Happy Birthday, Maggie!

I apologize for my lack of updating.  We have had so much going on that I would like to share with you.  First, today is a special day for our family.  Maggie turned six today.  I can hardly believe we have a six year old.  As I reflect back on her life, I can remember Andy and I thinking we might not even see her turn one, and here we are, celebrating six years!  We've come so far.

Another big event in our lives that I have yet to share with you is Maggie's beginning kindergarten.  This fall, Maggie was all smiles as she walked into the building and never looked back.  When I picked her up at the end of the day and asked her how school was, she responded, "It was awesome!"  She continues to enjoy school and her teacher says that she is a really hard worker.

In November, Maggie will go back to see Dr. French for check-up.  She is going every four months.  Please continue to pray that Maggie remains healthy and cancer-free forever.  We also thank you for your continued prayers and following our family through the blog (though I do a terrible job of updating).

Maggie's first day of school (8/20).

A cool day at the zoo (9/22)

Happy Birthday, Maggie!

Birthday fun at Chuck E Cheese

Five Years

Today marks our five year anniversary (or crapiversary) of the day that Maggie was diagnosed.  It's a bittersweet feeling, knowing that we've come so far, however it's changed our life so much.  We spent the day doing normal things and celebrated with Maggie's choice of dining, tacos at Chipotle.  Maggie doesn't know anything about this day, nor anything about what she (or we) have been through.  We don't feel that she needs to know anything about that until she's older.  When we go to Dr. French's, it's just a doctors visit to her.  We are so thankful that she does not remember anything about her treatment.

Maggie finished preschool this May.  She loved it and we saw her come out of her shell because of it.  She will speak to others when spoken to, and is not nearly as shy as she once was.  When Maggie was diagnosed, Dr. French read us all the possible side effects to the drugs she would be receiving.  No parent wants to hear those things, and we have wondered how Maggie would develop.  After going through parent teacher conferences and kindergarten screening, we are happy to hear that Maggie is right where she needs to be, both intellectually and physically (which is amazing considering Maggie began walking at the age of 3).

Maggie continues to see Dr. French every four months now.  She goes back for her checkup in two weeks.  The checkups continue to make me nervous, but we pray that each one shows that she is in remission always.

In other news, our family has been through some crazy times in the past couple of weeks.  We ended up in ICU with Colin a couple weeks back because of reactive airway disease.  He had a pulse oxygen level of 83 when we went into the clinic and after several breathing treatments they could not get him up above 90.  They ended up transporting him in an ambulance (he called it a bus) to Akron Children's Hospital to the ICU.  During the trip they gave him several doses of steroids and breathing treatments which ended up helping immensely.  He spent several hours in the PICU before they moved him to the floor for observation over night.  He has been diagnosed with asthma and is doing breathing treatments daily so hopefully this doesn't happen again.

During that week, Grant had been at the urgent care because of a swollen lymph node.  After several days, I returned to the doctor because it wasn't getting any better on antibiotics.  Because the lymph node was larger than a walnut, the protocol was to do a CBC to rule out cancer and an ultrasound.  This put great fear in us. Given our history with Maggie, CBC's are a scary thing.  Anytime a doctor is doing one to rule out cancer, it's a very hard time for us.  Grant's CBC showed an elevated white count which most likely showed he was fighting an infection.

We were scheduled to have an ultrasound on Thursday afternoon, but Colin was than admitted into the hospital on Wednesday.  While Andy spent the night with Colin at the hospital, he spoke with the doctors about Grant's lymph node.  I came the next morning to allow Andy to go to work and a doctor came in to take a look at Grant.  She suggested we go right to the ER because it looked infected.  We then spent the morning in the ER while the doctor's ran tests, another CBC (to rule out leukemia), and an ultrasound (to rule out lymphoma and determine what it was).  After a stressful morning, they determined that Grant had an abscess on his lymph node and they scheduled surgery for the evening to drain it.  Colin was discharged from the hospital and Grant was admitted overnight for observation after surgery.  It was a crazy week and couple of days.  We were a popular family in the hospital, unfortunately.  Maggie made a comment during all this madness that both her brothers were sick, so now who was she going to play with?  We found it kind of ironic that Maggie was the most healthy one in our family during that time.

All is resolved now and we can once again live a "normal" life.  We are so grateful for good health and pray that we don't ever have to go through a cancer scare again.  I also pray we never spend another night in the hospital.  Every one of our children have been through a CBC to rule out cancer.  How often does that happen?  My nightly prayer is for good health in our family.  We thank you for your continued prayers for our family, especially Maggie.  We pray that she remains cancer free forever.

This is a picture from a trip to the Cleveland Zoo--One of our favorite things to do this summer.

3 Years

Today marks 3 years off treatment for Maggie.  It was 3 years ago today that we spent the last night in our house not knowing what the next 10 weeks would bring.  Those ten weeks would prove to be the hardest trial we ever faced, even more difficult than being told our daughter had cancer.  We (I) are still traumatized by the events that we faced 3 years ago (as well as almost 5 years ago).  But, we are happy to say we have our little girl and she is a thriving, normal 5 year old.

Just a couple of weeks ago we had Maggie's parent teacher conference and listening to what the teacher had to say made us very proud.  Physically, Maggie can keep up with her peers, though she is timid (and considering that Maggie has only been walking a little over 2 years).  Intellectually, Maggie is right where she needs to be.  She was described as a quiet, respectful, sweet little girl.  We've always known this about Maggie--she really is a sweet, gentle spirit.  Our hearts are exploding with pride and love for her.

Maggie also took her first ballet class this past month.  She spent 4 Sundays dressed in her leotard and learned dance.  This past Sunday they had a mini recital since it was the last class.  Again, we were so happy and proud of her.

It's hard to believe how far we've come and we look forward to continuing this normal journey with Maggie and the rest of our growing family.

The love of big sister and little brother.

Maggie got an award on the last day of ballet.

Maggie and I had a date and went to Miss Molly's Tea Room.
She loved pouring the tea (aka lemonade).

Our Annual Christmas picture