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Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

One more stroll down memory lane…February 14, 2008

The results are in…..Dr. Rob called and we are in remission! (This does not mean she is cured or that we are finished with treamtment…we still have two years and five months to go.) This means he did not see leukemic cells in her bone marrow - the chemo is doing its job. He also said that he is starting to see new growth. That was the best news that we could have heard. We can now move into phase two of her chemotherapy which will last until mid-August.

2009…Ally has been in the maintenance phase of her treamtment since the end of August.  Here’s an update in a nut-shell.

The chemo is doing its job.  Ally gets chemo treatment every Saturday until August of 2010.  Every eight weeks, she gets a lumbar puncture with chemo injected into her spine and a push of chemo into her port.  (That is done in the hospital because she has to be sedated.) Every other time we have that done, she also has a push of another chemo (the one that makes her hair thin out).  Every three weeks, she has an infusion of IVIG, the infusion of antibodies to help her fight infection.  That treatment takes about 4-5 hours. She will continue to get that until spring of 2011. — All-in-all, things are going well.  It is stressful to keep everything going, but we manage.  Ally is doing great at school…Benjamin is talking up a storm and plays his heart out.  Brad and I march on!

A stroll down memory lane…(I cut and pasted text from the blog from exactly one year ago. It was interesting to see what was happening back then…and how far we’ve come.)

February 12, 2008

Today was a kind of difficult for us…Allyson absolutely knows when we are headed to the hospital for treatment. She cried this morning when we put on her coat. She knows…

Once we got there, she was all out of sorts. She didn’t want them to do anything to her. She was upset, more so than usual. She let the docs and nurses do what they needed to do, but she was not at all happy about it (can you blame her?) It is always hard for Brad and I to leave her in the hospital room when she’s all drugged up. We have every confidence in everyone there, but there is just something about leaving your baby in such a vulnerable position. - Once she woke up from her procedures, she ate LOTS of spaghetti, and we were on our way home. –(Some things never change…We were in the hospital February 12, 2009. Spaghetti was the request of the day after her treatment!! Imagine that! One thing that has changed…no fear! She is not afraid when we take her into the hospital for her spinal taps.)

February 13, 2008 Ok, at some point we would just like to have no luck at all. Why do I say this? Well, because of all things to have happen…Benjamin has RSV. — (No comment on 2009…I don’t want to jinx anything!)

Floyd update…He ended up having a quadruple bypass Friday morning.  He pulled through it very well, and he is also recovering very well.  Kay and I traveled to Southaven, Mississippi (just outside of Memphis)on Sunday to stay with him.  His children had to leave at various times, so we were glad to come down and help him.  We are actually sitting in his room waiting for someone to come discharge him.  Unfortunately, we are at the mercy of the docs at this point.  They’ll get here when they get here.  - Our drive home is going to take longer (usually five hours) because we need to stop and get him out every hour.  Hopefully the doc will come in soon so we can get on the road.

Ally, Benjamin, and Daddy are doing well at home.  Brad is the best daddy!

Fast forward several hours…Kay and I finally got Floyd discharged and drove him home from Mississippi.  We were worried he’d be in pain and have a rough ride, but he did very well.  We made sure he had all his meds so the trip would be be as easy for him as possible.  We are so glad he is home, so he can rest and focus on his healing.