Violet Brielle Spataro

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...

Last Wednesday, Violet had her EUA (exam under anesthesia). We had a 12:30 check in time which is a later time than we like because Violet cannot eat anything before her procedure. Then, it turned out that the surgery before hers ran late, so she was not taken back to start until just after 4pm. Poor little girl went all day without being able to eat. We were obviously not happy, but there was nothing we could do. We just did everything we could to keep her occupied and distracted as much as possible. She handled it all very well up until the last hour or so and then she was having a hard time. After her EUA we were told everything looked as good as they had expected. No new tumors and the much regressed tumor in her left eye is still on the optic nerve, but it is inactive. Both her oncologist and ophthalmologist agree that no more chemotherapy will be done after this month. Violet has her next EUA scheduled for the first week in February to monitor. The next day, my mom and I too...

December was full of blessings for our family. Celebrating Violet's birthday and Christmas were very welcome distractions for us. While Violet's blood counts were down more than up, we were still able to be with family because thankfully no one was sick or had a cold. It was so wonderful to be able to dress her up, take her out and see the enjoyment on her face! excited to see Santa ... then a little bored haha not sure what to think of Santa yet I love that Santa gave Violet sweet cuddles opening presents! trying to figure out this ribbon this is fun! getting help from her cousins playtime! We did have an fever scare the weekend before Christmas. Whenever a child going through chemotherapy gets a temperature over 100.5 it means a trip to the ER to make sure there is no infection. With a port-a-cath like Violet has, there is always risk, and so it scared us, but thankfully after they checked her ANC level and found that it was not severely low, they felt co...

On December 6th, 2011, our sweet Violet Brielle turned one year old! This little girl has been through so much in the last few months, so we were extremely excited to have a day of celebration and fun with our family here in Washington (and 2 very special family members even flew in from CA to be here!). We had Violet's first birthday party on Sunday, December 4th at our apartment building in the 6th floor lounge. It was a great day and Violet had so much fun! Here are a few photos of the special day ... Pretty fresh flowers surrounded by sprinkles of paper violets  Handmade decorations for our owl theme (Look Whoooo's Turning One!) Birthday cupcakes Violet's first birthday cake Happy Daddy & Violet The party room Happy Grandma & Violet Playing with her butterfly shoes ... Violet loves butterflies! Mommy & Nana Opening presents! Sweet birthday girl Ready for some yummies! Having fun! Playing her new piano (just like Mommy!) H...

Last week on Wednesday Violet had her EUA (exam under anesthesia) to see how the remaining tumor in her left eye looked and to determine from that if Violet would need additional rounds of chemotherapy. Just 3 days before this, we had Violet's 1st birthday party. It was a great day and I will make sure to tell you all about it in a separate post. When the night was winding down Josh and I began to scan through the photos on our camera and we noticed that not only was the white "glow" coming from Violet's left eye (where we know tumor is remaining) but it was also showing up in her right eye. It hit us right in the stomach because we know this is an indication of a tumor. At the time, we had family over and so we tried to not let it ruin our night but it was very hard. Josh and I prayed so much that night. Having another tumor come back that quickly and while going through chemotherapy would be very disheartening. Even though we know that with Bilateral Retinoblast...

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...