In a couple weeks it will be Serenity’s one year anniversary as a Cancer Survivor!
It’s been a while since we’ve updated the site, things have been going so well lately that there hasn’t been much interesting to blog about. Currently Serenity is a happy, healthy, enthusiastic almost 3 year old with a huge love of life! We’ve recently moved even farther out in the “country” to a great place on 50 acres with lots of animals and room to play. She plays outside so much lately that she already has a tan that most people would envy!
She is SO PROUD of all her new hair! She loves to style it to make a little unicorn horn out of her bangs. At the same time she really wants to be like Daddy and thinks she should still have her head shaved. Every time I shave my head she begs me to shave hers. 🙂
After almost a year of regularly taking chemo, and considering how difficult it was a year ago to get her to take it, she is a real trooper about taking her meds. She still has to take several medications each day, depending on the day of the week. Every night I wake her up at midnight to give her her chemo. I just slip the syringe in the corner of her mouth and she either sucks it down or takes it from me and gives it to herself. It’s so nice to have her just take it now and not have to fight over it. Cancer sucks but having made it a year it’s become fairly routine.
I am so glad things are going well! I was worried that things were horrible and that was why there was no update.
She looks wonderful! So full of life and zest! YAY!!!! Thanks for this blog. It is encouraging in special ways. Keep up the good work Serenity!!! (and family 😉 )
Thanks for the update, she really looks great! Hope it keeps going pretty smoothly for you guys!
That is a fabulous update.
Just a quick question, do you give her the 6mp or TG at midnight? We’ve heard a couple of different things about this medicine, and wondered if you’d weigh in with what your docs said.
I’m so glad she’s doing so well! What a cutie she is!
Ms Mama: We give her 6mp at around midnight. We do it at least two hours after she last eats, and she usually nurses between 9 and 10 pm.
Hi, I love keeping up to date with your blog. I am in the Uk, My daughter is nearly 6 years old, and in August she will have completed a year of treatment. So she is just a few months behind Serenity.
I wanted to ask how long has she been fever free now? My daughter has been out of hospital since 18th March and this is the longest she has been fever free. What’s the longest you know of a child being treated for ALL and in long term maintenance ,being fever free?
Thanks
Oh my gosh, I LOVE her unicorn horn! And she looks so much older than her picture up in the upper right corner of the blog page. I’m so happy for y’all!
It’s wonderful to see Serenity doing so well!
Hello there. My friends’ 22 month old son was diagnosed today with ALL. He had his port put in and received his first mini-round of chemo today. Can you or anyone of your readers PLEASE point me in the direction of the best blogs (besides yours of course) for following other ALL kids?
And my biggest FAVOR….what do you need as parents from us (the friends)? We want to help but not to push. We want to bring things or do things…but I would LOVE to know what is the most helpful? Pajamas for him that allow for easy port access, certain types of toys, books for the parents that are informative and hopeful?
ANYTHING that you all could send would be appreciated. I am already lifted from seeing Serenity’s cute hair growing back and her zest for life. I know that our friends and their son face a bumpy road and I just want to know what they would most need at this time…and moving forward.
Thanks for anything you send me way.
All my best – Zora
(zoratravels@yahoo.com)
Meena: (sorry for the delay in responding, things have been hectic!) the last time I remember Serenity having a fever was back in December when she had Chicken Pox. The tough thing is that you can’t really measure an expectation from that. Skyler and Brinley are pretty close to her diagnosis date and they’ve both been sick lately. Every kid handles it differently, hopefully your daughter can keep the fevers away! I’ll ask Adria or the other cancer moms to address what the longest they know is – I’m not really sure!
Zora: apologies to you as well! I hope your friends son is doing well! If you go to Serenity’s guest book you’ll find several ALL kids who have signed in (or their parents) and left links to their blogs. We try to visit them as often as we can.
Hospital life gets REALLY boring – especially if you’re in isolation (which their son will be if his counts have crashed). Serenity loved getting coloring books, picture books, toys that can be played with in a hospital bed and movies. You may have found this out by now, but ALL kids who are just diagnosed don’t like to move around much either!
For the parents, having food brought in is nice, books or movies help the time go by as well. A wonderful thing you can do is arrange a time to come sit with their son for a couple hours so they can have a break together!
As far as informative, we learned the most by visiting blogs of kids with ALL. The parents will start to learn the language of Leukemia and the blogs will start to make more sense. One of the reasons we kept this blog was to add another resource for new cancer parents. Make sure they know about this and other blogs, it gave us a lot of hope and understanding to read what others have been through.
Early diagnosis is definitely a very hard time for both parents and kids! You’re being a wonderful friend by trying to find ways to help out!
Thanks everyone else for the comments! We love to get them and it helps us feel like we haven’t been forgotten! You’re all an important part of our support group – we try to be upbeat and positive but it gets tough – reading supportive comments is ALWAYS nice!
I’m still thinking of you and your family. I pray things continue to go as well as can be expected.