Cycle One Inpatient Complete - Home

Caroline finished her inpatient stay for Cycle 1 of treatment for relapsed Neuroblastoma today! She's at home resting and recovering from a brutal 6-night stay at Vanderbilt. The side effects have been nausea, diarrhea, occasional rash, fever, loss of appetite, overall pain, and discomfort.

In the past week, she's had her port placed, a bone marrow biopsy, 2 chemos each day for five days, and the antibody treatment infused over 20 hours per day for four days.  Beginning today, for the next 7 days, Caroline will receive Leukine shots to help her immune system recover. She is also on more than a half dozen other medications to help with the treatment side effects and infection prevention.  Cycle 2 will start in about two weeks (mid-May), with weekly outpatient clinic visits to check her counts in between.

She will spend the next few days recovering at home, and we are hoping she feels well enough to get back to school soon, although she'll have to limit her physical activity due to the port (located in the upper right side of her chest), and she also had to stop playing spring rec soccer.  

Please continue to pray / send good vibes / hope for the best possible outcome for Caroline. In addition to needing the treatment to kill off these aggressive cancer cells spread throughout her little body again, she is really just so sad.  This time around she is more aware of what she's "missing," and she has a lot more "big" feelings about what's going on.  Although we have faith and will go to the ends of the earth to fight this, we all know too much and are scared.

We are so grateful for her amazing care team at Vanderbilt…as always, they have been gracious, patient, and compassionate during this entire process.

As we mentioned before, we have received some packages in the mail without sender information…please know we appreciate every one of you, and the outpouring of love and generosity! We know we can’t do this alone, and there is much comfort for us in numbers.  We definitely can feel all the love and support, and know Caroline has an army from all over behind her!  

The Lantz Family
#carolinestrong
#ftgf

Donate Blood in Caroline's Honor

Contribute to Medical Expenses via GoFundMe

Family Meals via UberEats (email to margaretlantz@gmail.com)

Misc Treatment Needs via Amazon Gift Card (email to margaretlantz@gmail.com)

Recovering at home

Beside EKG after some chest pains on night 5

Bedside X-Ray after chest pains on night 5

How she spent most of her time inpatient...

Caroline got a VERY special visit from Squid, the hospial's emotonal support dog.  He spent almost an hour laying in bed with her on one of the hardest days of the cycle.  As soon as she saw Squid coming into the room, her face lit up - and words cannot describe how much seeing her smile meant!  Thank you Mars Petcare and the Better Cities for Pets Program for sponsoring Squid at VUMC!

Final Week of Standard Treatment / "Scanxiety"

Caroline is finishing up the last few days of her 6th Round of Immunotherapy...the final round of "Standard Treatment Protocol" for Stage 4, High-Risk Neuroblastoma. It has taken 17 LONG months to get here. She will take her final dose of oral medication on Wednesday evening, right before bedtime, and then get ready for a long day of testing on Thursday.

Busy week ahead!

• Wednesday: MIBG Radioactive Injection, EKG, Hearing Test, Clinic Visit/Labs
• Thursday: Sedated for hours to complete a CT Scan, MIBG Scan and a Bilateral Bone Marrow Biopsy
• Friday: Clinic visit to find our scan test results and consult with Caroline's medical team to determine next steps. 

Since Caroline's diagnosis, our family has learned to live with a heightened sense of "anxiety" on a regular basis.  However, this week in particular, we are all beyond anxious.  It's been dubbed "scanxiety," and it's definitely a REAL thing.  We are asking for specific prayers for some sense of peace, a safe round of test prep/tests, and of course a NED (no evidence of disease) report on Friday!

We will post an update on this blog as soon as we can.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support; you all have really pushed us along this journey!
The Lantz Family
#carolinestrong
#ftgf

First time back in a pool since 2017!

Information Overload: Prepping for High-Dose Chemo and Stem Cell Transplant

Today was a busy and tough day for all of us: back-to-back appointments from 8am-4pm, and a day full of listening to info that we're still processing hours later. We met with Caroline’s transplant team to discuss what’s on the horizon for the next week, sign consent forms, ask a laundry list of questions about the high-dose chemo/stem cell transplant (and the side effects), and get a general idea of what to expect during our extended stay.  Although we knew some information about high-dose chemo and the stem cell transplant process, this was the first time we heard it directly in relation to Caroline's treatment.  It's absolutely gut-wrenching to hear what she's about to endure.  The side effects of her forthcoming treatment are: mouth sores, mucositis (potentially through her entire GI tract), high fever, infection, liver and kidney issues, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, etc.  High-dose chemotherapy is similar to other 5 rounds of chemo she's had, only extremely amplified (hence the name and more extreme side effects).  We will post more info on Caroline's exact schedule later in the week, but as of now, she is scheduled to start the process on Monday, May 14th.     

Caroline's appointments today included:

• Kidney function testing, which included a radioactive injection, as well as 5 separate blood draws/tests, to ensure Caroline’s liver will be able to tolerate the high-dose chemo, and to what degree
• 2 urine tests 
• RVP Nasal Swab (test came back negative for viruses - yay!)
• EKG
• Echocardiogram
• Hearing Test (one of the many side effects of the chemo she's received is hearing loss...as of her check-up today, she does not have any hearing loss - another YAY!)
• Weekly Hickman line dressing change, including daily line flush

MORE Appointments this week:

Wednesday: 

- Liquid radioactive injection of MIBG for the MIBG Scan (requires 3 days of drops prior to protect Caroline's thyroid)

Thursday: 

- MIBG Scan (will tell us if/where/how much of her cancer remains)

- Bone Marrow Biopsy (at last check, her bone marrow was comprised of approximately 25% cancer cells...we are hoping for zero!)

***We will not know the results of either the scan or the biopsy for at least 24-48 hours***

Friday:

- Final appointment with the transplant team prior to admission on Monday

Please keep those prayers coming!  What we're about to face sounds like hell-on-earth, and so far, your thoughts, prayers, love, and support have gotten us through. 

Thank you, thank you!

The Lantz Family

#carolinestrong

#ftgf 

Early morning hospital visits require donuts!

Radioactive injection for kidney function test.

Dressing change (done weekly) and central line flush (done daily).

We were able to meet soldiers at lunch and thank them for their service!

EKG

Echocardiogram

Nurse Kate will be away during our extended stay - we will miss her - glad to get in some hugs!

Hearing Test!