251 days.

 On 4/22/22 we learned William had leukemia.  Yesterday (12/28/22) we crossed the threshold into the Maintenance phase of treatment. It has been a grueling 251 days, but William has been knocking it out of the park with hardly a complaint. The Maintenance phases is a long one, lasting a few years, but our trips to Mayo will be minimized. Instead of frequent trips for blood work and treatment, now we are only required to show up once every 30 days for labs and maintenance chemotherapy. He will be taking a mirage of oral chemotherapy at home, but we are hoping the decrease in clinic visits/ties to Mayo will help bring things somewhat back to normal.

 He just keeps moving along, hasn’t had any major setbacks, and is even getting some hair back! William has been back in school most of the year and works hard at getting there, even on bad days he usually tries his best and needs to be picked up when he runs low on energy, but he always tries to make it through the day. The teachers, admin staff, and nurse at Spring Creek have been a great help with his somewhat random schedule.  Things have been going smoothly enough that we have been able to get some family skiing in, have a few ice fishing adventures planned and hope to get some travel in soon. We are incredibly proud of our little Lego building, nerf gun shooting, sibling-annoying little guy!

His current stats are:

36 port accesses
18 arm pokes
54 blood draws
88 chemo treatments (intravenous and pills)
12 general anesthesia events (these are his favorite; he says that he gets the best naps)
12 lumbar Punctures (spinal taps to run labs on cerebral spinal fluid and inject chemotherapy into the CSF)
90 doses of steroids
2 bone marrow biopsies
5,100 miles to and from the Mayo Clinic
913 days to go (end of treatment is 6/29/2025)

Thanks to everyone who has helped us along the way, dealt with our sometimes aimless schedule and kept William in their thoughts/prayers. You guys have made this adventure much more manageable.  

Thanks!
CG, KG, AB, CG3 and WW.