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Garrett and Cassie Drew 
Welcome to Garrett's and Cassie's Web Page.
It has been provided to help keep people updated about Garrett and Cassie. He was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma in April 2001. He received an autologous stem cell transplant on November 27, 2001, following seven months of chemotherapy and seventeen radiation treatments. He was released on December 13, 2001. He has now been in remission for 6 years. He is 6 year post transplant.
Cassie was born on February 6, 2004...13 weeks before her due date. She was discharged from the NICU at McLeod's Children's Hospital in Florence on April 16...10 weeks after she was born.
Journal
Friday, February 1, 2008 9:58 PM CST Hello everyone. It has been too long. A lot has changed since the last time I updated. I've added new pictures on the web page.
Garrett is doing great. He is now in 2nd grade at his daddy's school and doing wonderful. He's still the sweet, easy going little boy that he used to be. He is so tender hearted also and he worries about everyone. He will definately have ulcers when he's older from all of the worrying he does. He has kept us quite busy lately. To make a long story as short as possible....he was hit in the nose with a football at one of the Clemson games this season. Needless to say, his nose poured blood for about 3 hours. A couple of days later, he was bumped in the nose again at school and the nosebleed started again. We ended up in the ER that night. Garrett passed out in the waiting room so we didn't have to wait a long....that was one good thing. Anyway, after many blood draws in the following weeks, trips to doctors, CT scans, and breathing problems, we ended up having a biopsy done on this mass that had formed in Garrett's nostril. The ENT ended up being able to remove the whole mass and it was benign. One more answered prayer. The ENT said the mass was called a capillary hemangioma (I think that's how it's spelled). The ENT was wonderful. Once he found out about Garrett's history, he got in touch with his attending at Duke. They made sure that Garrett was well taken care of. We were quite concerned for a few weeks, but Garrett is back to his "normal" self, sweeter than ever.
Cassie is now 3 years old.....4 on February 6. She is in a 3 year old developmental delayed class at the school where I teach. She loves it. She is there half a day and goes to daycare the other part of her day. She does have some of Garrett's sweetness, but her's is short lived. She is very spunky! She loves drama. She sings, dances, and is very much drama queen. She is very vocal! She is making lots of progress with her physical disabilities. She still wears AFO's (braces) on both of her legs. She is walking pretty well with them, but still has trouble manuvering from time to time. When she slows down, she does really well, but most of the time she's moving in fast forward. Her belief is that she can do anything that anyone else is doing. That's probably why she is doing so well. She gets PT and OT at school. We go to The Shriner's Hospital in Greenville every 6 months for them to monitor her progress. She's been diagnosed with very mild cerebral palsy, so she will always have some tightness in her muscles, but she's made great progress. There are no surgeries planned in the near future. The doctor's at Shriner's say that they want to wait until she is at least 6 or 7 to she what she is going to be able to overcome on her own. It seems as though lots of stretching and her therapy is working great for now. She is our little fire ball that's for sure. We really don't worry about her being taken advantage of.
Tommy and I are doing great also. This summer we moved our family to Columbia, SC. Tommy is now Assistant Principal in a school and I am teaching 5th grade at another school. We both are enjoying being in Columbia. Garrett and Cassie like it too because we are so close to many different things. We have a membership to the zoo, so we go there quite often. We have learned lots about the different animals there. We even know some of their names. We think about so many of our friends that we've met along our trips back and forth to hospitals and during hospital stays. We talk to Garrett and Cassie about all the kids, families, and friends that we've experienced. Neither one of them remember much of the bad parts of their hospital stays..which is good. We still want them to know how blessed they are and how blessed we are to have them here with us. We feel like the luckies parents in the world. We talk to them about how good our families have been to us and how much support we've gotten from our families. We only hope that they will always remember.
Please sign the guestbook to let us know that you've been. We've been really slack in updating, but we wanted to let you know that we are doing wonderful. God has been so good to us!
Love you all!
Melissa
Read Journal History
Hospital Information: This is Our Home Address
Columbia, SC
843-319-7935
Links: http://smilequilt.com/garrett.html This is Garrett's smile quilt if you want to add a square.
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