Charlie Anne Matthews Fund

9/12/18
The Matthews have truly enjoyed they time home the past couple weeks. Charlie is doing well. Happy, playing and loving seeing her dogs and friends.
They are gearing up for her admission tomorrow to start her 4th round of chemo.  They are anticipating a much more intense round as compaired to the last three. The chemo will completly wipe out her bone marrow so she will receive a bone marrow transplant (from her own cells) on 9/17/18.  Accordingly, they will be on the transplant unit this time in isolation to protect her very fragile immune system.  

This admission will be about a month.  It will be harder to visit Charlie as they have to prevent her from getting sick...so be in touch with Shelly if you are completely healthy and want to go see them.
Please consider donating and/or bringing a meal or having one delivered. It is going to be a long and hard month. 





8/10/18

Charlie is currently in the hospital but planning to go home this Saturday. As long as she has no infections she will be home till mid September. Then she will be re-admitted for her stem cell transplant and round 4 of chemo. She has been stuck in her room the past couple weeks and will be again when she has to go back....so they have had to be really creative to keep her entertained.  They also had a repeat head MRI last week and saw no tumor!!! Please keep praying!


7/5/18
charlie is still in the hospital. The infection is clearing and today they did the first step of her stem cell transplant. They got great news that they may be able to go home for the weekend! Next round of chemo will start Monday.


Updated 6/29/18
The Matthews found out today that they are going to have to stay inpatient at the hospital for the next 3-4 weeks.  Charlie is on IV antibiotics that she will need for about a week.  After that they will be harvesting her stem cells, followed by 2 more weeks of chemo.  So they will be splitting their time to be with Charlie 24/7.  

How you can help over this next difficult month:
1. Visit them IF YOU ARE HEALTHY!  They love visitors to break up the day!

2. If you are signed up for the meal train....it would be best for them to get prepared/hot food before (or close to) 5pm.  That way one of them can pick it up and bring it back to the hospital before Charlie goes to bed (you can also text Shelly and arrange to deliver it to the hospital, or you can have uber eats deliver it there...you would just have to let shelly know when to run down to pick it up from the uber driver.

3.  Donate:)

4.  Let Shelly know if you (or someone you know) has breast milk that you can donate.


Updated 6/27/18
charlie got admitted yesterday to treat fever and  listlessness. They gave her some blood last night and she is doing much better today. They hope to be discharged after 48 hours. 
Please keep your prayers up! 


Updated 6/20/18
The Matthews are home! Charlie completed round one of chemo like a champ! Everyone at the hospital was shocked at how well she handled it.  Been a little hard  for the whole family...living at the hospital with a new born, so they are so happy to be home for a week or so with the dogs and in their own beds. When Charlie’s labs look right they will be re-admitted to collect stem cells. They collect them no to use during later chemo infusions. 


Updated 6/14/18

Charlie was admitted to hospital this week to start her chemo treatments.  They did some more testing and confirmed that she does not have cancer cells in her spinal cord!  This was great news.  She had her first dose of chemotherapy last night and is tolerating it well.  They plan to keep her in the hospital to continue this round of chemo until the end of the week.  Then she should be able to return home and do some treatments out-patient.  The plan is that every couple of months she will have to be admitted for the more intense chemo rounds.

They are still waiting on the final pathology and genome results.   It will likely be several weeks before we know more, but regardless of the results the treatments for now are the same. 

Back story:

In late May, Charlie became sick and appeared to have an ear infection. She was seen again by her doctors when she became unsteady on her feet. After some studies, it was found that she had a brain tumor. She was immediately transferred to Rady Children's Hospital's PICU where the doctors  quickly removed the tumor and later determined it was cancerous.  Although we still don’t have the specifics, we are sure that Charlie has a long road of chemotherapy ahead of her in which she will be admitted to the hospital on and off over the next year or so.

A week after her surgery, Charlie and her parents welcomed her baby brother Noland into the world.  He was born on May 29th and was a healthy 8 pounds 1 oz.  Noland is doing well, he is a good eater and sleeper. 

This fund was set up to help with medical costs, travel costs, babysitting fees, house maintenance and basically anything that will help ease the stress for the Matthews family.  Our goal is to raise enough money so that Shelly does not have to go back to work until Charlie's 9months-1 year of treatments are over. 

Many people have already donated directly to the Matthews. Blake and Shelly are beyond appreciative of everyone’s generosity. They have used some of what they have gotten so far to bank the baby’s stem cells as a possible therapy for Charlie.

In addition to donations, you can sign up to deliver food to them here:
https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/8dye75

Please help pass along this information to friends and family.Save