time to celebrate

Friends and family remembered my special day (ummm....my last day of treatment at clinic!) with cards and flowers and smiles and hugs and goody baskets for the doctors (thank you Miss Katie and Aunt Kristi!) It made me feel really special and very loved.

My last procedure at clinic!!!

Today was my very last procedure at clinic (hopefully forever!) and actually, I get to stop my chemo all together in three days. Yes, you heard that right! Very exciting!!! Dr. Hayani was the one who first diagnosed me at the ER at CDH over two years ago and he was the one who gave me my final lumbar puncture and bone marrow draw. He told me afterwards that I was probably the bravest kid he had ever met (and he has been doing this for a long time....) and he couldn't believe that I didn't budge or make any movements during these two procedures. What a compliment! He went down to look at the slides in the lab before I left clinic and he said everything looked good. Not a leukemia cell to be found! YAY! What a lucky girl I am to have such amazing doctors and nurses and support staff around me during the fight against this icky disease.

today is the day

It is hard to believe but after two years.....two months....and three days (but who is counting???), I am hopeful that this will be my last day of treatment....chemo (oral and IV), spinal taps, and bone marrow biopsies..forever. We will find out the results of the bone marrow biopsy in a few days so keep your fingers...toes....and everything else crossed that the biopsy comes back clear so I can close this chapter of my life and move on to happier things ;)

pigs at clinic?

Trina and I were having way too much fun at clinic! She taught me how to draw pigs....and then somehow we got into the oinking and went around clinic oinking at everyone.......not really sure what was going on but we had everyone laughing...and oinking!

fashionista

The truth of the matter is that sometimes it is just fun to let loose and goof around.....life can be way too serious sometimes! This is a fun "fashion forward" look I came up with all by myself when we visited Grandma and Grandpa. What do you think?

leukemia and it's friends

My Mom's dear friend (and mine too!) told her she wished, "leukemia and all of it's friends would peacefully get out of our lives!" What a quote! So true and we are hoping this is the case....in the very near future!!!!!

Happy Earth Day!

Tree pose is one of my favorite yoga poses and quite fitting for today as it a day to celebrate the Earth and all of the beautiful things about the planet we live on. 

belting it out....

My very favorite hour of the week....my voice lesson with Ms. Elise!!! And we are working on an original song (I wanted to write about having leukemia), and this is what it sounds like so far......

Happy Easter!

a touching tribute

We visited the beautiful memorial in Oklahoma City a couple of weeks ago and my Mom just told me that today is the 18th anniversary of that horrible event. My Grandma and I left our handprints there and we will always remember what happened.

say so-long to my friend, Mr. IV pole

This is what I looked like all week....yes, a "fun, port-accessed, IV antibiotics every 24 hours, not feeling so hot week". And yes, the antibiotic had to be refrigerated...and taken out of the fridge two hours before infusion, in which my Mom (aka...Nurse Amy) would prep all of the items being used in the infusion (can you say STERILE????). And we traveled with all of these supplies (well, not my friend the IV pole) but yes, a big box of supplies and a cooler, and we made up our own IV pole wherever we went. That was kind of fun. But it was all worth is because I got to see my Grandma and Grandpa and we had a really fun time. Happy Birthday Grandpa! I will post more pictures later but here is one of my favorites :)

And, yes, my antibiotics are finished (hopefully!) and when I go to clinic tomorrow, they will take the needle out of my port! Woo! Hoo! I can hardly wait!!!

hospital FUN (yes, you really can have fun at the hospital!)

Highlights from this trip (and hopefully last trip!) to my home away from home included:
~a reunion with nurse Jody (love her!!!)
~a visit from lots of friends (some of them surprise visits!) with sweet smiles and cheery gifts :)
~a special visit from my teacher, Mrs. B, who not only brought me cookies, homework (at my Mom's request) and cards from all of the kids in my class, but her adorable son, who totally cracked us all up!  He's so cute!!
~Mrs. B also made sure I was able to face time the class.  It was so fun to talk to everyone!
~Dora, one of the awesome Child Life Specialists came to visit me a couple of times (I miss seeing her smiling face!) and brought the magician one time and the COW from chic-fa-la another time.  Come on.....how awesome is that?

Even though I was in the hospital for a couple of days, I am one lucky girl, and am constantly reminded of that. 

Happy continued

So, I was sprung out of the hospital on Wednesday evening....my folks were a little surprised but happy. All the tests came back clear and I hadn't run a fever in over 24 hours. Good news......

but I have to be on IV abtibiotics (at home) for the next 10 days....and my port is still accessed.  Mom is quickly learning how to be a full fledged nurse!

And I wish I knew why I was having all of this "drama" so close to the finish line?????  CRAZY!!!!

Happy......

Only one more month of clinic visits for chemo/blood counts and I will be CHEMO FREE!!!  WOO HOO!  This is exactly how I am feeling right now.....
Oh, and I get to go see my Grandma and Grandpa tomorrow for spring break! Yipee!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM

http://24hoursofhappy.com/

Thanks to Sue and Hannah for thinking of me again!!!

Almost to the finish line....

Key word..almost. I have been doing a fair amount of this lately....not feeling too groovy. Guess what? I happened to land myself back in the hospital one month before being done with treatment. How did I do that....you may be wondering? Well, remember that infection I had when we were on vacation in Mexico? Well, turns out, it is a kidney infection and Saturday I spiked a fever again, after finishing my antibiotics for the previous infection. What are the odds? Well, the doc on call (my Mom's favorite....) told us to go to the ER, where they gave me antibiotics through an IV (after trying to access my port twice...Mom's thrilled about that....)and then they called us back today to let us know the blood didn't look so hot from the culture they grew out. They asked us to come back in....uh....NO....so we called clinic and headed straight there after getting off of the phone. In the meantime, Dr. McFall looked at the labs and then explained that we need to get this nipped in the bud (language I kind of understand) and so she admitted me to the hospital. I am on heavy duty antibiotics and I will also have a renal ultrasound done to make sure there is nothing wrong there. One of my favorite nurses welcomed me to the peds floor (love her!!), so it hasn't been too bad so far. I will update you tomorrow.....