One year later

One year ago was the worst day I can think of. We hear the words that no parent should ever hear: "your child has cancer." Of course it did not start out like that. It started with an array of random symptoms that we could no longer ignore, so I called the doctor and took him in. I have no idea if she truly expected to find cancer, but she did nothing to alarm us and ran some blood tests. Later that evening, as we were cooking dinner, I received a call from the doctor that would change our lives. She was telling me of "abnormal results" in the tests and how she hated to talk about this over the phone, but none of it was computing for me since I did not read blood tests for a living. When I asked what that could mean, she told me "it could mean leukemia." She sent us to the main Children's Hospital with the hope that they would rerun the tests and find out it was a mistake. Obviously, it was not a mistake.

So, here we are one year later. Four IVs in three days later. Two bone marrow biopsies later. One surgery to insert his port later. 134 doses of steroids later. 14 spinal taps with chemo injected into his spinal fluid later. 8 shots of Cytarabine chemo (that I gave him) later. 39 doses of chemo in this port (5 different chemo drugs) later. 177 doses of oral chemo (3 different drugs) later. Uncounted doses of oral medications to counteract all the side effects of all of the above later. Countless hours of lost sleep and worry later.

But that does not define our year and our fight. Logan's resilience is astounding. He is a warrior who is thriving despite his circumstances. We are thankful for remission, thankful for No Evidence of Disease. I have said it before, cancer sucks. It is not all cute kids with bald heads. Though Logan was pretty cute when he was bald. It is rough, and many do not make it. There are parents out there who grieve every day. So, here is my message: celebrate what you have. Celebrate a healthy family. Celebrate a normal day. We did/are doing that today. We went to the pool, ran errands, and are having a cookout with friends today. All things that we could not do a year ago.  What a difference a year makes. Be thankful for life and celebrate.