SO FAR SO GOOD!

Sorry everyone... I know people have been checking the blog a lot today to see what has happened with Joli's exam. We've just been so exhausted and spent most of the day sleeping!

I'll get to the good news ... Dr. Mukai did NOT find any tumors in her left eye nor in the right eye socket! Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!!! We can breathe a little bit easier. He says he doesn't really anticipate anything to develop. -- Yeah -- Jorge and I have learned our lesson, though, and we still "pray for the best.. brace for the worst...." But, I guess that comes along with being a parent, right? People say you never get a good night sleep ever again!

We'll go back for another EUA again in April... and then we need to start bringing "baby sister" in when she reaches 2 weeks old. He'll follow the new baby very closely - even though he is confident we don't have the genetic form of retinoblastoma. But, it's good to know he's very cautious and very careful!

Okay, our day started at about 5:00am when Jorge and I woke up to get ready. ery tough after not sleeping that night... The alarm went off, and Jorge said, "Are you kidding? It's already time to get up???" Joli was up by 6:00am (and, in a good mood, thankfully, even when we told her we had to go to the hospital), and we were out by 6:15am. The check-in room was pretty crowded already with lots of kids - so I'm sure it was comforting for her to see other children her age. The nurse who had helped her back in October was very surprised at how much Joli had grown both physically and emotionally! Even Dr. Mukai was surprised at how "healthy" she looked! Joli cooperated about 98% ... she fought a bit when they had to put the drops in (which, c'mon, is really a horrible "flashback" moment for her-- the last time someone held her down to put drops, she got her eye taken out!!). Jorge brought her into the operating room (I'm banned because I'm pregnant). About 30 minutes later Dr. Mukai came out and told us the great news!

Anesthsia is always a bummer thing. Joli had a really hard time coming out of it -- although, much better than any other time. When she wakes up, she can't really see and is still in a "sleep funk", so Jorge and I do our best to be firm yet patient with her to get her dressed. Once we got home, though, Joli was great. We all crawled into bed, watched a few movies, and took a really really long nap.

Thanks for everyone's well wishes and prayers! We head into chemotherapy on Thursday, so I probably won't "blog" until after the weekend.

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR EMAILS, PHONE CALLS AND LETTERS!!!!!!

-liza, jorge, joli and 'baby sister' (as Joli calls her)