Two Years Ago...

Kennedy dressed up for the theater

Two years ago yesterday, on February 2,  we heard the words…your daughter has leukemia.  I remember sitting in the hospital room and thinking we’d never make it through this.  Two years have passed and we are not just making it but are doing so much more; we are living, all of us.  I remember thinking she wouldn’t be able to go to kindergarten, how scared I was that she would lose her hair, scared we would lose her….so many fears.  I can’t believe that was only two years ago.

Sleepover with Emily

We are lucky when it comes to this nasty disease.  So many outcomes were in her favor, the type of the leukemia, the risk level, her fabulous doctors and her tough little attitude.    We’ve seen so many other ways it could have been and are thankful every day it was just ALL, B-cell, low risk.  With two years of treatment behind us, we are hoping that the next 6-months of chemo will end her/our dance with cancer forever. 

They say it is five years until she is considered “cured”, for now she’s in remission and the chemo treatments are keeping the leukemia away.  In six months, the chemo treatments end and she will continue to be monitored intensely through the next 2.5 years.  The next 6-months can’t happen fast enough.

Making a volcano explode with Dad and Maddox

Kennedy is doing great in school and is a top speller and reader in her first grade class.  She is a sweet little girl with a very strong personality.  She outwits us and knows how to get what she wants.  We are the luckiest parents to know Princess K and watch her grow up.  

 For now, treatment continues.  She has vincristine tomorrow and starts a week-long stint of steroids followed by another dose of vincristine. These are the pulses we hate but luckily, this is the second to last pulse of this specific drug combo.  Her last vincristine/steroid mix will be in June.  She still has her spinals and nightly chemo to contend with but the really yucky stuff is almost over.

Just waiting to exhale.