“Success is not a destination, it’s a journey.”- Cody Rhodes 

While these last 6 months have been some of the hardest, most trying months of our lives, they have also been some of the most eye-opening, and gratitude-filled months of our lives. You never expect to be in the situation of watching your young child go through something as ferocious as cancer. While our worlds have been rocked to the core, our faith in humanity has grown exponentially.

Harper has received a handful more chemo sessions since our last update. The cocktail of chemo from 5 weeks ago was a doozy. She was sick to her stomach and so beyond tired. After speaking with the doctors, they came up with a new regimen for anti-nausea medicines. The chemo that she received last week was a lot easier on her stomach, which means the anti-nausea medicine concoction worked! We are eagerly counting down the weeks until she is done. Only 3 more chemo sessions left! She is still projected to finish treatment in mid-May. She will then have a follow-up scan done two weeks later and if all looks good, then she can have her port taken out!

We put up orange ribbons around our trees and bought a few extra to put up at school and for a few of our close neighbors. What we never expected was to get the outpouring of support from the entire Bartlett community. I received hundreds of Facebook messages asking for orange ribbons to put up to support Harper. Another elementary school in Bartlett reached out, also wanting to put ribbons up at their school. The fire department, police department, and numerous local businesses have also reached out and put-up ribbons. We now drive through Bartlett, being constantly reminded of the amount of support that we have encompassing us.

As if seeing the whole neighborhood with orange ribbons wasn’t enough, Paisley’s teacher set up an event at school. She organized a “wear orange on the first Wednesday of the month in support of Harper.” The entire Centennial staff wore black shirts with an orange ribbon on it that says, “Support Squad”. There were also so many kiddos wearing orange that day. She has since taken it a step further and sent out an order form for students to have the option to purchase an orange shirt that says “Support Squad”. Honestly, we would have been thrilled with a few of our friends wanting to get a shirt. The final count of shirts purchased was 240! We are so blown away by everyone’s kindness and wanting to participate. If you choose to wear an orange shirt on Wednesday, April 3, or Wednesday, May 1, please take a picture of yourself and send it to Drew or me. We are going to create a large collage with everyone that wears orange!

On top of all of that, we have been contacted by more than a handful of organizations, asking how they can help. Ignite the Courage, The Weishar Foundation, Bear Necessities, American Childhood Cancer Foundation, and Make a Wish, to name a few. Not to mention people still making and dropping off meals for us. To say that this has been a humbling experience would be an understatement. We have been shown so much kindness and they have given Harper a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks! 

We received an amazing tour at our local fire department (shout out to the Gold shift!). All of the firefighters were so incredibly kind and welcoming. We will be receiving Harper’s “Bear Hug” this weekend, which includes a weekend stay at the Langham Hotel in Chicago with tickets to the Disney interactive exhibit and the Shedd Aquarium! As soon as we return from our Chicago “staycation”, we will be attending the WWE Monday Night Raw Show, compliments of the incredible Cody Rhodes. Harper just received a Meta Quest 2 Virtual Reality system from The American Childhood Cancer Foundation. They are helping out with a study to see if kiddos using VR helps them cope and have higher spirits from it. (We have all thoroughly enjoyed playing with this!) We have also begun working with Make a Wish on Harper’s wish (which includes a trip to Costa Rica!) We cannot thank everyone enough for their immense amount of support and positive thoughts throughout all of this! We are eternally grateful for everyone that has walked this journey with us. We are ALMOST to the finish line, and it feels damn good!