Infinite love for Isla

08/11/2025

🍋 A HUGE thank you to everyone who supported Isla’s 2nd Annual Lemonade Stand benefiting Project Fire Buddies!

Isla raised a whopping $5,000 and sold $1,100 in PFB Swag this year. We couldn’t be more grateful for all that this organization does for kids like Isla and so many of our PFB Friends.

A special thank you to Nicky V's Food Trucks & Catering, mobileglamsquadparties, paintedsmilesbykaren, Bounce Brigade and orland_firefighters for making the day extra fun! We honestly owe it all to you guys for bringing the crowds 💛

We can’t wait for next year and are already brainstorming fresh, fun ideas!

08/08/2025

We have been enjoying our last weeks of summer break with a beach trip, Descendants vs Zombies Worlds Collide Tour, and another Blood Therapy appointment.

We so enjoyed our vacation and can’t wait to go back. I got to surprise Isla with a mommy and Isla concert date and it was amazing! Disney never seems to disappoint when it comes to putting on a show.

Isla is doing very well, all of her labs came back great yesterday and her Ferritin (the lab that tests her iron levels for blood therapy) are trending now beautifully!

Scans are set for the 19th and school starts the 20th, so we will be soaking up these last days of break. I’m struggling more than they are with going back to school!

Please keep Isla in your prayers as we anticipate these next scans, after this she will have her 2 year post treatment scans in November and those are a BIG deal!! Her diagnosis of High-Risk Stage 4/Group 4 Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma has a 5-year survival rate of about 20-30%. I don’t like thinking about this, at all, but once her 2 years post treatment scans come back good (which I’m putting out there that they will!!) the risk of relapse decreases and at the 5 year mark it raises the long term survival rate to about 85%. We need to get to that 5 year mark, we need to get to the teenage years, adulthood, and old age.

At this point we are celebrating a birthday, an end of treatment anniversary each year, and everything in between! Thank you all for being on this journey with us 💛

08/01/2025

We are enjoying our summer! We just came home from the beach and the kids are already planning our next vacation ☀️👙⛱️🕶️

Isla has a few things coming up for August. Scans, blood therapy, two days of Neuro psych testing, and the first day of 1st grade!! She is so excited to start 1st grade, but she is also very nervous. She’s going to miss her kindergarten teacher and friends so much, but I’m so thankful for the experience she had in kindergarten. It was truly special and I do believe she’s made lifelong friends in that group, mommy even made some new friends!

We also have a surprise mommy and Isla date planned that I am so excited for, I think she will love it! More on that next week 😉

We hope you all are enjoying your summer too!

07/08/2025

Truly grateful for all of the prayers!
The panic I felt opening her results were quickly replaced with tears of joy 💛

07/07/2025

Isla had her 7th therapeutic blood therapy procedure today, she is trending in the right direction and it looks like we may avoid a PICC line at this point!

Tomorrow she has her repeat chest CT, since the last CT of her chest (6 weeks ago) showed a new nodule and they couldn’t rule out the worst. I am hopeful that since she developed a bit of a cough a couple days later that it will be all clear tomorrow, but please say some extra prayers that this is the case.

Overall, this kid is growing slow but steady. Almost an inch over the past 6 months! Hopefully she continues to grow until we can start her growth hormones.

As always, thank you for the continued love and support 💛

06/29/2025

It is so important to me that my kids realize all that we have been blessed with, especially throughout Isla’s cancer journey. We try to give back when and how we can and today we got to throw our first Make-A-Wish Illinois Celebration for our friend to reveal his wish!

Thank you all for showing us such kindness, compassion, grace, and love. It will never be forgotten and we will continue to pay it forward 💙

06/17/2025

If you’re in the area, stop by to see us!

Isla Dorsey is holding a lemonade stand June 22 for Project Fire Buddies, who lifted her spirits during her cancer battle.

06/12/2025

🍋 We are 10 days away from Isla’s 2nd Annual Lemonade Stand benefiting Project Fire Buddies!! 🍋

Last year she raised an outstanding $6,000 for our buddies to give more children like Isla more good days and we cannot wait to do it again.

If you’re local please stop by, if you’re not able to join us and want to donate you can send via Venmo (please include that it is for the lemonade stand) at we can also accept donations via Zelle, please message me if you’d like to go the Zelle route!

We hope to see some of you on the 22nd! 🍋

06/05/2025

Holy moly you guys!! I totally believe in the power of prayer, so thank you to all who sent them our way after my last post.

Isla had her blood therapy appointment today and it went so smoothly, we had some tears but overall it was okay. Only one poke and it was in her arm (we’ve been having to use her ankles and it is miserable), the blood was flowing, and her Ferritin levels (what shows the amount of iron in the blood) is down from 1,005 last month to 801 prior to therapy today!!!

This is HUGE and I cried happy tears when I saw that number. This is a wonderful step in the right direction and if we keep going at this rate Isla will not need a PICC line. Ahh, so happy!!

Also, I think Jason is Isla’s good luck charm in clinic. Every time he has to come with us it ends up being the easiest appointments! He is such an amazing big brother, he’s so caring and supportive. He made sure she was comfortable and happy today 💛

06/04/2025

I have some updates to share!

After today I will officially have a 1st Grader and a 5th Grader!! Time sure flies and they are growing up way too fast.

Isla’s scans came back, the MRI of her head came back great! We are thrilled. The CT of her chest will forever be what haunts me. She has a new nodule in her lungs, most likely from illness but cancer cannot be ruled out completely at this point. We will be in clinic tomorrow for her blood therapy, so her immunologist would like them to check her fungal markers to rule out another fungal infection. We will rescan her chest in 6 weeks to see if there is improvement. Please pray that this is from a cold or similar.

I have also discussed options for Isla’s current blood therapy with her doctor. Isla’s veins, being so small and damaged from treatment, are not holding up well for what we need. Each month the sedation team has to come down to clinic to give her an IV, a couple of times they have had no choice but to poke her ankle. This is extremely uncomfortable and painful for Isla and she cries and fights and my heart breaks. After her scans I was told that they also had no luck and needed to place her IV in her ankle. After this I realized that we may have no other choice than to place a PICC line for the remainder of her blood therapy, something that her doctor had mentioned in the past. We will most likely be placing a PICC line once summer is over. We are obviously upset by this, but I am hopeful that with the PICC line in place we will be able to get her blood therapy completed much sooner and put it behind us.

For now, we will enjoy their summer and will try to not think about rescans or another surgery. We will hopefully take a nice family trip and I will be sure to share some of our fun! As always, thank you all for the prayers and support. We truly feel it 💛

Also, look at how great her eye is looking!!!

05/27/2025

This little animal lover has her 18 month post treatment scans tomorrow! Can you believe it’s been a year and a half already?!

Please help us pray for clear scans and healing since last time 💛