Back on Track

Lily had her appointment yesterday and I was very surprised to hear that her counts were actually really great! I had so prepared myself to hear that she wasn't going to be able to get chemo that when the Dr. ordered it I was like really? Oh okay. I feel a lot better knowing that she can recover quicker from chemo than we thought. She got a higher dose this time because she recovered fine from the last treatment so I'm going to keep her on the nausea med and Tylenol for headaches. So far Lily is doing great today and eating and playing.

 Next week we go in for another sedation/spinal tap and chemo again. I cant believe that this doesn't even phase me anymore. Its like, been there done that, after doing it 5 weeks in a row. The Dr. gave me a little glimpse of the next phase to come which will start in about a month and it is going to be really tough. More steroids, a planed hospitalization, and lots of different chemos, and going in a couple times a week. She told me to expect low counts and a tired girl. We are thinking after talking to the Dr that it would be best to some what limit visitors and activities during this time so we going to try and get all the fun things done now that we want to do this summer.

 Okay so now the confession portion of my post. The circus was in town over the weekend and we went. :( To everyone else that may seems like a normal fun memory for a 3 year old but for me I just had so much guilt for taking her there. I am normally the mom that takes a million pictures of everything but I couldn't bring myself to take any. Not. A. One. I wanted no evidence that we were there. With all the people and animals I just panicked inside that she was going to get really sick. Part of me justified my guilt with the fact that she is still 3 and deserves to still have some fun and make memories, and the other part of me says that when she is done with all this there will be time for memories; right now she needs to get better. I'm still learning. I'm still learning how to listen to my instincts, let guilt go and enjoy every moment with out worry. I'm learning how let the stress go when we are playing and having fun, and enjoy everyone's laughter. And I'm still learning to be grateful for the health and laughter that Lily still has, but I also know that that could change in an instant. So still we proceed with caution, but I know that I cant feel guilt for giving her fun memories to go along with all the hospital memories. I think I owe her that.

With all the things I am learning about guilt there is one thing that I know for sure. I cant sit here all day and try to find how or why this has happened to Lily. I have been assured over and over again that there was nothing I did, or nothing I could have done to prevent this, and any attempt at trying to find a reason is not going to change anything, and is quite frankly, just not helpful. I have to trust that we are all supposed to learn things from this and that is why this happened. Its not from something I did/didn't do, something I fed her or gave her, or from somewhere I took her to/exposed her to. If I sat here and thought about all of the possible causes I would literally go crazy. I'm not looking for reasons or statistics on anything. If the Dr.s really knew what caused leukemia then they would know how to predict/prevent it from happening, but they don't. That's just something that I cant think about and just a little something that I needed to get off my chest.