Team Sophie Bear

Sophie spent 14 months undergoing treatment like a champ with the help of parents and twin sister Isabelle. We celebrated the end of chemo at the end of July 2010. However, three months later the MRI showed that the tumor was growing again except this time towards the back of the brain and the team felt that another surgery was the way to go. Sophie underwent her third brain surgery in December of 2010 which removed most of the new growth. In the following six months of moitoring and follow-up new small spots towards teh front of the brain developed. Since they were so small and slow-growing we were simply keeping a watchful eye on them. Then, in Novemeber of 2011 it was decided that we would need to begin chemotherapy again, this time with an oral medication that could be administered at home.

Since then there has been continued growth in the orginal tumor while the new spots have stabalized. As a result we added another oral drug to the mix in August of this past year. This result in Sophie's platelet counts dropping to the point that she needed a transufsion and was taken off all chemo drugs until they rebounded. As you can imagine we spent many days in September in the hospital. On the bright side we were informed of a new clinical trial that was getting ready for approval for Sophie's age group. We were abe to have her approved for participation in the trial and she began taking the new medicine in October. We have been very happy with results until now and she has even gained weight and is now over 15 kilos for the first time ever. Her latest MRI in December showed no growth in the tumor since she has been on the trial drug (requires her to take two pills in the morning and one at night as well as weekly visits to the hospital the first month for blood draws to make sure there were no problems). She's been a trooper as usual (notice I didn't say angel as we all have our bad days, she has only threatened to hit me twice while holding her down for blood draws).

Exciting news from our last MRI performed March 29th  . . . Sophie's tumor is shrinking with new drug she is on as part of the clinical trial. We are very excited with this new development and it just shows how important funding is for research and development of new drugs. Please continue to recruit others and share her story as we hope that this is the beginning of something exciting for all who battle this disease.