"No Delays" ...

Good morning,

As we hoped would be the case, Dane's neutrophil and platelet counts were high enough on Tuesday for him to begin the next round of his leukemia treatment. So, we experienced "no delays" with the start of Delayed Intensification (DI) and we have our fingers crossed that is a sign this phase runs as smoothly as possible because it's an intense two months.

To kick-off DI, Dane and I were at Children's Hospital yesterday at 8:00 am for a spinal tap procedure. He received three different chemo drugs, one of which is new to his treatment. This particular drug is bright orange/red and one of the side effects is something only a juvenile boy would find "cool" - it turns your pee orange for the first 24 hours or so. And because not much shocks me these days, I was hardly even phased when I heard Dane cry out to Ashley late yesterday "come and look at my pee, it's orange!" A not so funny side effect of this drug is it's likely to cause Dane's hair to finally fall out. If that is going to happen, we will see signs in the next two to three weeks. I have been dreading this happening, however we have been very fortunate he has hung onto his locks (nasty cowlick and all) for the past six months.

Yesterday marked the "return of the roids". He is on them until next Tuesday and so far the food demands and intake are very manageable. I'm not delusional though - I'm sure this will change very soon. He's pretty lean these days so I wouldn't mind him packing on the pounds a bit, even if it is short lived.

Our 10 days at PL were a lot of fun and rain, cool lake temps and bugs didn't slow Ashley and Dane down. They swam, tubed, quadded, hot-tubbed and fished -just to name a few activities! My brother and family are here from NB and we are looking forward to some good times together in the next couple of weeks.

Our little Clare is not all that little anymore. She will be two months old on Saturday and now weighs 11 1/2 pounds. She has gained five pounds in eight weeks - the pediatrician will for sure be giving me the double thumbs-up at her check-up next Monday. I'll post some photos in my next update with her big bro & sis - our camera ran out of charge at PL so we are short on new ones right now. Clare is in my good books this morning - for the first time ever she slept a stretch longer than four or so hours. She was in slumberland from 11:00 pm until 4:30 am and when I woke at 4:25 I couldn't believe what time it was already. I'm hopeful there is more where that came from!

Although he may not physically look sick right now, there are daily reminders that for the time being, Dane is different than he was or than his peers. Some of those reminders are manageable and others more painful. Earlier this week I had a mom meltdown when he didn't have the stamina to swim the necessary lengths of the public pool, an activity that is required for him to go in the deep end. He did this without a hitch last year and so to watch him struggle for energy and then tell my almost eight year old he has to wear a life jacket in the shallow end was heartbreaking. It's times like those that his illness is much more obvious and painful.

As I close this blog entry, I reflect that it has been six months this week since Dane's diagnosis. There have been many lows and some highs during that time and we have managed to forge our way through this tough journey pretty decently. Dirk and I would give anything to erase the words "our son has cancer" from our vocabulary as I'm sure all the other families that we meet at the clinic wish for as well. We remain immensely proud of Dane's resilience, determination and spirit - he truly is one strong kid and a real fighter.

Until my next entry, take care - Janie and Dirk