A Real Baby!

The Banana & Cadence

My friend Mackenzie came to my rescue today. I needed to get some work done and was struggling with the ever present four year old. So, Mackenzie came over with her new daughter, Cadence. Oh man, is she a beautiful baby! Hannah was in love! She got out all of her babies and did everything Mackenzie did all afternoon. She had so much fun. Thanks Mac & Cadence!

Invasion of Brothers

Andrew and Aaron got a chance to experience Hannah's new world this week. I think it has been good for them. Today, is our last day of the five on, two off chemo schedule. The boys got to come with us for the last two. They are visiting with Tammy and Aiden today. The outdoors were calling them.

The first day the boys came, Children's had a cool hand washing demonstration. They put this day glow orange liquid on your hands and then you look under a black light to see the germs. Wow. Disgusting what is hanging out on your average hand. I may never shake again.

Here is a picture of my three (Hannah and the backs of the boys) listening to the instructions for the orange goo.

Hannah has been doing well with the chemo. She gets nauseous, tired, and grumpy but that's pretty normal stuff. Tuesday is the start of the next five consecutive days of chemo and it is a much harder week. I am just still so happy her counts are up and we can keep on the treatment! Thank you all for your prayers. Hope you have a great weekend.

It's Pajama Day

My son, Aaron, had Pajama Day for his last day of school yesterday and Hannah was quite jealous about that. When she got up this morning to go to clinic she announced that it was her Pajama Day at Children's. Since we were going to be in a chair for six hours that seemed like the perfect plan to me. So, after picking out jammies from our friend Sarah and the blanket Tammy made, we headed over for our long day.

Hannah started out a ball of energy. She was chatting it up with all the nurses. So much that I had to hide the nurse call button. Hannah kept pushing it to get them to come back and talk! Luckily, we had Jen, who is super cool. She never seemed annoyed and even brought Hannah scratch n sniff My Little Pony stickers.

By the end of the day, Hannah was wiped out and nauseous. She stayed couch bound watching movies the rest of the night.

Tomorrow Hannah's brothers, Andrew and Aaron are coming with us to clinic. They have a sibling room downstairs and Hannah is kinda excited to show them where she goes everyday. My sister, who was here for the month of June to help, had to leave unexpectedly, so I had some last minute juggling to do for the boys this week. We are adaptable.

Hope everyone is doing well. See ya next post!

Yes!!

She made counts! Hannah's ANC came back as 1571 today! She needed to be at 750 or above to restart chemo. That was quite the jump from last week. It is so nice to be surprised in a good way.

Tomorrow starts her six hour chemo treatment and then four more days consecutively. It is hard to imagine that just a few weeks ago I was dreading this appointment!

Thank you to everyone for all your prayers and support. It has been a super hard two weeks.

Just one more day

Tomorrow we go to Children's. They are going to check her blood count to see if her body is ready for the next round of chemo. It has been a very long week of waiting. Please pray for us that she will make counts and we can keep on kicking cancer's butt! :-)

Keeping Perspective

I haven't written an update in a couple days and I would like to apologise for that. It has been a struggle for me to find a way to relay the news with a positive perspective.

Hannah did not make counts again on Monday, instead they slipped even further down. Which means her bone marrow has not recovered enough to start the new round of chemo. We have another week of no treatment. Three weeks is the most she can go without treatment. I endlessly worry because for 95% of Leukemia kids, going off treatment for a bit is an ok thing. They were at zero cancer cells left in their bodies at the three week mark. Hannah was not. This time off was a blessing last week when I thought her counts were rising. Hopefully, with this week her body will recover and I will be worrying for nothing! Hannah is a strong little girl.

So, we have an appt. on Tuesday to check her counts again. If she makes it then we can begin chemo on Wednesday. Please pray for Hannah's body to recover enough this week to continue on treatment. I really appreciate all the prayers for Hannah.

Delayed Treatment

We hit a snag in the road today. Hannah's next round of chemo was to start tomorrow and go through Tuesday. In order to start treatment though, her blood counts needed to be at a certain level. Unfortunately, her counts were not where we needed them to be. No chemo this weekend. We will go in on Monday and check again. Hopefully, they will have gone up enough to start chemo on Tuesday.

Candles in the Wind

I saw this quote elsewhere but had to share it with you.

"Children with Cancer are like candles in the wind who accept the possibility that they are in danger of being extinguished by a gust of wind from nowhere and yet, as they flicker and dance to remain alive, their brilliance challenges the darkness and dazzles those of us who watch their light."

That is so my baby girl.

Auntie Mimi is here!

My sister, Amy, who is a teacher, is up here from Arizona. She is going to be staying for the month of June to help me with Hannah and the boys. The new chemo is pretty rough and it will be so nice to have some in house help. Also, because she is a teacher, she is helping us with what Hannah should be learning and the best way to do it.

So, with the break from Children's this week and my sister here, I have been able to work more. When I got home today, Hannah got her laptop out and told me she was busy "working"! Plus, she looked at one of the note card's I gave her and let me know that I got the job. So, I got that going for me! Here is a picture of Hannah at her office.

Small Victories!

The back poke, they give some of her chemo drugs directly into her spinal fluid, went much better this Friday! I talked with her Dr. about the reactions she has been having, which usually got me the vague "Some kids just react that way" answer. This time, I came armed with information. We went over in detail the medicine they were using for her anesthesia. Turns out, they were giving her a pain medication called Alfentanil that sometimes causes aggression in kids. So, we skipped it this time. She took longer to awake but she woke up happy. No wild eyed screaming, kicking, and throwing things. She also didn't break down later in the day as she did previously. She slept most the afternoon but she was a happy camper the rest of day and now....

A WHOLE WEEK OFF!!!!

Our next visit isn't until Friday. Our job this week is to keep her healthy so that her blood counts stay up. We need that to start the next round of chemo. Please keep us in your prayers and thank you so much for all the prayers thus far!!

Spinal Tap Results

Hannah's doctor called today with the results from the spinal tap. They were testing the fluid in her spinal column because of the severe headache she had last week. They were thinking it might be aseptic meningitis or that Leukemia cells were in her spinal fluid, where they had previously not been.

The test results came back with NO cancer cells in her spinal fluid!! It did come back with extra white blood cells there, so Dr. Chow said they think she did have inflammation there, which is the aseptic meningitis. They gave her medicine for that as soon as they suspected it when we were in Children's so, we are good. She hasn't had another headache like that since, either, thank god.

Anyway, that's the news! One more back poke tomorrow then we get a whole week break from the hospital while they wait for her blood counts to go up. The next Friday starts round two of some really crappy chemo treatment. Hard stuff, but we will make it. Looking forward to a normal week! :-)

Fun pics

Hannah is having a pretty chill day, playing puzzles and legos. I have been getting some quotes and emails done. (Thank god) I thought since I was on the computer, I would share some random pictures I like.




Hannah playing at Children's last week



Hannah taking a picture of me taking a picture of her!



Hannah wailing on the drums at Grandma Patty's house





My three, hugging on little Aiden, who came over to play.

Mmm Dinner!

I wanted to say thank you to Kathy Henderson who has organized scheduled dinners to be brought to us and to all the families who are making us dinners! It has been such a blessing. Especially, now that Hannah is having such a difficult time wanting to eat. There are days she doesn't want a single thing we have in the house, but when dinner from her friends arrive, why that was the food she had wanted all along. She is pretty funny about it. As if I had just misunderstood some previous request!
Everyone has been so sweet, bringing drawings for Hannah and sometimes special drinks for the boys and I.

Good appointment

We had a doctor appointment today to check her blood counts and to find out the spinal tap results from Friday. This is the test to find out if Leukemia has made it to her spinal fluid. They didn't have the test results back yet and said they would call as soon as they are in. I have to say that I do not enjoy the wait! However, her blood counts are on the rise, which is a good thing and she did so well having her port accessed. We got the nurse with the British accent this time and Hannah loves her! She thinks the nurse sounds like Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. I have to admit she does!