Hunter's Journey of Hope Or Bad Hair is Better than NO Hair! Bald is Beautiful!
Welcome to Hunter's CaringBridge site.
Hunter was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) on December 20, 2003, at the age of 18 months. She underwent 2 years and 28 days of chemotherapy, finished treatment on January 17, 2006, and enjoyed 2 months of life off-treatment. We were devastated to learn on March 20, 2006, that she had relapsed in her spinal fluid.
She began chemo again on March 21, 2006 and achieved a second remission on April 18, 2006. And now she is enduring another two years of much harsher chemo as well as cranial radiation, to make sure that she stays in remission for good this time.
She finished her 2nd round of chemo on June 24, 2008 - a day after turning 6. We are loving life off-chemo right now. :)
Please feel free to sign the guestbook... we LOVE seeing your messages! It's always nice to know there's someone out there thinking of her. I will be printing all the messages out to include in her Survivor's Scrapbook.
Check out Hunter in the new Dana-Farber Fundraising Video! (That's her in the first shot, with the green 'do-rag on. She was 21 months old.)
Someone who loves bacon almost as much as Hunter:
Journal
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 11:32 AM EST
Happy Christmas everyone!! We are celebrating our first chemo-free Christmas since 2002. 2003 we were inpatient and 5 days post-diagnosis. 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, chemo, chemo, chemo, chemo.
2008, no chemo, no cancer. What's better than that for Christmas?? :)
Saturday, December 20, 2008 11:55 AM EST
Today marks 5 years since Hunter was first diagnosed. She was such a baby then, just 18 months old.
And now she's all grown up... :)
When I told her that she's been kicking cancer's butt for 5 years today, she raised her glass of orange juice to me and said, "CHEERS!"
I love that kid. :)
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 7:49 PM EST
Yesterday Hunter had her 6 month off-treatment visit - her counts were higher than they've been yet so far, it was so nice to see! As of yesterday she is off Bactrim and is now completely med-free. We've also graduated to the every other month checkups - that was quite a leap of faith for me to agree to - but I think it's important that we move forward and act like this is all truly behind us. Whether or not I'll ever really believe that... is another story.
It was a very up and down day however, as we took my sweet kitty Jake to the vet when we came home, and he ended up having to be put to sleep. The girls were very upset, but I think I was the biggest mess of all - I miss him terribly. :(
We got the photos back from the Jimmy Fund Winter Festival - and the family picture... well it's not QUITE as bad as last years but...
Yikes.
And Sydney with Santa - I'm not sure which of them looks more in need of a nap.
Thanks for checking on us. :)
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:24 PM CST
I can't believe it's been 6 weeks since I've updated! Part of me is probably just enjoying the fact that life isn't so much about cancer any more around here right now. :)
Hunter's still doing well, her 5 month off-treatment visit she had perfect counts again - another sigh of relief.
We surprised the girls Halloween night, when they came home from trick-or-treating, we told them to get in the car, that we were going to Disney World! (They didn't believe us.) We drove down over 2 days, spent a week at Disney, and drove home. The girls had a great time on our "Make-A-Wish Mulligan", and we got some much-needed quality family time. (OH did we get family time... over 48 hours in the car getting there and back alone!) ;)
She's enjoying school and horseback riding and is just generally loving being six. :)
Please keep our friends Mary and Kira in your thoughts and prayers as both of them are starting chemo again this week for relapse/recurrence of their cancers.
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