that rim, but in Jen's case, when he was in there he stopped only when he saw what he believed was normal brain tissue. He stopped surgery and started a couple of times thinking he was done and then decided to try to get a little more each time, and felt comfortable stopping when he did. He said that if he would go right back in he wouldn't know where to stop, because he already saw what he thinks is normal brain tissue. So now we just have to watch and wait.

The best news is that she got out and walked this morning and she has NO WEAKNESS AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  God is Good!!!! She has all of her strength in her arm and leg, and no facial paralysis at all.

Well we are going to enjoy a night of sleep in an actual bed, and I will post tomorrow and let you know for sure when we will be home. She is anxious to see everybody!!!!!

Thank you all for everything!!!
Watch for pics later!!

Hello Team Jenna! All is going good here. Jenna has had a pretty good day. She started out by wanting to get up and go for a ride in the wheelchair, so we took her for a short walk down to the family room. She got tired pretty quickly, so we went right back for her to rest. Dr. Raffel came in and said that things look really good and that as long as she keeps eating and drinking today, he will let her go home tomorrow morning. He also said that they would remove her headwrap in the morning, but they came in this afternoon and took that off. The incision looks really good and she has had no pain since early yesterday morning. We also got to take her out onto the rooftop playground that is right outside our window. She sat in the shade and watched Blaine, Abbi, and Hannah play for awhile, and we got a nice suprise and Ryan(that I talk about on the website) and his mom Laurie came to visit us. What a wonderful family. That, I can say is a true blessing that God has given us through all of this-Great Friends!!! What would we do without you all?

Well, hopefully we will get out of here tomorrow and then we are planning on staying a couple more days here in Columbus, just to make sure things are ok and then we will probably do our trip home in 2 days so that she doesn't have to ride for so long and get too tired. I will post again tomorrow and let you know how things are going.
Thank you all for everything. Please continue to pray for her complete healing. I know God will answer!!!

Ok, so I am so sorry that it has taken me all day to update, It has been a really long day. I'll try to start at the beginning. She had a pretty good night. Woke up feeling pretty good, had a little pain, but nothing too bad. They had her scheduled for an MRI at 2pm, and had decided that they should have a room on the neuro floor ready for her by the time she was done with the MRI. They had to sedate her for the MRI, so she has been out of it most of the day. She is just starting to come around a bit.

Dr. Raffel came in after the MRI, and said that everything looks really good. He said that all of the contrast enhancement is gone, but there is still a little T2 signal left. He said best case scenario would have been to see no T2 at all, but it could also be like that because of the damage from surgery or scar tissue. Obviously we REALLY need the prayers for this to be nothing and never come back. We do know at this point that if it does come back, Dr Raffel doesn't want to do any more surgery, so we would be back to square one. He would suggest Radiation and I cannot get myself to feel good about that, so we would have to look into other options. Please PRAY that we will not need to do that, PRAY that God will Heal her fully this time. She has been through so much, and it kills me to see her go through this. 

We are all settled into our room on the neuro floor now, and our cell phones are back on, so feel free to check in if you want to. There are times when we can't answer so just leave us a message and one of us will get back to you.

They are talking about springing her from the hospital maybe on Friday, So we are all really looking forward to that! We will stay a few extra days in Columbus just to make sure she is doing REALLY well before we bring her on the long journey home. They gave her dissolvable  stitches so she doesn't even have to have them removed. She will just have to have another MRI in 3 months to see how things are going. All in all she feels pretty good and is ready to get life back to 'Normal' whatever that is. I will update more tomorrow, it should be a more laid back day, just trying to get her eating and drinking.

 

Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers!! PLEASE KEEP THOSE PRAYERS COMING!!!!!

Lots of Love!!! 

Well we made it up to PICU and all is well so far. Tyse and I got to go in to recovery to be with her and she was pretty groggy still, but looked really good!  She said she felt pretty good, had just a little pain. We got to come with her up to the PICU, and they have her all settled in. She has been really awake and alert, she even rolled her eyes at me!! She has done amazing so far and I am constantly in awe of how strong she is.

We can't have our phones on in PICU but they will probably move her over to the neuro floor tomorrow, and we will turn them on then. She has been drinking water good and they are giving her juice. So far so good!

She got a little upset when they told her that Blaine, Abbi, and Hannah couldn't come in to see her, but she understands. I never thought I would see her get upset over having a little peace and quiet from Blaine and Abbi!! We haven't talked to Dr Raffel, yet again this evening but, when we do I will let you all know.

 Please keep the messages coming, she loves having me read them to her!!! It puts a big smile on her face!

I will update again later.  Please keep the prayers coming, we know we have a long road ahead. 

 

Love and Hugs to you all!!!!! 

Well believe it or not surgery is already over. Dr. Raffel just came out and said that everything went well, and he feels very good about how much he was able to take out. He feels like he got it all and that he was as aggressive as he is willing to be. He feels like he pushed his limits and that there is a good chance that she will be weak on the right side, but he hopes she can regain that. Obviously we won't know that for sure for a few days. He also said that he will not be willing to do surgery again, because he feels like he couldn't push any farther. Of course we hope that this surgery will be enough and this nasty thing won't grow back again. They were just stitching her up when he came out, and said that we should be able to see her soon. We will try to post again once we see her. She will go right into ICU, and be there over night, and if all goes well, she will move over to the general floor tomorrow. I don't know if we will be able to have the computer on in ICU or not, but we will try to keep you updated.

 Please pray for a speedy recovery, all she wants is to be a kid and have no worries, and I don't blame her. 

 Lots of Love!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so I forgot to tell you all to make sure you know that the times that I post on the Updates are in EASTERN Time, so we are one hour ahead of you all at home.

 They just called to give us an update and they officially started surgery at 11am and all is going fine. They will give us another update in 2 hours.UGH!!! We do have a monitor in the waiting room that lets us know the the steps they are on throughout surgery. We will let you know when we know some more.

PLEASE KEEP PRAYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love to you all!!!!!!!! 

Well, we arrived at the hospital at 5:30am, and they got Jen all ready for her MRI which was supposed to start at 7am with surgery following at 8. They are doing a different type of MRI called a stealth, so they had to shave eight spots on her head and put some little sensors on the spots, and then when they do surgery Dr. Raffel will have all of the MR images up on his screens and he will be able to get 3D images. It sounds like this will help him to be really accurate as it tells him how close he is to where he is going. She did really well until they actually put her inside the MRI machine, and then her muscles started to contract again and she started to hyperventilate, so we got her out of it, and decided that we needed to sedate her for the MRI as well. They finally got her to sleep about 8:30am, and they thought the MRI should take about 45 min. to 1 hour then they will take her straight up to surgery. We are in the surgical waiting room and they have said that they will update us about every hour once surgery starts. So we are hoping to have an update again around 10:30 or 11am. Please continue to pray for us all. Thank you to everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!! We love you all!!!!!!