It’s been awhile since I last updated you all on Faith but that’s because we have been busy.  We accepted an offer on our house and have placed an offer on a new one.  We are pretty excited about moving into a new home but as with any change like this it has not come without some stress.  We just want this process to be complete so that we can begin enjoying the new house.

Faith had her monthly checkup 2 days ago and as expected everything went well.  She had a spinal tap and the fluid was clear as was her blood.  This was the last time she will have chemotherapy injected into her spinal fluid and for that we are very thankful.  July 29th marks her final appointment as a Cancer patient and God willing will be the last time she ever has to take chemotherapy.  Approximately 2-3 weeks after that she will go in for one final procedure where the doctors will extract bone marrow, spinal fluid and blood and send it out to UT Southwest Medical School where a very sophisticated series of tests will be run to check for the existence of any Leukemia cells.  We are told that this test is 99.99% effected at detecting Leukemia so if it comes back cleared she will be classified as being in complete remission.  Once we have the test results she will go in for one final procedure where she will have the port that was inserted into her chest and threaded into her heart removed and she will be cured to return to normal activities.  She has already told us that she wants to start playing soccer and that’s just fine with us. 

As I have said before doctors don’t use the word “cured” for Cancer they use the word remission.  The odds are in our favor that Faith will remain in complete long term remission and that her Leukemia will never come back.  She will continue to have blood work on a monthly basis for one year after we cease treatment and then the testing will become less and less frequent.  If she remains in remission for another 2.5 years then we can consider her Leukemia gone forever the doctors tell us.  It’s hard to believe that years have gone by since this all started.  It seems so long ago and now we are standing at the edge of completion.  It’s been quite a journey, one that I would never want any parent to have to endure but in life we don’t always get to decide on things like this so we make the best of what we are given and we move on which is exactly what we did with the help of our friends and family.