I've been meaning to post news here since Faye's follow up visit at the Hospital two weeks ago (imagine my crappy blog resume:  'lots of good intentions', and 'spins darn good excuses')...  For sure we have been busy and I'd been hoping to get a photo that Faye might be o.k. with posting (see what I mean about excuses?).  Faye's hair is super adorable now, but of course she is not fond of it at all.  Well she's not fond of these photos either but I'm posting them anyway.  She scored the number '13' for her jersey number at Creek this year; her lucky number from the old days and even luckier - her #13 predecessor from last year (Carly, who was a senior) left an inspirational note in the soccer bag 'to future no.13...' so cute! gotta love HS sports!

Faye finished the final final of her first semester last week, so relieved to have that semester behind her.  Finally.  She's doing really well this semester and she's been increasingly working out and practicing with her High School soccer team.  I wasn't quite sure she was ready for field time but she played her first few minutes in a tournament game at Stutler on Saturday night(!)  I missed it darn it; we had made previous plans for dinner at my brother's; I was happily drinking Irish beer, eating corned beef & cabbage, and watching a re-run of the Djokovic vs Isner Paribas Open match (...WOW!). 
 The game turned out to be the perfect opportunity for Faye to get back out there, they won handily - 5 - 0 against Heritage (Warrior Tournament champions!).

Other news of a slightly different variety:  in January Faye's soccer coach at Creek had an inspiration to help get High School students and athletes involved in cancer research fundraising.  I've butted in and we've managed to recruit a few more friends and volunteers to help get things organized.  It's very challenging, particularly finding venues and dates, but we are looking at a potential 5K/fun-run in late April and a 3v3 soccer tournament in June.  Stay tuned and I'll post more details here as soon as I can.  For now my head is already into Spring Break, we are headed to sandy beaches (there is an up-side to the slow real estate market in FL!)!

So anyway, two weeks ago we spent a long day at the Hospital with a CT scan, blood work, check ups, etc. The CT scan showed that there is still a small mass around Faye's mediastinum.  We are told this is not uncommon and that it is very likely only scar tissue left over from her treatment. Traditionally Doctors would evaluate the success of treatment by using this first CT scan as the baseline to compare against future scans. Very recently they've started using PET scans in addition to CT scans to evaluate cancer. PET scans produce the color 3D images that are able to show 'metabolic' activity within tumors.  As I've mentioned before there is a 3 month waiting period after the final dose of radiation before a patient will have a PET scan because residual radiation tends to cause 'false positive' PET results.  Faye's PET scan will be in April.  We don't have the date yet, but I promise to post results promptly.  Please, please, a million times please, let it be good news.   ~Lolly