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