Learnin' to blog

For anyone who hasn't heard yet, Savannah has been diagnosed with stage 4 Melanoma. She has a large tumor under her arm and has 3 small spots in other areas. We are blessed to have been accepted at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. We are in Middleburg, VA right now staying with my brother and his family untill we can check in at NIH. We had an appointment with her doctors on Thursday and they explained several treatment options. The one they decided to use is where they remove the tumor and somehow extract the good immune cells and treat them to fight the melanoma. They will put the good cells back into her through an IV infusion. To grow the immune cells it takes 4 to 8 weeks. When they are ready she will come back to the hospital for 3 weeks while they give her the treatment. This will hopefully shrink or terminate the other spots.

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We heard from NIH today and found out that Savannah's surgery has been moved from Wednesday to Thursday due to scheduling problems. :( We were hoping to get it over with and get back home sooner but apparently she is not the only one needing medical care. Savannah is doing well but she is having pain in her underarm area where the tumor is. She has pain medicine that is helping but the real help will be when they remove it.
We have been having fun, killing time till check-in; shopping, seeing a movie taking in the scenery. Danny & Donna (my sister-in-law) got to go to an NRA Banquet and today Danny, Savannah and I went to Front Royal to the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm) Canine Explosive Training Facility. Donna's best friend, Diana, works there and she made that all possible......it was awesome! We also took a drive up Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah Mtns .....it was gorgeous. Savannah took tons of pictures. Maybe we'll get those online soon....?
Tomorrow we will go to Bethesda and stay in a hotel for one night. They want Savannah to go ahead and check into the hospital on Wed so they can have her all ready to go on Thursday.
Hopefully, from Wed. on we will be staying on NIH campus at the Family Lodge.
Please continue all those prayers! Much Love the Dutton's

The "first blog"

Savannah makes fun of me because I use quotation marks a lot. I just type like I talk......scary, I know but.....oh well.......
I've never posted on a blog before so I have no idea what I'm supposed to say...but....I want to tell everyone how proud I am of our sweet Savannah. She is so brave and courageous and has so much faith in God. She knows He will heal her and of course, we do too. We have already seen some amazing things come out of all this mess. I will "post" again later when I have something to say. ;)