Violet Brielle Spataro

Please head over to our friends at MousekaTools to read our guest blog post on Violet's special Make-A-Wish trip!  <3 If you haven't seen Make-A-Wish's short video of Violet's wish trip to Disneyland, you can watch it HERE . :)

Our sweet and brave Violet is turning 4 and will be celebrating another year of beating cancer!   This December Violet will have to be in the hospital again for her 19th EUA (exam under anesthesia), MRI, labs, oncology and audiology appointments. Before needing to undergo all of this yet again, we would love for Violet to enjoy a wonderful celebration for her birthday on December 6th. Our hope is to provide this celebration for Violet at the Great Wolf Lodge here in Washington. If you are new to Violet's story, please feel free to read more here on the blog. We have documented many of Violet's experiences from the very beginning of diagnosis. Violet began fighting for her life against Retinoblastoma (cancer) at just 7 months old. Over the past 3 years, Violet has had to endure many more difficulties than most adults will experience in their entire lifetime. Through all of this, she has kept a happy heart, a smile on her face and she has inspired us all.  Violet s...

I knew it was coming, but how I felt at the moment it actually happened let me know that I was completely emotionally unprepared for it. I really don't see how a parent could ever be ready to answer something like this. Violet asked me last night, "Mom, why do I have to keep getting my eyes checked?" That is what we call it when we talk to her about her EUAs. We refer to them as simply 'getting her eyes checked'. Violet knows that she had cancer. She understands that she was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma when she was a baby and that she went through chemotherapy to rid her eye of cancer. She knows all too much for such a sweet little innocent girl. Violet has asked about her EUAs many times before, but this time was different. She went on to ask me what the reason was behind having these done all the time. If she was ok and didn't have cancer anymore, than why did she have to keep going through these? I gave her the simplest answer I could and it was...

Violet's next EUA (Exam Under Anesthesia), labs, vision check and oncology clinic are coming up on April 9th and 10th. Please join us in praying for her safety, perfect health and complete healing. We will be posting same day updates to Violet's Facebook page  Violet Brielle - Surviving Retinoblastoma . We are very grateful for all of your prayers! Thank you all so much. (Photo from Violet's special Make-A-Wish trip to Disneyland. :) More to come on that magical trip!)

The journey with Violet's left eye has been a lot of back and forth with feeling victorious, then more unknowns and a lot of uncertainty. At the very beginning of Violet's diagnosis with Retinoblastoma, after the specialist had carefully assessed the condition of her left eye, the size of the tumor and the proximity to the optic nerve, we were faced with the decision of fighting to save Violet's eye or removing it completely. Violet's first diagnosis was Unilateral Retinoblastoma, meaning it was found in only one eye. However, Violet was so young at just 7 months old, and so, there was a significant chance that her diagnosis would change to Bi-Lateral Retinoblastoma after time showed us more. With Bi-Lateral Retinoblastoma, there are many more risks.  Tumors could begin to pop up in her non-affected eye in the future and if we removed Violet's left eye she could have the chance of losing both.  We prayed over the  decision and then we took it to heart when the s...

Violet has her next EUA this Wednesday, September 25th. We are awaiting details of our check-in time and hoping that it is an early one. They will also be performing an ERG while Violet is under anesthesia. This will be the very first time they have done this and we are praying for a miracle in her vision! We are so grateful for everyone that has been kindly following Violet's story and supporting us along the way. We will always continue to share here, but we would also like to invite you to Violet's official Facebook page that has been made public. We would love to have you all join us for more frequent updates, photos, information and prayer.  Here:  Violet Brielle - Surviving Retinoblastoma   Please feel free to share Violet's page as well! Thank you all so much for your prayers & love. 

This is the face that I fight for. A fire has been lit within my heart in recent months to connect with other families going through the battle of childhood cancer. I offer whatever I can ... Prayers, encouragement, information, Violet's survival story, handmade hats from our shop for their children ... anything that can help. I know that every act of kindness that you can get when your child is in treatment and in monitoring makes a world of difference. When Violet was diagnosed with cancer, a few very kind friends reached out to me and offered the contact information of other families they knew were going through the same with their children. At the time, I could not bring myself to contact these families. It was too much. I have so much empathy that when I talk to someone on the phone who has a cold I start to feel symptoms, so I just could not imagine taking on more than our own battle with cancer as it was overwhelming. I needed all of my strength to get my family th...

For the first time in a very long time I feel like we are beginning to live a normal-focused life together as a family. It is an amazing feeling and I am so grateful for it. The days of being in the hospital on a weekly basis gets smaller and smaller in the past behind us. I thank God for that every single day. We are no longer living with family. We have recently moved into a home of our own and we love it very much. And, although we are still in financial strain with all the catching up we have to do, it was time. Time for us to be together on our own, in our own space and to just feel settled. To be able to unpack things from our home in California that we haven't even seen in over 2 years ... it's a wonderful thing! I can never express fully how thankful we are for all the help we have received to get us to this point. And, it is so reassuring to know that we have such an amazing support system to help us get through the years to come with Violet's monitoring ap...

Violet had her last EUA (exam under anesthesia) in December and a follow up with her Oncologist in January. Both appointments had fantastic results! Violet has had no recurrence of cancer and she is exceeding all of her milestones, showing us that her chromosome 13 deletion is having no effects on her physical and mental learning abilities. Praise God with me! :) I say this often and it is with my whole heart, "We are so grateful!" As Violet gets older, it seems the hospital appointments are becoming increasingly difficult for her. It's really hard for Josh and I to see her get so upset and scared. At her last appointment, she screamed when they just went to take her blood pressure. That has never happened before. Violet is obviously starting to associate that one thing leads to the next part that she does not like. Thankfully, Violet is able to go 3 months before she needs to go through it all again. And, we are very hopeful that all will go well with her next EUA...

After singing bedtime songs tonight, Violet snuggled in, sharing my pillow, and held my face close to hers with her little hand. She fell asleep that way. It warmed my heart and made me smile. My thoughts turned right to God and I thanked him for such a precious moment. It was so sweet. We had 3 entire months off from hospital visits this summer and it was so wonderful! We were so happy to have that break. We went to different parks, Seattle Center, Pike's Market, the Bellevue 4th of July festival and had visits from our family in California. Such a blessed time! Violet had a blast and so did we. :) On Wednesday, September 5th, Violet had her EUA (exam under anesthesia) at Seattle Children's Hospital. When the surgery scheduler called to give me all of the pre-procedure guidelines, she had let me know that Violet was the first child on the schedule for the day. I was so grateful because Violet has had so many days where she is later on the schedule and when things run ...

This sweet little girl. She continues to amaze us and inspire us every single day. What a huge blessing we have in Violet. There is just so much to be grateful for and not a day goes by that we take for granted.  Violet has had her port-a-cath surgically removed and life after the port-a-cath is amazing! Can I just share with you that Violet was running around playing just a few short hours after surgery? It was as though she knew she was free from it and I think our happiness in reaching this day just seeped into her. We can pick her up under both arms without worry of dislodging a device in her chest. It's wonderful! Josh yearned for the day when he could lift Violet up into the air (like many parents do on a daily basis without thought) and now he can and does often!  The concern over Violet's chromosome 13 deletion and the developmental/physical impairments that we were told she may have ... they are not an issue. Violet is walking, climbing, talking up a ...

I have lost a lot of sleep over the last 6 months with everything that has been going on with Violet, but the last couple of nights I can barely sleep at all. First, I want to focus on the great blessings that we have right now. Violet is done with chemotherapy and her labs yesterday showed that all of her counts have almost fully recovered. This means that active treatment is completely over. There are no more weekly port accesses and blood tests! And, chemotherapy was very successful. Violet's ophthalmologist said that it was one of the best responses to chemotherapy that he has ever seen. That is so much to be grateful for. Violet's eye was saved (though we won't know exactly what kind of vision she will have for some time) and that in itself is amazing. 20 years ago, medicine wasn't anywhere close to where it is today for Retinoblastoma and her eye would have needed to be removed immediately. Thankfully, that was avoided. Another wonderful thing to report is Vio...