Wonderful Christmas

The kids had a wonderful Christmas and received so many amazing gifts. I feel very lucky that my family is so close and we are together at minimum every Sunday for dinner and it is my hope that you all were able to send Christmas with ALL of the people you love! My Family takes Christmas very serious and we have tons of traditions that must be followed. lol I wouldn't want it any other way! It is so funny to see the kids take up our stange little ways and always expect even the little traditions we have to be followed through on.

Eden now has every Ariel doll, toy, barbie...................... That ever existed! She was so thankful for everything and so kind to everyone all day even when she was completely exhausted. When I asked Riley what his favorite present was he said with the sweetest face "having all of his family together! Just as my eyes started to water he added "and my New Ipod... He is soooo Rotten!

The kids and I sat for a while after things settled down and talked about what Christmas really means. Eden reminded us all every few hours by yelling "Happy Birthday Jesus!!" I just love her so much that sometimes it really does hurt.. I never understood that saying until I had kids.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Thank you to everyone!

Riley and Eden

Eden is doing great! She is feeling back to herself and eating like two grown men. Her schedule is jam packed from now until Christmas and she needs a secretary to be honest. Tomorrow she has an appointment at the salon to have her nails done with Mrs. Russell, Miss Diddle and Mrs. Zorn and then they will be lunching and shopping the afternoon away... Four wild girls on the town... (Did we share with you that Mrs. Russell is going to have a baby??) Eden is sooooo Excited!!!!!

On Friday Mamu Hope generously offered to take Eden to meet Julia (creator of
http://www.myspace.com/supportforeden) at Build a Bear in Easton. Friday night Eden and Riley will be celebrating Christmas with Andy and Stef at our house and Eden can not wait to see them both!

Sat we are going to take Mamu JoAnn and Howard to See the lights at Alum Creek. If you haven't been, you must see them!

Sunday the Kids are doing Christmas with Rourke' s Family at Mamu Hope's house and gearing up for Christmas Day.

I would like to take this opportunity to Wish each one of you a Merry Christmas and never forget how blessed you are to have your family and friends this time of year.

Please join me is saying a prayer for the families who have lost a child this year and will be one short at Christmas. My heart breaks for their loss and I am sure this is a very Difficult time for them.

Ally Neff Age 3
Ian McAllister Age 7
Jaret Cerino Age 7
Shaun Reynolds
Christi Thomas Age 9

500!!!!!!!!!!

Woohoo.. We made it! Thank you all so much. Eden will be so excited in the morning when she sees her present under the tree. Eden has her up and down days and moments but over all she is doing ok. Pretty much the same thing she went through with the last round of ABT. Cramping, nausea and she is pretty tired. She finished her third round of ABT on Tuesday so it is my hope that she will start feeling better soon.

I have added Tons of pictures below now that they are no longer being held hostage. I hope you all enjoy them!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT CECE!

Nurses

These are some of Eden’s favorite Nurses. First Picture is the Nurse is the ABT study Nurse who makes sure they have the right blood draws and gives us all the paperwork needed each visit. She is so fun!
Second picture is Dana the Social Worker who always stops by to spend some time with Eden. This trip she got her butt kicked at Crazy 8! Third Picture is Megan the only one that Eden will Let access her. The forth Picture is of the nurse who took such good care of her after her Bone Marrow Biopsy.

Pictures from CHOP

Eden and Pat (nurse practitioner) showing off the Mug Eden gave her and Eden and Dr. Mosse. Thought it might be nice to put faces with names.

MIBG

These are pictures of Eden having her MiBG Scan when we were in Philly. She is wide a wake during this scan and it takes about 40 min total. It is not always right down on her face like this. This is the short part of the scan where they are just doing the head. The full body scan starts the same way and she slowly moves out of it as it scans sections of the body. She is able to watch TV during the full body scan. SO BRAVE!!!

Pictures of Eden decorating the tree.

FU_NB06

You may remember me talking about the strength and Courage of Angel Christi Thomas and her parents as she entering her final hours here on earth and the Cell Line they wanted to try and establish as her last act here. All though I think it was an easy decision for them to make it was a huge sacrifice to allow her body to be violated one last time after her death to obtain the blood needed for the Cell line and there was only a 20% chance that it would even grow. Shane and Angela were informed today by the amazing Dr. Maris that they were in fact able to establish the line that will be used to continue to fight for a cure! How do you ever Thank someone for something like this? We will always keep Christi alive in our memories and we will always keep Shane, Angela and Shayla in our hearts! If you are confused by the title of this entry, it is the name of Christi's Cell line per the Thomas request and I think its pretty self explanatory. The cell line is basically disease that can be used by researchers to be hit with drugs in the hopes of finding a cure for Neuroblastoma!

We continue to hold on to hope that Eden is strong enough to continue to fight until a cure is found and we will stand behind her and support her for as long as it takes. Thank you all for helping us get a present under the tree for Eden and we are so very close. She still continues to look at it every day and everyday is so excited at how close we are getting. Every $$ gets us that much closer to a cure as well.

I have tons of pictures to add and as soon as the hostage situation is over I will be all over downloading them...

Thanks for checking in!

New Eden Pictures

Picture of Eden are currently being held hostage until she gets a present under her Christmas tree. She is driving me crazy wanting a present. I went out yesterday and bumped it up 6 ornaments But, it still needs help to hit 500 so the she get her first present. Currently her tree is at 328. The kids and I are playing and decorating the tree today. I'll take a picture of the tree with the kids when we finish. Eden is dealing with some tummy issue and muscle discomfort. She started the medication from Philly on Wed. However, she still smiling and happy.

The Giving Tree ~ Lunch for Life

Codey St John is at 556 we have some catching up to do!

This year, Lunch for Life is getting into the holiday spirit! Thanks to the efforts of CNCF and an anonymous donor, your giving will translate not only into desperately needed research dollars, but also into gifts that will brighten the lives of these children. And one child will receive an all-expenses paid dream vacation to Walt Disney World, with the help of some incredibly generous donors.Here’s how it works: Each child has his or her own virtual giving tree, and your donations will decorate those trees with ornaments and (ultimately) presents. Every donation has three effects: 1) the tree of your choice receives 1 ornament for every $5 you donate; 2) every donation generates a Giving Code which can get you bonus ornaments when your friends type it in; and 3) each ornament placed on a child’s tree creates one entry for that child into our Disney World giveaway. For example, if I donate $15 to a specific child’s tree, then that places 3 ornaments on his or her tree, creates 3 contest entries for that child, and generates a Giving Code for me to pass along. When a tree is full (500 ornaments), those ornaments transform into a present underneath that tree, and the decoration process begins all over again. For each present, the family can elect to receive one of several donated prizes for the child (including board games, stuffed animals, a gift card to Toys R Us, or even the ability to turn multiple presents into a portable DVD player or other bigger gift).Remember, now your lunch money can help save these children’s lives by funding scientific research on Neuroblastoma, while also bringing smiles to their faces with their own virtual trees and real presents. Please help make these holidays special for these wonderful children in need.https://www.lunchforlife.org/donate.aspxEnter the code: 20555 to double Eden’s entries in the contestSo click the link above and donate in honor of EDEN RAE ADAMS. Help raise money to find a cure and send a child to Disney…maybe Eden will win the trip, but all of the children with neuroblastoma will win when the cure is found.My goal for Eden is a couple of presents under the tree and full tree of ornaments. Thank you, Rourke

Loving life!

Because of your continued prayers and good thoughts we are headed back to Ohio with nothing but good news..... Scans are good!! Thank you all! Unlike Columbus they will not allow me to watch theMiBG scan on the screen in Philly. But when it was done I peeked while they were checking it and I saw something very bright in the neck area.. As the panic started to take over I realized that it was right where her thyroid is and that the thyroid is very bad to uptake the MiBG which is why we give her a med called sski which protects her thyroid. For whatever reason it is not doing its job so there was a lot of uptake. We also had a few tense moments today waiting for her Liver enzymes to come back as they were very high on Monday which would prevent her from starting her ABT on time.. In the end they came back within range to start. Other then that we had a pretty smooth week..

Yesterday when Eden was done at the hospital we decided we needed to get out of the craziness of downtown philly so we headed just out of town to grab a bite to eat and look around. CeCe treated us to ihop which we love and don't have in Columbus and then we looked around at a few stores and ran into Walmart for new batteries for Eden's Pixter. On the way back we had the bright idea to take the freeway which was not smart.. We ended up lost for about an hour and a half and laughed harder then I have laughed in a long time... It took me about 20 min to realize that the way you have to drive in Philly is assume there are no laws of any kind and you are good. We knew we were in trouble when we stopped at one place and the lady said "Honey, I don't think you can get there from here" LOL But we made it in time for crafting and all was good.

I have some great pictures to post of Eden with all of her wonderful nurses and Dr. Mosse. I will try to upload them tomorrow when we are not on the road.

Have a great day!

What a weekend!

We had a wonderful weekend! Friday night Riley, Eden and Riley's friend Justin went to dinner and a movie with Cindy and Rich. (oh how brave they are) They saw happyfeet which I hear is a wonderful movie. THANK YOU CINDY AND RICH!

Sat morning we hung out around the house just trying to get some things done before our trip and we had the best visitor. Jennifer and her Sweet Mother drove 2 hours to see Eden and Bring pop tabs for us to bring to the Philly RMH. A tradition she started with Christi years ago that we are very proud to be able to carry on! She brought Eden some wonderful gifts to entertain Eden on the drive to Philly and they even had time to stay and make some cookies.

Sat afternoon we headed to the Circus with CeCe and Uncle Bill and Aunt Pam and Mick and it was fun but seemed more like a show to me then a circus but what do I know. We are now in Philly and had an uneventful trip up. As you can see from the picture above, Eden stayed busy playing pixter and coloring and playing with dolls. We sang songs and she had to eat every 50 miles. We made it to the RMH in time for Dinner and then played for awhile before turning in. We were up early this morning to head to the hospital for Bone Marrow biopsies and Eden had no trouble waking up and felt pretty good. As the day has gone on she has started to hurt a little more and by the time she finished crafts after dinner she was ready to come lay down and just be still!

Eden is half way to 500 on her Giving tree thanks to all of the wonderful people out there!

More soon!

Lisa