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My name is Leigha Childress. I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on May 6, 2004. I finished treatment in November of 2006 and relapsed in April of 2007. I started chemo again and recieved a bone marrow transplant at Duke University Medical Center. I am 15 years old. This page was created to keep you updated on my progress.
Check out the link at bottom of page for new photos!!
Journal
Saturday, October 30, 2010 1:59 PM CDT Wow. It has been a very long time since I updated Leigha's caringbridge. I had forgotten the password to log on, it's been so long! I don't even know if anyone reads it anymore. I have not checked in on any of our caringbridge family in a long time and have spent a good part of the morning reading updates and laughing and crying and remembering children we met in the hospital and at camp.
We recently went to Duke for Leigha's 3 year post transplant appointment. We spent the first day getting blood drawn for her many, many labs. We don't count the tubes anymore, but there were quite a few. She also had a chest and knee xray, and echo, and a pulmonary function test. The next day we met with the NP and Dr. Prasad to have her exam and go over the results. She also saw the orthopaedic dr. for the necrosis in her knee. He ordered a hip xray to make sure the necrosis had not spread to her hip, which it had not. All her other results came back great. We went to the bone marrow unit to visit Andre, who was inpatient, and got to see some of Leigha's nurses from 5200. I can't explain the mixture of emotions that the trip to the bone marrow unit always stirs up, but despite being there for a month when Leigha was having her transplant, we have a lot of good memories of fun times despite all the bad stuff she went through. I will say that as we are leaving the outer room and removing our shoe covers, I have always have an anxious moment remembering how it felt to be 'stuck' there not knowing if we would ever get to leave, and praying that Leigha would be well enough to get to leave. And it makes you feel bad for the families who are 'stuck' there going through the same thing we went through 3 years ago.
We spent an extra night, so we could go to the mall and out to eat and despite this being a 'medical trip' was a nice girl's getaway for us. On the way home, we stopped at Barnes and Noble and had lunch at Lonestar.
I will try to get Leigha to update. I can usually get her to update at least once a year at Christmas!! Which will be here before we know it. Wednesday will be Leigha's 17th birthday. I can't believe my baby is going to be 17. She is going to a new academy and majoring in environmental science. She wants to eventually do medical research at Duke! She is driving, which is really, really weird. I know understand my parent's worries over me riding with friends and driving to school! Leigha is an excellent driver, but it's all the other people I worry about. (I can hear my father saying that 25 years ago and I would just roll my eyes!) I will let Leigha tell you about her new school and all the cool opportunities she has had there so far.
Ian will be 14 in March. He is finishing up football season and looking forward to wrestling. I am going to try to upload some new pictures!
We are still so very grateful for our friends and family and all the prayers. Have a great weekend, Everybody!!
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