Violet Brielle Spataro

In this time of Thanksgiving, our little family is thankful for many things. We are thankful to our Lord Jesus for giving us the strength to get through this most difficult time in our lives. We give thanks to Him daily for giving us the means to keep a roof over our heads and food in our home. We praise Him for the healing that has and is taking place in Violet! We are thankful for the support, love and prayers of our friends, family and kind strangers that have kept us lifted up. Josh and I try our hardest to remain positive and hopeful every day. It isn't an easy thing to do. I admit honestly that it is, in fact, very difficult at times. We work at it daily and pray about it daily. It is very important to us to provide Violet with a happy and peaceful home life amongst the chaos of her condition and treatment. So, for all of you who have given us encouragement, true support and sensitivity in our time of need we are so grateful! We are praying and keeping a hopeful heart tha

Last Wednesday Violet had another exam under anesthesia to see if the tumor in her left eye had shrunk and if it had possibly come off of her optic nerve so that it could be treated with a laser. Well, we received news that day that we didn't even know was possible. The tumor did not shrink and it did not come off of her optic nerve but the tumor was now inactive! We were caught off guard and wanted to know what this meant in terms of the cancer and future treatment. We got some answers from Violet's ophthalmologist that day but the bulk of the explanation came the next day from Violet's oncologist. First we were told that the tumor was dead. Great! Praise God! We later heard additional details that are still of concern. First, the tumor has a "grey" area around it that indicates cells are not dead but dying. We had been told Wednesday that she would likely only have 1 more round of chemotherapy but then on Thursday when we were told of this grey area, we we

The last 3 weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster regarding Violet's ANC. One week after Violet's 3rd round of chemotherapy her ANC dropped way down to only 100. Then, last Thursday it climbed to 1900! That was a very happy day! Yesterday it was back down to 384. (For those of you who are new to Violet's story please see this previous post  HERE  for an explanation of ANC.) We knew that even with the Neulasta injection (an injection used to lower the chance of getting an infection by increasing white blood cells in the bone marrow) her count would most likely go down before it came up, but we thought once it went up that it would stay up until the next round of chemotherapy. Unfortunately, Violet's system reacted against the norm. I do want to make sure that I mention Violet did so well in tolerating the effects of the Neulasta injection. Prayers were definitely answered! We were both amazed and very happy at how strong she was and how it seemed that her discomfo