From our girl and her mama. .

When Ilana was first diagnosed she started a caringbridge blog. There hasn't been a lot of activity on it but I just got an email from Lans - she and Pam are going to try to update it weekly! This is great news as I feel I often get details wrong through the telephone chain. So visit here http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ilanasmith/mystory to get updates on our girl. I will probably continue to post as well.

Lans transport on Monday went alright. It was door to door service. By the time she arrived at Mayo her pain was high and the staff had to go through her 5-inch chart. The doctors have been wonderful since her arrival. I guess on a pain scale of 0 to 10, if you are at a 4 they treat it with urgency, they never want you over a 4. They listened to Ilana's concerns. At Del Webb they were giving her morphine and other meds that did nothing for her and she didn't want, they got rid of all stuff that doesn't work. I guess they are going to have a naturapathic team come see her too. While the staff at Del Webb had become like family, we are so grateful she is in a cancer center where she can get such complete care.

I would just like to say how proud I am of my brother Ben. He is working so hard to take care of Ilana. When the nurse came in and told her about the naturapathic medicine Ben ordered all sorts of teas she recommended. He makes her fresh fruit smoothies and everything he can do to get her better. They have applied for social security but had to get all their tax stuff together. All their tax stuff was on their computer and the server was down. So Ben stayed up all night fixing the server so he get the information he needed from their taxes. The next night Matthew was sick and he got up hourly with Matthew. When he showed up to drop the boys off at my house he looked like the living dead. He's thin and exhausted and scared, but he keeps going. He is taking such good care of his little family.