on a roll

It's clinic time again already. June 15th 2010. The month of May just zoomed by. Not that we've been doing anything! :) Disney World, Wedding, Flaming Gorge, Colorado, Idaho....and we stop at home right in time for Happy 5 Birthday Taylie!!!

We'll get to that later, but first clinic. My mom has been asking me a lot of questions lately. If I'm tired more. If I feel good. If I have any bruises. I keep telling her that I am feeling fine. I think she just likes to worry. I really don't like having to get my arm poked, but I told my mom I would be super-duper brave this time. My mom's friend Stacy came along with us. I think my mom wanted some help and some support. Stacy is my best friend Rachel's mom. We play like every chance we can get! Sometimes we get to go places together.

It is always a long ride to Salt Lake where the hospital is at. We like to sing silly songs the whole ride down. Mayzi didn't come today again. Sunnie did and I like to help my mom take care of her.

Today I am going to visit my buddy Brooks. He has AML leukemia just like I had. He is almost all done with all of his treatment. He is leaving the hospital so soon. This news makes my mom cry. She did that a lot when we left the hospital too. He was sleeping when we went to visit him. I left him the gifts I brought for him. I hope he likes water balloon and squirt guns and hunting and fishing stuff because that's what my mom bought him. I wish soon that I can go and play with Brooks and his family. My mom says we can as soon as he is well enough.

I had to go to the lab first to draw my blood. Guess what I did? I didn't even cry once. Not even a little bit. I sat on my mom's lap and it wasn't to scary today. Even though I don't like to do this I think it is getting easier for me to be brave. My mom couldn't believe it at all. She thinks I am super tough. I agree!

Once again my mom failed to bring the camera because it is being fixed right now. My mom keeps saying it needs to hurry up and come back to her. She really likes to take a lot of pictures all of the time.

There was a new person up on ICS we met today. Well, actually she was sleeping but I got to meet her parents. She had AML Leukemia also. She is a lot older than I am. She is 16. My mom spent a lot of time talking with her mom and dad. I went off to start a water fight with all of the nurses! I even soaked my mom by surprise too! I love it that I can see all of my nurse friends and get into fun, silly, wars with them. We played for awhile and them had to leave. It was getting later and I am ready to see my dad soon. So we left the hospital and drove home. First though we have to go see my Grandma Jeanne. She gave us something to eat and we got to visit with her for a little bit. I wanted to stay longer so we could go swimming, but my mom said later we would come back for that. The bubble was off and it looked so fun to me. I love to swim. I love to swim!

Oh, I forgot to say that my lab results were great. They showed no signs of anything abnormal and my numbers are doing good. My mom says that she will feel better when they move up a whole bunch more. The doctor told her that they will. We have to give it time. my body went through a lot with Chemotherapy. I didn't like any of that at all. I am so happy to not have to do that again! My mom started to act happier after the doctor talked to her. I don't think that she is as nervous as when we got here. She says that's just the way it goes. She also said that we never want to come back her again. Unless it is to visit and visit only. I agree!

So I'm on a roll I guess. I'm almost 5 and getting so big and so strong everyday!

Yeah Baby!

Right from the first day I came home from the hospital I wanted to ride my bike. I really missed riding my bike. I asked my Dad to take off my training wheels because I am going to ride it all by myself. Ever so often I go out with my Dad and he helps me learn to ride. Sometimes I get way frustrated and want to just go inside. Other times I make progress. I am determined to accomplish this. Why not? I am a super hero after all! I kicked Cancer so why not this too! Look at me go I finally got it. There's no stopping me this time. In about two weeks I will be turning 5! I am getting way big!

My clinic week

My mom came to me and told me that I have to go to the clinic soon. On the 18th of May 2010 which was a Tuesday. That means I have to get an arm poke again so they can do a CBC on my blood. I really don't like doing this. I cried a lot while my mom tried to calm me down. We then made a list of all the bad and good things about having to go to clinic and get poked.

The Good List

1) I don't have to have my central line anymore
2) I can have a ton of water in my bath and I can go swimming now
3) I don't have to worry about getting an infection in my line or breaking my line
4) I don't have to stop playing to get my line flushed
5) I only get poked once a month
6) They give me stickers and a prize for being brave

The Bad List

1) I have to get poked

We talked about this for a while and I realized that it really is much much better being line free! I know I can do this again, I can be brave. My appointment was at 2:00 and we had to go to the lab to draw my blood at 1:30. And I sat on my Mom's lap like usual. She talks to me about fun things that I like so that it distracts me from what is going on. It always hurts though when they stick me with the needle. I really don't like it, but it was really fast. My Mom always says after that we're done for another month. Yeah!!

Then we went upstairs to clinic. They are always so friendly to me. Everyone liked my hat. My hair is getting kinda longer now so it is getting pretty tight. It's my favorite hat though! I jumped on the scale and I weigh 16.3 kilos and I measured 41 inches. They always check my blood pressure and it was right where it needed to be also. I look at my mom and she just smiles big and always tells me I am so super amazing! My mom remembered to bring the camera today, but just forgot to take it out to take pictures. I going to have to talk to my crazy Mom about doing better. Sorry!

My lab counts came back really good. Here is what is going on for me.

Red blood count or HCT is 39.7 Normal range is between 34.0 and 40.0
White blood count or WBC is 5.5 Normal range is between 5.5 and 15.5
Platelets count or PLTS is 140 Normal is between 150 and 400
Absolute Neutrophil count or ANC is 3.1 Normal is above 1.5

So as you can see here my body is doing good. I am almost in range on everything. Things should get a little better with more time. My Mom was so happy to see these number and that means that I am too!

I feel really good. I am very happy and very healthy right now.

After clinic I wanted to go and say hello to my friends up on ICS. I barely made it into the unit when I spotted my favorite nurse, Irish! I tried to sneak up and scare him but her turned around right at the last minute. I laughed and laughed and teased around with him. It didn't take long before other nursed heard me laughing and came to see me too. I wanted to go and play with all the toys. My Mom wanted to talk to a bunch of people. Then we went to see my friend Brooks. He has the same diagnosis as I did. AML leukemia. He is doing his last round of chemo right now. That makes me so happy that he is almost done and gets to leave the hospital so soon! I think it make him happy to see me too.

We stayed for a little while and then my Mom wanted to go. I wanted to just ride the bikes around all the hallways. Eventually I gave in and we said good-bye! I can go and visit next time. We had to park our truck on the very top floor. It was raining so hard outside. We ran super fast to the truck but still got really wet! The best part about right now is that I get to go to my grandma's house and stay until Friday. Yippee!!!

I love to play on the trampoline and in the play house.

If we are good then we get to go swimming too! My Uncle Heber is getting married on Friday. My Mom is helping Grandma Jeanne get everything ready for that. My Dad will come down for the wedding on Friday. I get to see all of my cousins again too. It is so much fun to play with all of them. I don't get to see some of them all the time because they live too far away from me. I love them all very much!!

We had a big Bar-B-Q on Thursday night for the wedding dinner. When Kristina threw her bouquet I got to catch it. That made me really happy! She gave me a really cute bag of treats too! We ate a lot of cake and ice cream after they had a really big fight with it.

We had a lot of fun tonight. Tomorrow is the wedding. None of the kids get to go, but it's okay because some really neat friends of my Mom are coming to watch is all. We had to go home really late on Friday night. I was so tired and I slept the whole time in the truck. It rained really really hard my Mom told me.

I am so happy that I can be Cancer Free right now. I have missed out on so many things. It is really fun to be a part of so much again. I am a pretty lucky girl!!!

Clinic

Tuesday April 20, 2010. Today @ 2:00 is my first clinic appointment after finishing my Cancer Treatment. My line is all gone and my little hole in my chest is all better now.

Today I have to be so brave. They are going to poke my arm to get the blood they need to see where my counts are at. My mom has been talking to me about this a whole bunch. It makes me scared, but she always tells me, "lets not think about it right now."

My mom took me to Sam's club before we go to Salt Lake. I want to bring all my friends at the hospital some treats. We are going to give a bunch more tiles too. We had to get a wagon to put everything in it. I picked out skittles and starbursts.

I was super brave. I only cried a little bit. I sat on my moms lap while another lady held Sunnie. I like to squeeze my Moms hand when I get afraid. Now it's all over for this month. We had to hurry upstairs to my clinic appointment. My Dr. came in and checked me out. I have a lot of energy and she said I looked and sounded great. They printed off my labs for my Mom. She says that I am back to normal right now. So I don't have to wear my mask anymore when I go places. Yeah!!!

I got to see some of my really special friends today. It makes me sad that they have to be in the hospital still. My Mom told me that a few of them are really sick. This made me sad. While we drove home I sang songs about my friends. Songs about how much I miss the ones that are gone from us. Songs about the ones that are so sick and fighting as hard as they can. Songs about the ones that are ready to leave the hospital soon. Me and my Mom talk about a lot of things. Today it was about my friends. I love all of them.

My mom is so crazy all the time that she forgot to remember to take the camera. So I don't have any pictures from today. But it's okay, I'm not mad.

We stopped at my Grandma Jeanne's before we came home and ate some dinner. Pretty soon I can come down again and go swimming. There just wasn't enough time today.

Today was a long day. We spent a lot of time in the truck. I'm glad that Sunnie and my Mom came with me. I'm mostly glad that I don't have to stay at the hospital anymore. My mom says she is so glad that my numbers are right where they should be. They better stay that way too!

Look!

Can you see it. It's growing back like a weed!

There's a few patchy spots, but I'm not a cue ball anymore!

This is what my head looked like only one month ago!

....almost done!

Friday April 2, 2010

This is the day that I get my Central Line taken out. Yep, it's time to remove it completely! This is me and my mom in the way cool hotel room we stayed in the night before. This is a picture of the last time I have to get my line flushed. We did this early in the morning, but I can't go to the hospital until 1:00 for my little surgery today. I am so excited to be line free!

My Mom and Dad both came with me. I had to not eat anything all morning long. I have a little cold right now too and I keep coughing. My throat wanted to just have one little drink of water, but my parents wouldn't let me until after my surgery! I'm going to tell the Doctor to hurry really super fast. My nurse got me a bag of pretzels and a little bottle of water waiting for me when I got all done.

I had to wait for a little while in a room before it was my turn. We played Hide and Seek a whole bunch and I watched Garfield on the TV. I was not scared at all, just really hungry and thirsty. When it was my turn to go my Mom took me back. She held me while the Dr. put the sleeping medicine into my line. I really don't remember what happened after that. My mom told me that I made a really long sigh when I fell asleep. She said I sounded really cute.

It didn't take very long at all. When I started to wake up I didn't see my mom anywhere. I got really scared. My Dad was there to hold me, but I really wanted to see my Mom. The nurse had to page her on the loud microphone because she was upstairs visiting some of her friends. When she came down to hold me I was happy. I was kinda ornery. I don't like waking up from the anesthesia they give me. All I wanted to do was to go home. And so we did. And look at me...I'm line free!!!

They put this bandage on me and I have to keep it here for two whole days. I can't get it wet either. When I take it off then I can get it wet a little. When it is all healed up I will be able to go swimming and lay down all the way in the water when I take a bath. Yeah!

I'm getting a new puppy today. He is an English Springer Spaniel Liver and White dog. I decided to name him Fezter Wezter 2. My Dad likes the name Fez so I just made it sound cooler. He made me feel so happy today.

Today is the final day of all of my Treatment! I have to go to the Clinic at the hospital every month to get looked at and get my blood drawn.
I have to get my arm poked to get my blood drawn because I don't have my line anymore. I know it will hurt really badly because I had to do it that way before they got my line put in. I think I might cry, but I'm going to try to be brave!

I love being at my home. I get to be with my whole family. My Dad still has to work all day, but I get to play with my puppy and my sisters, Mayzi and Sunnie. We like to be together. We like to play games. I like Hide and Seek and Don't you dare get off the bed! My family is the coolest ever!


I AM A SUPER BUG!!!