First Day of Pre-K

First day of pre-K, or better known around our house as "big girl school". She is growing up way too fast for us.

Madelyn Goes to the Driving Range

Madelyn's 1st golf outing...enjoy! For her first time out and never having swung clubs with this much weight, I was amazed. I rotated it in quicktime, but it didn't take on the upload. took over half an hour to upload, so "twist it!" (you'll get the reference once you watch)

Just a Quick Note

We hope you all are doing well and we continue to thank you for checking in. Madelyn is doing great. We believe she saved the "terrible twos" up to really let us have it in the threes!!!:) She is full of spunk, personality and has her own agenda...and she won't hesitate to tell you what it is. I tell Rick she takes after him and he tells me she takes after me...go figure!!! Our next checkup is on April 15th. We are on 6 month intervals now, so if everything goes well, we won't need to go back until October!!

We had the opportunity to participate in the USC Dance Marathon last weekend. Every year they have a 24 hour dance marathon and all the money goes to the Palmetto Health Children's Hospital (This is the hospital that Madelyn was treated at.) They raised $144,000!!!!!!! We spoke to the dancers and told them Madelyn's story and tried to explain how important the money is that they raised for the hospital and without it, there wouldn't be nearly as many happy endings! There were 1,000 dancers and they all did a cheer for her. At first she was shy, but by the time we left, she was on stage by herself hoola hooping!!

We are truly blessed for our healthy baby girl, our family and friends....all of you who still think of our family and check in on us. Thank you and please continue to pray for all those who are starting, in the midst or at the end of their battle against this terrible, terrible monster!!

We love you all!

Merry Christmas!

Hello all, I know that it has been a while, but like the old saying goes...no news is good news!! We have been wonderful, as you can see from the picture above, Madelyn is growing and doing wonderfully! We are getting ready to travel to NY for the holidays. We will be leaving Sat. and coming home in 2010!!!:) We will also get to have dinner w/the Carolina Gamecocks and coaches on Thursday...this is always fun to see the kids get so excited to see "real football players". Funny thing is, I don't know who gets more excited the kids or the parents:) Check up at the clinic scheduled on Wednesday, normal check up w/catecholamine levels tested. Blood tests from weeks ago were normal as well. Of course, we will let you all know how it turns out. In the meantime, please have a fabulous Christmas and remember what this season is about. Thank you God for all of our friends and families and the blessings that you give us every single day! Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

We love you all,
The Bell Family

Scans are negative!!!

Scan results came back with no issue and VMA/HVA came back as well and are on par with what they have been, No more scans for the foreseeable future!!! Just wanted to drop a quick update for those of you that are checking here. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!

Rick

2 more weeks for scans!

Hello all! Just wanted to drop in and let you all know we are having a fantastic summer. We've been to NYC, my brother's wedding, the beach for a few days and are truly just enjoying our family! Maddy is scheduled for her ckup at the clinic along with a EKG & Echo following her checkup on 8/18. MRI is scheduled for 8/21 at 7:30am. Please pray that the scan proves negative and Ms. Maddy is still cancer free!!! I will update with the results as I get them.

Thank you for cking in and please keep praying!
The Bell Family

I know...it's been way too long!

Well the old saying, no news is good news rings true here in the Bell household too. Madelyn has been doing great. Growing and learning and amazing us everyday! The last ckup at the clinic went really well. She actually allows the Drs. to examine her now. But poor, poor Nurse Trisha can't get w/in 5ft. of her to take blood pressure, height, weight and temperature. She screams, yells, cries, kicks and hits until she moves away from her. I have now become an expert at doing all of these things for them, b/c she puts up a fight w/me, but if they all leave the room, she let's me do it:) Dr. Kevin said he went back and read her chart front to back before our last ckup and said that she is amazing and truly is a miracle to be here today. That really is an eye opener on this side of treatment and coming from your Oncologist!

I had an opportunity to volunteer last month at Camp Kemo. It is a camp that the Children's Hospital puts on for 1 week and is for all kids that are in treatment or are finished with treatment and their siblings. It was AMAZING!!! I knew a lot of the people but met so many more wonderful people that volunteer their time for a whole week to give these kids 1 week of normalcy and fun! Of course, Drs. and nurses are there on standby in case they are needed but other than that they do so much stuff...swimming in the pool, firemen come w/a fire truck, they take boats and jet skis out on the lake, camp fires, woodworking, arts & crafts and so much more. It was such an amazing experience that I am going to be a camp counselor next year. I am so excited and figure I'll get the training out of the way next year and then when Maddy turns 4, she can go and be a "Peanut". Then we can do this together for 1 week a year. That will be our thing to do and I am so looking forward to it.

We have become really involved in Children's Chance. Rick is now a board member and I try to volunteer and do what I can as much as possible. Our family is representing Children's Chance in their Run/Walk fundraiser next week. I'm not really sure what that entails but who cares! We get to walk and raise money for such an awesome organization!

We went to NY a couple weeks ago for my brother and Liz's wedding. Maddy was the flower girl and was so stinking cute. She did so good and I was so proud of her. While we were there we also had 2 days to visit New York City. Kaitlyn was with us this time and we had a blast. We saw so much and spent great time together. We are back now and trying to get back to normal. Madelyn's next check up is Aug. 18 w/an Echo & EKG and then an MRI on Aug. 21. Dr. Kevin said if that turns up clear, then we will move out to 6 month ckups at the clinic instead of 2 and 6 month MRIs. If we do that for 1 year and everything still turns up clear, then we will sit down and talk about what to do next. Stop MRI's all together or go yearly, we'll see. Rick and I talked and said we would be fine stopping them all together and just doing VMA/HVA to monitor. Not invasive and all it takes is a urine sample and that should be a good way to monitor catecholamines. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Thank you all for checking in and for all your continued thoughts and prayers. I will try to do better about updating more often. Life is good and time just gets away from us. Trying to enjoy all the good stuff in life!!!

Lots of love,
The Bell Family