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Madison Smith's Website - Viewing Journal - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 12:35 AM
Thank you for taking time to inquire about Madison and how she is doing. Madison was diagnosed with high risk T-cell Acute Leukemia Lymphoma on September 24, 2003 at Duke Hospital in North Carolina. She had just turned three at that time. Leukemia is a blood cancer that is not believed by medical professionals to be inherited at this time. She presented with a mass in her chest that encompassed the majority of the upper half of her chest area. The mass was related to the leukemia. It collapsed her left lung and a portion of her right lung and was shutting off the blood flow from her heart to the rest of her body. She was in the pediatric intensive care unit for almost two weeks on a ventilator. We weren't sure then if we would ever have a chance to fight the leukemia. Madi is a true fighter and pulled through! After getting off the vent, Madison was able to achieve remission by the 28th day of treatment. She underwent two and half years of aggressive chemotherapy (protocol 1961) and radiation for the mass. On Christmas Eve 2005, a little over two years after her diagnosis Madison had a chest CT done that revealed that the mass was finally gone! Madison finished her treatment in January 2006. Children that have cancer are not considered "cured" until they have been off treatment with no-reoccurrence for five years. Duke has followed Madison throughout her treatment. She will continue to be followed by Duke. In April 2008 Duke uncovered that Madison has an obstruction in 3 of her veins. The veins involved are the Left innominate vein, the left (lower) internal jugular vein, and her sub-clavian vein. These veins are responsible for carrying her blood back to her heart and hers are 100% occluded. What is going on with her right now is likely a result of the mass she had in 2003. There aren't really any easy fixes for what is going on with her and no real cases that it can be compared to. We are working with Duke in an effort to resolve this issue. We've come this far for a reason and we will get through this new hurdle. Please continue to lift all of us up. The care and concern that we have felt from all of you continues to be an encouragement to us. Thank you...
 
- Allison

Update - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 12:35 AM


May 21, 2007

Journal

Things are going wonderful for Madison. She has grown much stronger over the course of this year. For those of you that see us on a regular basis I think most would agree that if one looked at Madi today and didn’t know better you wouldn’t believe that she had ever been sick the way she had. We really have a lot to be thankful for.

She will be finishing up the first grade over the next couple of weeks. If all goes as she and I both hope, she will finish the year with straight A’s for the whole year! We are very pleased with her progress in reading, spelling, and math. She has worked very hard this year and thankfully has been blessed with a wonderful teacher in Mrs. Sandra Godwin and her assistant Mrs. Collier! We are all very much looking forward to summer break.

This summer Madison will be participating in a Sampson county Art Camp. She is definitely looking forward to this. Madi and Maiya are also planning on spending a week or two in St. Louis with her grandparents this summer. This will be the first time since she’s been off treatment that she has been able to go and do this. We were afraid while on treatment that she would need to be hospitalized and Duke was just too far away from St. Louis.

Madison finished up dance for yet another year. The recital went well and we are definitely looking forward to a break. I am not so sure that we will be doing dance again next year. I guess time will tell. Madi doesn’t especially love dance but she loves Janice the owner of the studio.

Madison went for her two-month follow up at Duke in April and will be going back June 4th. All appears well; we don’t have any reason to suspect that anything is wrong. She will also be meeting with an orthopedic as a follow up to whether or not she truly has scoliosis. Please say a little prayer that all will go great.

We are looking forward to participating in the Sampson county Relay for Life coming up the weekend of June 1st. I am supposed to speak on Friday night at the luminary ceremony. Hopefully, that will go well.

Our friends that we went to Disney with are moving the first week in June to Texas. We will miss them greatly! We are having a small going away party for them this coming weekend. Their daughter Sophie will be having her last chemotherapy treatment for Leukemia this week. Her last bone marrow test and spinal tap will be next week. Please pray for Sophie and her family for good results. We are all expecting great news.

In my last update I shared about some other friends that we made at Duke. The Adams family. Sherilyn relapsed from her bone marrow transplant in February. They were able to get her into remission again to help prepare her for yet another transplant but recently her leukemic cells have been doubling over and over again. Their family could really use some prayers. There have been several articles about this family in the News and Observer and they have a caring bridge website. www.caringbridge.org click on visit a site, the state is NC and the site name is Sherilyn. The site will update on both Sherilyn and her sister Veronica that both battling Leukemia.

As always, I am thankful for each and every one of you. Until next time, I hope your families are happy, healthy, and wonderful!


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