Aspen’s Story

Site created on May 4, 2018

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. 

On April 9th, Aspen's and our lives were changed forever. After many scans and test we finally have some answers and the beginning of what will be a very long hard road. 

Aspen has been diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma. The tumor is growing in her right elbow and will need to be treated with chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.  She also has 2 nodules on her left lung that will be removed in the next couple of weeks. At that time the doctors will do a thoracoscopy to take care of those, a bone marrow biopsy and put a port in. The bone marrow biopsy will confirm both issues and let us know if we are dealing with one or two different cancers.  

In the beginning her doctor was worried that he may not be able to remove the tumor and save her arm.  We got some good news today though! Because Ewings responds so well to chemo, he believes that it will shrink enough to be removed. He did say that she may not have full use of her elbow but her shoulder and hand should be fine. The expected treatment plan will last about 42 weeks and will be very hard on her body. We have 100% faith in Dr. Reimer, Dr. Pickens and the entire Emory team to get Aspen well and cancer free. At this time she does not have insurance. Emory offers a program called Charity Care that will cover all of her clinical, surgical and chemotherapy care.  She has been been accepted and for that we have been truly blessed. 

We appreciate your prayers, support, and words of hope and encouragement. 
Thank you for visiting.

Brandy 

Newest Update

Journal entry by brandy riddle

Aspen starts round 3 today.  This will be her 5 day stay and she isn't looking forward to it. Dr. Read was very happy with the progress of the last 2 rounds and feels very good about the next 10. She'll have CT scans of her arm and lungs before the next round and maybe get started with radiation at the end of July. We can not say enough about this hospital, these doctors, and definitely the nurses and staff here at Emory. They have all been such a great team of professionals and work very, very, hard at what they do. I'll never be able to thank them enough for their care. 

As most of you have seen, Aspens attitude and strength is almost unreal! Going into this, none of us knew what to expect but we were all preparing for the worse. Her positive mindset has given all of us the strength to move through this as easy as we have. I do believe though that the thousands of prayers that have been prayed play a huge part in this as well. God is definitely  listening and answering through the awesome progress that has been made. 

Thank you again for All of your thoughts, prayers, well wishes, good vibes or however you send it. 
Prayers and Chemo are working and for this we are truly blessed. 

Brandy
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