Where Do We Start?
Or should I say, where do we update? In a nutshell, we’re doing chemo and hoping and praying it’s killing the cancer in Hutton’s body. That’s what we have been doing for the last year and a half. EIGHTEEN MONTHS. We’re in it. Did we expect to be here 18 months ago? Not at all.
Eighteen months total…fourteen months from Hutton’s hemi-pelvectomy, where her surgeon removed 1/3 of her pelvis, plus her hip socket, plus her cancer (well, almost all of her cancer).
Her surgery was February 13, 2025 and we thought she would be walking by the summer of 2025. She was in a wedding in June, and I remember telling the bride (we love you, Coach Danielle and Mr. Austin), “Hutton should totally be walking by then!” spoiler alert she was in fact NOT walking by then.
It’s now April 2026, and we are still working on getting Hutton walking again. There was a setback when we found that the little bit of cancer left in her body had begin to grow, so we basically lived in Westwood for seven weeks while she was getting radiation every day, and could not continue physical therapy. But Hutton has been working very hard since then. She has PT with horses weekly, and she has her shoe with the lift. We are doing ALL THE THINGS. We are confident our girl will be walking again; it will just take time.
And until that happens, she is rollin’ around in her wheelchair (thank you, Ziebarts) and walking with her walker.She is doing chemo every other Monday (outpatient), and she is having very minimal side effects. Combining the horse therapy and no longer having inpatient chemo is definitely a step in the right direction for her, both physically and mentally.
Oh, and she has HAIR!!!!! Hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows! Her oncologist has warned us that it is possible she could lose her hair again, but for right now we are going with it, and let me tell you, it is the softest hair ever!
So I guess the update is that we are still doing the thing(s). We are continuing chemo, we are praying, and we are trying to live our best life while thriving through chemo and cancer.
