Today went well. No surprises. It is always hard when we start a new treatment phase. Learning all of the meds and all the pecularities that sometimes follow the adiministration. Natalie is on a few new drugs this round and some older ones have come back. The most notorious return is Dexamethasone (steroids). This is the drug that will cause the remainder of her hair to fall out amoung other things like intense hunger and irritability.

Last time she took the steroid she had a few issues. One, her Blood sugar shot through the roof. There was one time that the machine didn't even register it was so high. That was scary. Though it is better to be higher than lower, it was concerning when we had to give insuline injections every few hours. The second was her intense irritability and hunger. If we fed her constantly she would have been in a tough predicament. So we ended up feeding her 2-3 cheerios every 3-5 seconds. We have a week on with this drug and a week off before we jump back on for the last remaining week, so we are hoping that things don't get too out of control (which might put us in the hospital).

Both Dana and I have been so thankful for all of your prayers. I know this is a cancer battle but I really believe that a large portion of this fight is spiritual. I see it as all of us going to battle together. We are fighting to win this battle physically yes but Spiritually too. This Spiritual battle is raging all the time and we have truly seen the fruits of all of your prayers. Incidences have happened too numerous where Natalie began getting sick and it just went away. All to say Glory to our good God. And bless all of you for your faithfulness, our debt to you is great and our appreciation is even greater. Love you all - The Orlando's

P.S. The next two months things will slow down considerably for us. Most of Nat's treatments will be home and Stanford trips will be held to a minimum. Please, please, please pray as we may be making some significant judgment calls to the med schedule (due to her last seizure). We think Natalie's body my be reaching a very low point with all the unrelenting treatments. It's in sight - 2 months will be here before we know it... (that will be a glorious day!)

Natalie Orlando

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