For the first time since her diagnosis in February, a 15-month-old baby girl fighting a rare brain tumor got to come home for almost a week before starting her second round of chemotherapy last Friday.

Santa Clarita natives Cardon and Brittany Ellis celebrated the end of baby Elisabeth’s first round of chemo on March 16 by taking their daughter home from the hospital for a taste of normal life with her big brother, three-year-old Ryder.

Brittany and Cardon Ellis leaving the hospital with Elisabeth earlier this month.

“(She was) much happier — she was smiling, she was laughing, she was giggling,” Cardon told KHTS on Tuesday. “It’s great to be home but … the hospital follows you a little.”

Related: Santa Clarita Dad Shares Heartbreaking Story As One-Year-Old Daughter Battles Rare Brain Tumor (VIDEO)

Before leaving Children’s Hospital Los Angeles — where the family had basically been living for the last month and a half — Cardon and his wife had to take what he called a “crash course” in nursing.

“You have to change her dressing, you have to flush her lines. She has a permanent port that goes into the vein that drains into her heart, and you have to clean it out once a day,” Cardon explained. “You’re allowed to go home, but you basically have to take these classes to enable you to do what the nurses were doing in the hospital.”

The Ellis family returned to the hospital six days later to begin the second of three rounds of chemotherapy needed to shrink down the tennis ball-sized brain tumor inside Elisabeth’s head.

A nurse administers Elisabeth’s second round of chemo at Children’s Hospital LA.

While the intense skin rash that had the baby girl scratching her skin off earlier this month hasn’t returned, she suffered a seizure on Tuesday that may have been a combination of the chemo and the tumor itself, according to Cardon.

“Once you’ve had a seizure, your chances of having seizures both in the short- and the long-term increase a lot, so I don’t know, we’ll see how it affects her,” he said. “We’re trying to stay positive and everything, because that’s all you can do. We’re just waiting and watching to see what happens.”

This round of chemo is expected to last at least three weeks, with Elisabeth allowed to return home again before the final round when her white blood cell count is high and she starts eating and having bowel movements.

“I’ve never prayed for her to poop so badly than (when) we wanted to get out of the hospital,” Cardon said with a laugh.

Doctors won’t know if the chemotherapy is working until the end of her third round because it can actually cause a tumor to swell before it shrinks, giving what Cardon called “a false sense of doom.”

Elisabeth with her dad after starting her second round of chemo.

The Santa Clarita community is continuing to rally around the Ellis family, and has raised nearly $75,000 so far through a GoFundMe page created to help cover Elisabeth’s medical expenses.

A fundraiser at Sharky’s in Valencia raised an additional $5,000 in a single day earlier this month, and a second fundraiser is planned for April 7 at Cold Stone Creamery on McBean Parkway, with 20 percent of proceeds from the day’s sales going directly to the Ellis family.

As Elisabeth’s treatment continues, Cardon and his wife are striving to remain positive, and continue to be impressed by their baby girl’s inspiring strength.

“All of the nurses say that she’s the feistiest girl they’ve seen in a long time,” Cardon said. “She’s like a favorite down at the hospital, and they all say her feistiness is really, really good, and that being a fighter helps.”

To support baby Elisabeth and the Ellis family, click here to donate to the GoFundMe page and click here for more information about the April 7 fundraiser at Cold Stone Creamery on McBean Parkway.

All photos and videos courtesy of Cardon Ellis.