This is what Lisa wrote on face book yesterday! Sounds like she is making it through radiation with a smile! Amazing girl, that Lisa is!

Last radiation!! An then Marykate is staying till Wednesday.?.? and have lots of fun things planned so excited have a lot of energy and ready to kill this cancer!!! Thank u for continued prayers for David, Frida, Denton and I they really help!!! God Bless u all ! Have a wonderful beautiful day!!!

Lisa has had 2 radiation treatments so far and will have another one tomorrow. She is doing really well. She has not been sick or had any severe swelling. They did say though that as the radiation treatments progress the side effects could get worse. Hopefully she will continue to do well. She certainly has been on a cleaning mode though...her room is all organized and she is going through her drawers and closet. A girl with a mission!

radiation

Lisa is having her first round of radiation today. They took care of all the prep for this last week and she will just stay a few hours up there today if all goes well. The doctors said that they are in uncharted waters doing this radiation. They have never seen this type of cancer go to the brain. Normally radiation does not work on ostio sarcoma( not sure of the spelling) but then again Lisa's case is not the normal scenario, so they are willing to try this to see how it reacts. They have told them there is the possibility that Lisa's brain could swell after the radiation. If that happens she will likely have to go into emergency surgery to put a stint in to releave some of the pressure. If all goes well she will have radiation on Mon, Wed, and Fri of next week also.

If after these rounds of radiation they feel like the tumor has been killed they will try an experimental type of radiation.

I know it seems like Lisa has just gone through too much, but she is such a fighter....she just keeps telling the doctors that she wants to live and that they need to fight this aggressively.

Well Lisa is on her way back to Deornbacher. She headaches had been persisting at home and so they wanted her to come back up to do another MRI at 3:45. They did just have one the other day so I am not sure why they need another one, but I am sure they have their reasons. They also were going to touch base with the brain surgeon while they are up there.

Gail just said in her newest text that they have the brain surgeon on standby for possible surgery on Lisa depending what they find in the MRI. If they do surgery that would change all the plans they have set up for radiation on Wed.

I know it seems like alot of back and forth, but I guess that is kind of how it is when you are dealing with cancer. Gail said she would let us know when they hear anything.

coming home

Well I have some more info on Lisa. She had an MRI and they determined that she actually had 1 new tumor and a cyst. It was very hard to hear that the tumors were back and they talked very openly with them about what this meant. In Lisa style ,though, she said she wants to keep fighting and the doctors needed to check with the other doctors to see what could be done.

They have come up with a plan for her. They will do 5 rounds of radiation (they have not done that before) and then follow that up with some experimental chemo on an out patient basis. While she has been up at the hospital she has done pretty well. She is feeling a little weak but has been sleeping well.
Today they will go to the radiation ward and get all set up to start radiation on Wed. So because Lisa has passed all the medical tests that they have given her so they released her to go home. She is on a bunch of medications but glad to be able to get back home.
They want to thank all of you for your prayers and concerns. They are entering a new phase and new treatments, but very glad there are still options.

Tonight Lisa will have a MRI. They expect it to take about 1 1/2 hrs. They are all pretty scared and worried. The doctors are not saying encouraging things to them but the will find out alot more tomorrow.

Bad news

Well they got the results of the scan back... It shows 3 new tumors and they are bleeding. Lisa is feeling so sick and has been throwing up all day.

They are admiting her to the hospital right away so the Harders are driving up to Deornbecher. Lisa will be in ICU on the 8th floor. I don't think she can have visitors in ICU but they really would appreciate prayers. I haven't heard what they plan on doing to help treat this, but as I hear I will update.

Prayer

I got a text this morning that Lisa has been having alot of pain in her head. The Dr. in Salem is suspicious that her tumor is back so they are going to do another scan. It was not very long ago that they did the last scan and it was clear, so hopefully it is not the tumor.
Either way Lisa's head has been hurting alot and they would appreciate prayer.