Lily had her last spinal tap of this stage of treatment. That makes 5 weeks in a row that she has had one. :( Poor Girl. Her blood counts are looking so good, still well above normal than what they like to see so that is amazing. I wont know this for sure until the end of this month but it seems like the next phase of treatment is out patient chemo at MSTI (Mountain State Tumor Institute) every 10 days for 2 months. From what the Dr. was saying I think this next phase of treatment is going to be a little bit more intense than this stage has been.
Lily has been doing so well at home. Nights are hard because she does have a hard time sleeping but I give her her chemo at night right before bed so it seems to be because of that. But during the day she has energy and wants to play. She is funny and sassy and bossy and I just love it. Her Dr. yesterday said that he could tell she had an extra dose of feist in her. Boy was he right!
Okay so on to what I learned. I have a friend who's sister-in-law has cancer right now also and she started treatment about a week before Lily. I am sad to say that she is not doing very well. The chemo is kicking her butt! She has been in and out of the hospital with extremely low blood counts and they have decided that they need to dial back her treatments because of it. The crazy thing about all of this is that her and Lily are getting the same dose of treatment!! The biggest reason why Leukemia has such a higher cure rate in children is because we can pump them full of chemo and they just blow it off like its no big deal. In adults it just wipes everything we have out. I was amazed to learn this. I can not tell you how grateful I am that Lily is able to handle everything so well. I really expected when she was diagnosed that she was going to spend the next 2+ years of her life sick and weak, because that how most adults I know get, but I couldn't have been so wrong.
How amazing are our children! So pure, and innocent, strong and courageous they are! I wish I had half the courage Lil does. I thought at first that I had to stay strong for Lily but now I know that she can handle her own and half the time, I gain my strength from her. So this week I learned that its okay to look to your children for strength sometimes too. You have to be there for each other, and even if they don't know it, they will give you that boost when you need it.
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