Catching Up

It feels like forever since I've posted on here. We haven't been to Atlanta since her last appointment on December 14. It is SO nice to not be in Atlanta every week!! I'm not used to it yet. I keep feeling like I've forgotten something very important that we're supposed to be doing.

Overall Hannah has felt good in this Maintenance Phase. She had a few days where she didn't feel well after her last treatment in Atlanta but bounced back and felt great for Christmas. She has a couple of days each week where she doesn't feel well, and the rest of the week she feels really good. (She gets more oral chemo on the weekends than during the week, so that probably has something to do with it).

We have received an amazing amount of cards in the mail through Cards For A Cure. The grand total is 3862! We received cards from 41 states, 2 Canadian provinces, Germany and Spain. We never imagined that this many cards would be mailed to her. What a wonderful idea for a project and what special, thoughtful, loving and incredible people participated! Thank you everyone who made this possible!

I think Hannah's hair may be growing back (very little if at all - it's hard to tell when I'm with her every day). A lot of people say that after hair falls out because of chemotherapy it grows back as a different color and texture. I think I can see some darker hair growing in so I wonder if it will be brown when it all comes back.


Want to know what crazy is? Evan had fever with no other symptoms for six days over the Christmas holidays. I knew it wasn't something contagious because Hannah would have gotten it. He was extra tired, pale, didn't want to eat, and tested negative for flu and strep at the doctor. Siblings of kids with Leukemia have a 2-4 times greater risk for getting it too, so of course I was terrified that he had it. Hannah's Leukemia started with these same symptoms (except hers was to the extreme - high fever that wouldn't go away with ibuprofen, very lifeless - where she wouldn't lift her head off the pillow, VERY pale, wouldn't eat, didn't respond to the antibiotics that she took, etc.) It is crazy that a mom would jump to the conclusion that her son had cancer just because he had a fever! I wonder if I will be crazy forever. (I hope not - a friend who went through cancer with her son said that it gets better. I'm holding on to that!)


We had Hannah's blood counts checked this week and her doctors said that they are pretty good and that we can start to do some normal things now. She was able to be around all of her cousins for Christmas and will even get to go to church tomorrow for the first time in months!