Theresa Illicete

Welcome to "Little Miss T's" Caring Bridge site.
We've created it to keep friends and family updated.

2024
 
'Little Miss T' is the nickname that her Aunt , my sister, also named Theresa, always calls her, so we
named her site "Little Miss T".
Little Miss T is *our* Theresa.
She is *Our* beautiful brave daughter, sister, cousin, niece, hero, and all-around rock star.
In 2014, , when she was just 9 years old, Theresa was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in her right femur with metastatic nodules in her lungs, She was biopsied, ported, and put on chemo all *within 24 hours* of diagnosis.
She received the standard protocol for osteosarcoma: the MAP protocol which consists of methotrexate, doxorubicin, and cisplatin.  She did respond to the chemo at first but became refractory after her resection in 2015 (which means her cancer became resistant to the chemotherapy). So her doctors put her on other therapies, (Etoposide with Ifosfamide, and then Docetaxel with gemcitabine) but the nodules in her lungs continued to grow.  It was a truly scary time. 


 Thankfully, her amazing team of doctors where able to get Theresa on a molecular genetic targeting trial, and that changed everything. 
I truly thank God her doctors never let their guard down and never underestimated the sneakiness of this
a disease that hides in the bones and the blood.  

In January 2015, Theresa had her leg re-sectioned with what is called a "Van ness rotationplasty". 
This involved a 13-hour surgery where  a team of doctors removed the
tumor in the femur, plus her knee, brought the tibia and foot up, rotated 180 degrees, and re-attached it so that her foot is now a functional knee with the proper prosthetic.


She then had thoracoscopic surgery in April 2015 to remove 3 of the largest tumors which were then analyzed
for the NCT01802567 molecular targeting trial so they could match the genetics of the tumors to chemotherapy agents that would most likely stop the growth of the tumors. In June 2015, she officially started the molecular-guided therapy trial with chemotherapy agents that were
matched to her tumors. 
 
The chemo agents were successful until, on May 17, 2016,  they found tumor growth in her lungs, and she was removed from the trial  
But, her doctors did not panic. The genius of the trial is that the analysis marked out up to *200
possible chemo agents* that her cancer is sensitive to,  Her chemotherapy was
tweaked a little and we moved on. We ended up having to do that a couple of more times.  Each time we adjusted things and moved on. 

Theresa received 34 cycles of gemcitabine infusion therapy until May 2017 and then stopped as her
oncologists and we, her parents felt it was time.
Her bone marrow was taking a beating, her body showing some signs it had had enough. The two nodules that
bumped her off the trial had calcified, and one in her left lung was stable. So her port was removed, and her oral
chemotherapy was again tweaked a little more, and in 2018 another nodule popped up and was removed, and her doctors tweaked her therapies, restarted the gemcitabine,  and again we moved on.
It was stopped again in 2020, and Theresa has since been on oral chemotherapies only.

As of now, in 2024, she has had no new evidence of disease.  Yes, she's still taking chemotherapy, but it's the smallest of doses.  And her scans are now spaced out to every year and every six months. 


She has reached every milestone we only dreamed of at one time: She drives herself around,  She's had a summer job, She's graduating high school in the spring of 2024, and she is applying to colleges.  She looks back at her bumpy childhood, and some parts are like a distant dream, though She has many scars to remind her that it was all real.  

She just keeps moving on, and we do too.


We hope that Theresa's journey encourages other families, and their doctors, to not give up.


God bless.
Mary 

September 2014 intro:

Theresa is 9 years old. She is the youngest of a family of 11 children.
She loves all of her family. and her family loves her.
We are committed to doing everything we can to get her through this.
Theresa is just a nine-year-old girl like any other.
Peridot green is her favorite color.
She is funny, smart, and creative
She sings.
She loves to swim.
She Loves to run and play.
She loves her friends, Barbies, my little pony, and American girl dolls.
She loves to dance and do gymnastics.
She was always dancing.
Last week she dreamed she was running and dancing.
But then she woke up.
We all woke up.
We thought she just injured her growth plate.
Back in May 2014 Theresa hit her leg. After that, she started to limp. And then limp some more. We took her to a doctor
who said she merely had a growth plate injury and should stay off her leg for a while. So Theresa wore
a brace and limited her walking. I looked up the growth plate injury and saw that it would indeed take a while to
heal and for a long time it stayed the same, till suddenly her leg began to hurt at night. and by August Theresa
was crying every day. So I took her to another doctor who eventually sent her to Milton-Hershey Medical
Center where they took more x-rays and what they saw alarmed them. I knew something was wrong when they
got very quiet and began to look at me, then away, then at Theresa.
And suddenly it was like a huge tidal wave came and swept us up and we were caught by a current that we
could not swim against...and in less than 24 -30 hours Theresa had a mediport placed and was getting her first
round of chemotherapy: Doxorubicin and cisplatin.
At one point I was just watching myself talk to the doctors...and calling her dad to tell him the worst news any parent could ever get: Our
Baby has high-grade Metastatic Osteogenic sarcoma that had spread from the monster tumor in her right femur to her
lungs. And everything for our family changed. 

Our family will be in for the fight of her life but we believe in the golden power of prayer.
For Theresa, prayers are gold. And this page is where we are asking for that gold. For you to pray and pray and
pray some more.
Because one day soon, Theresa WILL dance again....even if it's with just half a leg. Because Theresa can do
anything.
She's that kind of kid.