Brooke Mulford Update

Sorry for the lack of updates (not a whole lot to update on which is a good thing but I know it’s been almost a month). Brooke finished her 12 radiation treatments on Fri October 16th. It was a rough 2 ½ weeks. Brooke did fine with the radiation but had a really tough time with coming out of sedation (screaming, crying, kicking & flailing) pretty much every day (some days were much worse than others). It would last about 30-45 minutes but seemed like hours at the time. Grammy was a trooper and got up every morning between 5-5:30 am to come with us. A dear family friend, Bill Hoover, gave Grammy a break one morning and came in her place (lucky for him it was one of Brooke’s easier days)! Thanks to everyone who sent cards for Brooke to Grammy's house (Brooke thought that was pretty cool).

Tuesday the 13th Brooke made it to the big time and was on the cover of USA Today 4-year-old with cancer moves town into action - and Salisbury’s The Daily Times http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200910130432/NEWS01/910130359! We have had so many people contact us, from all over the country that saw the article and have sent cards, gifts, donations, phone calls and emails of support. Justin Long and Drew Barrymore even called Rob at Market Street one night (man…why couldn’t they have looked up our home number)!

Grandpa Greg and Grandma Millie came for a visit Oct 17th – 21st. Boy did Brooke have a great time! She sure kept them both hopping (I was exhausted just watching them play)! Friday, the 23rd, Brooke’s teacher, Mrs. Katzaman came over again and brought activities that her classmates have been working on. Nana came on Monday to play and let me get out of the house to run some errands and get a massage! And of course, one of Brooke (& Bailey’s) closest buddies, Miss Liz, has been coming by for frequent “playdates”.

Tuesday, the 27th, Make-A-Wish volunteers came to the house to meet Brooke and get her Wish - to go to Disney of course (despite my campaigning to meet James Taylor she decided on Disney…just kidding…well, sort of…). Disney wishes sound awesome-from what I’ve heard they really make the experience “magical”! We will have the time of our lives and Brooke is so excited! We are hoping to wait until Brooke is done with her treatments and are thinking maybe May or June.

Brooke is scheduled to go up to CHOP next wed for clinic and I will be meeting with the doctors about Brooke’s next phase of treatments (antibodies clinical trial…I’ll tell you more about that once I have the meeting). The 2nd week of Nov we will head up again for a bunch of out-patient tests (MIBG, CT scan, bone marrow biopsy and labs) and then she will be admitted the 2nd or 3rd week of Nov to start the antibodies. As you can see November will be a big month so I will try to do better with the updates.

God Bless,

Amy