It has been eight months since Lauren was last given chemo and it's been a while since we've provided an update. Starting with the excellent news: In early March, Lauren received clean scans indicating she is still cancer-free. She is feeling great and continues to push forward with physical therapy a couple times a week. And Lauren finally decided where she wanted to go to celebrate. So in early April, we were able to go on a trip to London, Paris and Amsterdam. It was simply wonderful to experience it all as a family.

Lauren's current reality: Her blood counts are still not holding so she has been getting transfusions every few weeks. This has gone on far longer than her doctors expected, so she has started a new treatment of EPO therapy to see if this will help boost her body's ability to make more red blood cells on its own. She started this a couple weeks ago, and her doctor anticipates it will take a few months before it kicks in, hoping that it does the trick. We need to do what we can to try to minimize the transfusions she gets.

Lauren's kidney function has also seen a decline. In December, we knew her kidneys were leaky and she needed to continue taking multiple supplements to stabilize her electrolytes. But at that point her numbers were stable enough that there was hope she would regain some kidney function the further she got from chemo. Unfortunately, by February, Lauren went from kidney function in the normal range (with the help of her supplements) to Stage 3 Chronic Kidney Disease (even while continuing to take her supplements). Her nephrologist continues to frequently check her numbers and closely monitor her counts. Since February, Lauren's kidney numbers have slowed their decline so she remains in Stage 3 CKD. At this point, we understand her kidneys will not get better. Our best hope is that she stays steadily in Stage 3 and that it takes years (not weeks or months) before she progresses to the next stage.

Since Lauren can now go a few weeks in between her transfusions and she does not mind being poked and getting a transfusion through an IV, her doctor has finally cleared her for surgery to remove her port! On Thursday, Lauren will get more scans to confirm she's still cancer-free, have her port removed and get a biopsy of her kidneys. We hope that this is no more than a one-night stay at the hospital.