Welcome to the journal of love and hope for Valerie Lopez-Robinson. This website chronicles Valerie's journey in healing.
Valerie was diagnosed with Grade 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme. Her Mom, Bernice, explains how this diagnosis was reached below:
Valerie was having headaches that started as one a day. We thought they were stress induced or part of her shoulder problem that she was getting therapy for.
The headaches started to get worse and was thought by her pediatrician to be sinus's and she was started on a sinus medication. She advised to try that for
one week and if that did not work we would get a CT done. Fri. 01-27-06 was the end of the week and her headaches were not being prevented by the sinus medication,
in fact, they were getting worse. They were lasting all day with no relief. We tried to get through the weekend to go back to her Dr. However she started vomiting
and having pain in her neck. It then sounded like meningitis, so I took her to Childrens Hospital on Sun. 01-29-06. When we got to the ER she was thought to have
migraines by the triage nurse and we waited for 2 1/2 hours in the waiting room. Then she got a CT done in the ER and it was clear, so they did a spinal tap that
revealed that she had too much spinal fluid in her head that was causing her headaches. They said sometimes this happens, so they removed the extra fluid and thought
this would take her headaches away and she would be fine. When her headaches did not go away they admitted her to the neuro floor of Childrens. For the next few days
they were running all kinds of tests, trying to find out what was the cause of the spinal fluid building up. Every day they were ruling out all kinds of stuff and as
time went by we were facing more and more serious problems. Her MRI's showed some abnormal areas in the brain and spine, she under went a biopsy of one of the spots
in the lower spine on Fri. 02-03-06. This told us right away it was cancer, however they could not tell us what type of cancer it was. They said it would take a few
days for the final diagnosis. During this time Valerie was given pain medication and a drainage tube for the spinal fluid along with some other medications for infection,
diuretic (water pill) and steroids for inflammation. We got her final diagnosis on 02-07-06 The drainage tube was taken out and she was discharged from the hospital on 02-08-06
Valerie is feeling much better now, she does not have any headache's. She has been going back to school. She will start chemo and radiation next week and then will be
home schooled. Her spirits are very high and she said she is going to fight this!! So let us all pray she win's her battle.
Thank you to everyone for the love and support and most of all their prayers.
Bernice
Update April 7, 2005
Hello everyone,
Valerie had her Children's Dr. appointment today. Now that she is done with radiation they are giving her a break on the chemo drug until we get her MRI and see where we stand with the tumors. She is also off of the steroids and has had no problems coming off of them. We are also taking her diuretic (water pill for brain swelling)down from twice a day to once a day. I thought we were going to have the MRI in 4 weeks, however it is going to be more like 6 weeks. More prayer time :-) The wait is hard but they said due to the radiation if they did the MRI to soon everything would show up bright and they would not be able to see the tumors. This is because of swelling caused form the radiation. She is feeling more tired and has been feeling nauseous more now. They said this is normal for about 10 days after radiation is finished. Then she should feel like her self again. She has a lot of skin changes that are bothering her. She has like tan lines on each side of her neck and down the center of her chest and spine. Her head is tan also. Her skin is very dry, so it is peeling. This is also caused from the radiation. That should go away in about 2 weeks. She just needs to put moisturizer on her self a few time a day.
She is going back to school after spring break. Lets all pray that the other kids will be sensitive to her physical changes and not tease her. You know kids can be harsh. Well it might be awhile before I update again due to the wait for the MRI, So thank you all for your care and concern for Valerie and for everyone's donations of their time and money with the fund raisers. Hope to see you there
Love,
Bernice
