Hi Everyone,
First off, thanks to those who contributed in Stella’s name to CureSearch’s Virtual Walk during National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September. The organization raised $108,600, which to me sounds like pennies compared with what StandUp2Cancer raised, but the outreach was a mere fraction of what the StandUp group pulled off. Anyway, research money for adult cancer ends up benefitting kids with cancer down the road because, for those who survive, they live their lives at an increased risk for other secondary cancers thanks to all the chemotherapy.
Stella continues to do pretty well all things considered. She started the academic year of preschool in September with 30 or so classmates and all their accompanying germs. It took her about a week to start catching colds and she’s pretty much been sick with mild to moderate head colds ever since. So we do what most parents do and send her off to school as long as she doesn’t have a fever and as long as she isn’t acting like she feels awful. All in all she’s missed only one or two days due to illness, because her symptoms are so low grade, and only one full week due to the leukemia (low counts thanks to the chemo). At least Stella is a full participant in the germ pool, giving along with taking! And her body seems to handle it alright. From what her oncologist tells us, Stella catches colds just like any other perfectly healthy kid, but the chemotherapy prevents her from clearing the colds from her system as quickly as a healthy kid. The doctor told us Stella would most likely have a cold pretty much non-stop until next summer. Thanks, doc. But by now we’ve learned to deal with the small stuff. As long as her colds don’t lead to fevers that go over 101.5, we avoid hospital stays, and that’s what really matters.
At the beginning of November, Stella started up again with tumbling classes at Ruby’s Tumbling in Alameda. This was emotionally significant for me because Stella had been taking a class at Ruby’s when she became symptomatic with what would end up being leukemia. This was back in early June 2007, the weekend that Stella’s limp returned after disappearing for five or so days. Actually the limp came back late on a Friday and I called to set up a second urgent care appointment for Saturday. The appointment wasn’t until noon, so we had time to go to her scheduled tumbling class. She was limping quite markedly, but she didn’t seem to be in pain. So I figured what the heck, and off to Ruby’s Tumbling we went. I remember watching Stella limp-run across the mat when Ruby would call her name to do a forward roll or some other maneuver, and I felt all the parents’ startled and sympathetic eyes on her. It was a repeat of the day a week and a half before when I picked her up from nursery school and saw her limping for the first time. Another mom was there watching her with what I perceived as a pained look on her face. Little kids just don’t limp. Their ligaments and joints are still too pliable to be easily sprained or strained. Even so, that day I’d thought that Stella had played too rough in the jumpy house that they’d set up at her school, and sprained her ankle. But motherly instinct kicked in enough to get us to the doctor's office within hours of seeing that limp. That first urgent care doctor had said to sit tight and see if it cleared up over the next couple days, which lo and behold, it did...only to come back a week later right before that trip to Ruby's. Ruby herself thought maybe it was a hip issue, perhaps just a growing pain. Once the limp reappeared, I was thinking maybe pediatric arthritis. Cancer hadn't hit the radar screen yet.
Two days later, right away Monday morning, the pediatrician we’d seen in urgent care called me on the phone. The blood work looked very strange and I needed to take her back to the lab right away to draw another sample. And so the odyssey began, though it would be a month of non-stop pokes in the lab until we got the ultimate diagnosis. So returning to Ruby’s Tumbling a year into treatment is significant for me. It means that Jeremy and I have enough confidence in Stella’s immune system to trust her body on the germ infested mats and it means that her treatment has gone smoothly enough that she doesn’t have a host of side effects from the chemotherapy that could be causing her any number of large motor skill issues that would lead me to keep her home to avoid a repeat of the pre-diagnosis Ruby’s visit. Stella’s oncologist claims that she runs like a kid with leukemia, but frankly, I don’t see it and I don’t think any untrained eye would. She keeps up with the other kids in class and it was wonderful to watch her tumble away at the first couple classes. Now she prefers that I leave the gym, like most of the other parents do, and while I comply, I really would love to be able to sit there and watch her do her stuff because I’m simply so thankful that she can.
Other items of import: our baby is due in just over a month and Stella is both excited and highly noncommittal depending on when you catch her. We read the books to prepare her for ‘big-sister-dom’ and tell her that she can touch my belly and feel the baby move. When she puts her hand on my belly, it’s never long enough to actually feel the movements, but she always pretends to be startled and excited anyway, and then she’s off attending to something much more pressing. Parsing fantasy and reality with an almost four year old is rough work, so we just wait for the baby to be here, crying right in front of her, to see what she really thinks. This isn’t much different from how Jeremy and I are dealing with things as well.
More to come soon. We hope that everyone is doing well.
Sarah
