Category Archives: brother Jake

Not this Week

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February 8, 2010

We’ve been waiting for so many good things to happen. Living right on the edge of happiness. Today, we went to clinic for counts, hoping to hear they were high enough for Tanner to return to school this week. We were flabbergasted to find that her neutraphils were only 130 – the lowest they have ever been since diagnosis. Nurse Carie was so surprised, she ran Tanner’s counts twice to be sure.

Apparently, the doctor said that maybe the virus that caused Tanner’s ear infection caused the low counts and that now they should be able to recover. In the meantime, we were handed a mask along with Tanner’s count sheet and are in seclusion. Jake will again not be able to go to school and we will postpone his birthday party this weekend until next weekend.

Last week, Tanner made a valentine box. A cardboard shoebox wrapped in red paper and decorated with glittery stickers and magic marker hearts. She worked hard on it and, without my even knowing, pulled out a class list and wrote a valentine for each child. Littlest Pet Shop for the girls and Transformers for the boys. She was so excited. This weekend, I bought candy so she could tape it to the cards. She talked about putting all the cards in the boxes for each child and being able to go to the party.

I’ll bring the box with me to a meeting at the school tomorrow and give it to her teacher so she can pass out the valentines for Tanner. Jake will miss his Valentine’s party, too. Just like he missed his Thanksgiving party and his Christmas party. We just can’t afford to have him bring germs home to her when she, essentially, has no immune system.

Needless to say, we are extremely disappointed. Still waiting.

Love,
Beth

On the Mend

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February 4, 2010

Tanner finally is feeling better today. After having spent the last two days pretty much in bed, she got up today and played. The antibiotic that she is on for the ear infection has been pretty rough on her stomach and she still isn’t sleeping well (steroids cause sleeplessness), so we’re all a little tired, but she isn’t coughing as much and had more energy today to play.

We bought valentines today for her class and decorated a valentine box in anticipation of being in school that week (I hope, I hope, I hope). We’ve laid low this week and hope that on Monday we find her counts are up enough to go back to school next week.

Speaking of school, those wonderful kids at Moore Elementary raised more than twice their goal in the Pennies for Patients campaign. They raised $2,042 to help fight leukemia and lymphoma. Amazing! On Monday night, the school board is presenting an award to the school and to another in the district that also did a campaign for a child with cancer there. The principal has asked Tanner to come to the meeting with her to help receive the award. I hope her counts allow it.

She was on the news last week; a story about the campaign. They want to do a follow-up when Tanner returns to school and a local newspaper wants to do the same. Very cool. Tanner will just hate that attention (wink, wink).

We’re in a bit of a rut. I think we’re all waiting for something to happen. I find us watching too much television and playing too much wii these days. I really hope she can go to school next week – she really needs a change of scenery, interaction with other kids and a challenge for that quick brain of hers. And, Jake and I could do some things that he has missed over the past 9 months – the library, his gym class, playgroup, etc. He needs to have more friends his age – boys, preferably. So, I’m looking forward to being able to focus on him a little. He’s turning 3 this month and we’ve planned a fun birthday party at our new house and bought him a much bigger present than we usually buy for the kids. He deserves to be in the spotlight for a day.

We’re hoping to be able to go visit our potential new dog this weekend… in prison! He is part of a prison dog-training program that pairs dogs destined for euthanization and prisoners in a intense three-month training program that teaches prisoners job skills and responsibility and gives the dogs a second chance at life. We hope to end up with a nice, trained dog to complete our family. A dog to take Millie’s place at the end of Tanner’s bed and calm the fears that a six-year-old shouldn’t have. A dog to motivate me to get up and walk in the morning to have some me-time and get some much needed exercise. A dog for Jake to lay on and throw a ball for. A dog to keep John company when he falls asleep on the couch. We can’t wait.

Waiting for lots of good things to happen. Impatient for them to get here.

Love,
Beth

Snow, Sledding and Steroids

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January 27, 2010

I moved to Nashville in 1994 from Philadelphia, where, as you can imagine, it snowed quite a bit. In the nearly 16 years since, this is the most snow I have seen! We got a whopping 4-5 inches of snow, which is just enough to have an awesome time sledding.

John’s Mom, Ann, came on Thursday and had a special afternoon with Tanner after clinic. Friday morning, I left the kids in her capable hands and ran out at 8 am to:
1. search for a sled (I knew it wasn’t going to happen, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try)
2. search for waterproof gloves for both kids
3. search for snow boots for Jake
4. Finally join the snow panic and ransack what was left of the stock at the grocery store so we could “hunker down” for the weekend

I would love to say that after three hours and eight stores, I was successful, but the only thing I came home with was food. No sleds, boots or warm gloves within 100 miles. Retailers must pray for snow in Tennessee.

So, later that day, in the sleet and snow (aka “wintry mix”) Tanner insisted on going out to meet some friends in the school field. We bundled up and I put three pairs of crappy gloves in my pocket so I could replenish her gloves when they got wet. It was in the 20’s and very, very cold and windy.

The kids played for 15 or 20 minutes with me replacing Tanner’s knit gloves every time they got wet. My hands were cold in ski gloves so I couldn’t imagine how she was standing it. But, after we went through all three pairs, she had a melt down and I had to give her my gloves and carry her all the way home and put her in a hot bath.

That’s the way it goes with Tanner these days. She plays so hard and with such enthusiasm, but it usually ends rapidly when she tires out. She is on steroids this week, which exacerbates her fatigue. She lives life in bursts… a burst of energy… a burst of exhaustion. I worry about how she will do at school. But, I try to remind myself that some school is better than no school and we’ll just let her do what she can.

The day after the big snow, we all went sledding with some neighbors and had such a good time. It was Jake’s first time and he LOVED it. I still have my old Radio Flyer sled from childhood and we took that and then shared our neighbors’ plastic sleds. Usually, the runner sled won’t work here, but we had freezing rain on top of the snow and, after waxing up the runners, it flew! I didn’t take my camera, but two of our friends had brand new fancy cameras and took lots of pics, so I’m sure they will send me some I can post (hint, hint Ashley and Molly).

We have two more days of steroids. She has handled them pretty well so far; some crying and fatigue, but she’s powered through a lot of it. We give her a lot of grace and hugs, remind her that it’s the steroids that make her feel this way and let her rest and watch more TV than normal. When she’s had enough, she asks to go to her room alone and watch movies on her computer in bed. We’re learning how to find a workable balance during this week. We’ll have 19 more steroid weeks, so it’s important we figure out the best way to get through the week without letting it totally halt our lives.

If school ever reopens this week (it’s already cancelled for tomorrow), I’m supposed to meet with a group of folks over there so we can come up with a plan for Tanner to attend school safely. She will need some special concessions, obviously, and we will all pow wow to figure out how to best meet those needs and how to protect her from germs as much as possible. The school has been so super and I know they will do everything they can to help.

The new house renovations are going really well. It looks like a house again instead of a demolition zone. Carpet and tile this week. Finishing hardwoods next. Then, finally, the long-awaited kitchen redo. If all goes as planned, we’ll move mid-March. Then, an empty house to sell. Hmmmm.

Anybody want to buy a house in historic Franklin, TN?

Love,
Beth

Clinic Day #27

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January 28, 2010

Apparently Tanner will be going back to school!!!!!! Hoooooooooorayyyyyyyyy!!!!! We’ll meet with the school next week to iron out any special considerations she will need, let her get over the steroids she started taking today, and start her out on Monday, February 8th. Unbelievable. Really unbelievable.

Clinic obviously went well today, although very long. Her counts were actually quite high… too high. They were 3,300. They should be between 1,000 and 2,000, but the doctor said he wanted to see how she did this next month before he would raise it. Whew! Weird to be hoping for lower counts, but we are. I’ll take the high counts for now, though. It means her immune system will be that much stronger to fight off the school germs.

They also removed all of her eating restrictions. Tanner was almost as excited about that as she was about school. She started yelling out all the things she wanted to eat, “Salad? Grapes? Strawberries! I want strawberries!!!” It was so cute.

After all that excitement, we sat… and sat… and sat… in a very full infusion room waiting for chemo. After an hour or more, the nurse came out to tell us they had misplaced Tanner’s chemo roadmap and they couldn’t order her chemo without it. “An actual physical piece of paper? There’s no electronic file with her two-and-a-half year roadmap in it?” Apparently not. They finally found it behind the filing cabinet and ordered her chemo. More waiting… and waiting. We finally left four hours after we got there; two-and-a-half hours of which was spent waiting for a chemo push that took all of 3 minutes once it got there. You never know with clinic.

Tanner left clinic with her grandmother and they went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. Then, home for some wii with Jake, dinner and the Make A Wish Interview.

She decided she wanted her wish to be Disney World (secret applause). We looked at Disney World and Disney Land yesterday on the Internet and she saw how much better Disney World was and decided to head to Florida instead of California. I swear I didn’t sway her (well, maybe just a little); I just pointed out that if she wanted to meet the stars of a Disney show, we could probably go to Disneyland as well. She wanted to see it online, then we clicked over to Disney World (that might be the part where I swayed her) and saw some awesome videos of the different parks. iCarly apparently cannot compete with the Magic Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon and Animal Kingdom. Not to mention that you get to stay in the Give Kids the World village, which is just for wish kids. It has ice cream all day, Christmas every week, present fairies that leave presents under your pillow every night, and a Mayor that’s a rabbit. Seriously. I’m so excited because this is something for Jake, too. Although no one has gone through what Tanner has, Jake is affected by all this and deserves something special.

So, it was a long, but very special, day. I’m going to bed to dream about sending my daughter off to her first day back to school.

Love,
Beth

My Sweet Boy

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January 27, 2010

Tonight, as I was putting Jake to bed, we did our usual “Now I lay me down to sleep…” prayer. We follow that with a general blessing for friends and family and then we do “special blessings.” Jake asked for blessings for his booty (see my previous post this evening) and for God to help him poop in the potty so he could get two blue race cars (I’m not making this up).

Then, I said, “Let’s pray that when Tanner goes to the doctor tomorrow, he says she can go back to school.”

Jake paused and said, “I not want her to go to school.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“She my best fwiend,” he answered.

“You would miss her?” I said.

“Yes.”

Yummy, yummy boy.

Love,
Beth

Both Ends

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January 27, 2010

Tonight, after Tanner’s lesson with Mrs. O’Hara, we decided to go to Chili’s to eat. John was at a work dinner and we were on our own. Tanner loves Chili’s; she’s always trying to connive some way to get us there to eat. So, we piled happily into the car and drove down the road for dinner.

While we were waiting for our food, Tanner kept saying how hungry she was. “When will our food be here?” she asked repeatedly. When it got there, it was piping hot and I began to stir Jake’s Mac n’ Cheese so it would cool off. I looked over at Tanner and asked if she needed help cutting her chicken, but she was staring off into space and didn’t respond. I watched her for a moment; she looked exhausted. “T… you okay?” I asked. “Fine,” she said. “I just need honey mustard.”

Between the time I asked the waitress for honey mustard and the time she brought it, I watched Tanner go downhill. The waitress set the honey mustard on the table and Tanner simply lay down on my coat in the booth without a word. I knew she couldn’t eat it. It was a moment lost.

Jake and I ate as quickly as we could, boxed Tanner’s food up and left without her ever eating a bite.

Now, it may seem ridiculous to care so much about one chicken dinner in the light of some of the truly awful things she has had to face over the past 8 months, but it’s just that it is such a metaphor for life with cancer. Get excited, look forward, anticipate… be disappointed. Watch everyone else around you get the thing you wanted so badly while you remember that’s it’s not for you… you have cancer.

She handled it better than I did, really. I cried about it later, which is so uncanny, because I almost never cry about cancer. It just seemed so unfair. Such a simple thing to want.

Anyway, the rest of the night went according to Murphy’s law. I carried Tanner into the house with her hand over her mouth, rushing to the bathroom, while Jake screamed from the car where it was parked in the driveway in the dark, “I’m cared! Mommy help!” Park Tanner in front of the toilet, run back out to get Jake. Set up Tanner on the sofa with a bucket and a towel. Frantically mix up some zofran to prevent nausea. Give Tanner the medicine while Jake hangs on to me screaming because the constipation he has been suffering from finally decides to give way. Clean up (nuff said). Carry Tanner to bed, dinnerless. Put Jake to bed, a pound or two lighter. Collapse.

Usually I only recognize the humor in this kind of situation in the retelling, but this was so ludicrous that I even started laughing in the midst of it. It wasn’t a cancer moment; it was just a motherhood moment, one that moms everywhere could appreciate.

Tomorrow is clinic day. John and I are anxious. Anxious that they will raise her chemo level. Anxious that she won’t get released to school. Anxious that she will get released to school and be exposed to all those germs.

Please pray for the right thing… whatever that may be.

Love,
Beth

Big Things

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January 26, 2010

We spent Saturday night at one of our favorite places with some of our favorite people. We went to the circus!!! I LOVE the circus. I would go if I didn’t have kids and so would John. I had put it on our calendar a month or more before, but was struggling with whether it was safe to take Tanner into that crowd of people. It’s one thing to be at a restaurant with other people in the next booth, it’s another to sit with people who may or may not be healthy on all sides of you.

John’s company, Franklin American Mortgage Company, made the decision easy. They gave us their suite so we could go without worry and invite friends, too. We had an awesome time with two other families. It’s a big thing for Tanner to be able to do something like this… and Jake, too. We realized at the Circus that Jake has experienced a lot less than Tanner at the same age because he’s been sheltered due to our situation. He was super excited!!! We all laughed at him because he just kept jumping up and down and screaming at random moments because he was so happy.

Thursday night will be another big night. Two representatives from Make a Wish are coming to interview Tanner about her wish. She is so excited, but very conflicted. She really thought she wanted to go to Disney World, but now wants to maybe meet the cast of one of her favorite TV shows and ask to be in an episode. Decisions, decisions. I was hoping for Disney, but whatever she wants will be fine. I just want it to be special for her. It will be interesting to see what she comes up with.

And, Thursday morning is clinic day. It has, unbelievably, been a month since we have been to the hospital. Surreal. She will get a dose of Vincristine in her port and see the doctor. She also starts her monthly five-day steroid pulse.

We are hoping her counts have remained between 1,000 and 2,000 so that they don’t raise her chemo levels. No more chemo, please. Also, if her counts have remained steady, maybe they will clear her to go back to school.

John’s Mom, Ann, is coming with us to clinic on Thursday and then taking Tanner to the movies afterwards. They are going to spend the day together. Tanner is super excited.

Tanner continues to feel really good most of the time. She has periodic nausea and body pains and fatigues more easily than normal, but mostly seems like any six-year-old. Still, the chemo is there. She got sick yesterday morning for no apparent reason that I could figure except the chemo. Weird since Tanner only got sick twice during all the chemo she has received. But, a reminder that even in maintenance, the chemo is still there, still poisonous, still eating at her.

Still, I’ll take maintenance over the past six months any day. The freedom that it brings, the ability for Tanner to regain strength and stamina. The possibility of school and friends.

Big Things… Good Things… Hopeful Things.

Love,
Beth

So Normal I Forgot to Blog

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January 18, 2010

It’s weird for things to feel this normal, but they do. Tanner went to dance class today for the first time since her dance recital, two weeks prior to being diagnosed in spring. Aside from the hair thing, she looked like any other little girl busting a move in hip-hop class. She seemed a little tentative going into the class, but when I picked her up, looked like she was having her normal good time.

Last night, she went to Sunday night youth time at church. She was a little like a celebrity. “Tanner’s here!” they screamed. They’ve prayed for her for so long that it seemed unreal to them that she was there.

I was so proud of her. She marched in confidently, despite the fact that many of the kids had never seen her without hair. We practiced ahead of time what to do if kids stared. We’ve talked about how staring isn’t necessarily bad; it just means someone is curious. And, frankly, she’s gotten somewhat used to kids staring at her in the grocery store. So, she said, “Stare at me.” I stared, obligingly, mouth hanging open the way I’ve seen kids do. She smiled, looked me in the eye and said, “I’m Tanner. The medicine I take made my hair fall out, but it’s coming back and I think it’s going to be brown and curly.” Goodness gracious, who couldn’t smile back at that? We high-fived and I knew she would be okay.

I love her confidence. Some of it is just her; some of it is that, over time, she has found that people are extraordinarily kind about her having leukemia. Kids, although they obviously have the capacity to be cruel, are so honest that I think it doesn’t take them but a minute to get over Tanner’s bald head and just move on to the business of playing. She has really only had one negative experience, and oddly, I’m glad she had it. We were at an indoor play area the other day and a little girl approached her to play. She was only 4 (all the kids Tanner’s age are in school) and she just very straightforwardly asked Tanner, “What happened to your hair?” Tanner told her that she takes medicine that makes her hair fall out, but it was growing back. The little girl shrugged and grabbed Tanner’s hand and said, “Let’s play.” Awesome, I thought. Kids are amazing. Five minutes later, Tanner came to me and said the little girl was being mean to her. I told her to avoid her and play with Jake, but in a moment I noticed the little girl had trapped Jake at the top of a playhouse and wouldn’t let him down. Tanner was telling her to move and the little girl said, “No one would want to be your friend, anyway.” Tanner began to cry and I firmly told the little girl to move out of Jake’s way and to stop being so mean. Her Mom ended up apologizing to me and sent the little girl to apologize to Tanner, which she did, very sweetly. BUT, she then asked her mom whether the little boy could go to eat with them. Tanner looked at me in confusion. The mom said, “Honey, she’s a girl.” The little girl could not be dissuaded and insisted Tanner was a boy. Tanner was crushed, but I cheerfully explained that Tanner was a girl with short hair and poked Tanner and laughed. She started laughing, too and we ended up okay.

I don’t know why that little girl was so mean to Tanner; but I know that Tanner believes it’s because she’s bald. In the car on the way home, she asked if she looked like a boy. No one with such a beautiful face could ever look like a boy, I told her. It wasn’t the best experience, but it was bound to happen and I was glad it happened while I was with her. I think she will be better prepared next time (I’m sure there will be one). We talked about how Jake thinks men with long hair are girls and how that little girl was too young to understand that a girl could have short hair. I was glad there was a positive resolution; she and the little girl parted friends and Tanner seemed okay with it.

As I have discovered when you are living with cancer in your family, you don’t feel normal for long. Tanner was exhausted when she got home from church last night and seemed very tired this morning. We were supposed to go ride bikes and play at a friend’s and Tanner agreed that maybe it would be best that she stay home and rest while Jake and I went. That’s how you know she’s really tired. Tanner is almost always up to play and will play until she literally cannot play anymore. So, she spent lots of time watching TV and took a little nap before dance class. She seemed much more rested at the end of the day.

Jake and Friends

Tanner seems to feel really good most of the time, but she does not have great stamina. She tires out much sooner than she used to and we’re trying to learn when to stop her before she gets completely exhausted. She has gotten sick after overdoing it, so we need to watch her carefully and not leave it up to her entirely whether she participates in something or not. Makes me realize how tiring school will be for her when she does get to back. We will probably have to do half days for a while and see how it goes.

We’ve spent lots of time on the new house this week; it’s fun to see something start to come together after having been in the demolition stage for the past three weeks! This is a house we can stay in a long time and we’re trying to do it right the first time so there have been a lot of decisions to make. It hasn’t really been stressful, though. We have great people working for us and I think we’ve both learned what real stress is the past six months or so, so it doesn’t seem worth getting too worked up over light fixtures and faucets. We’ll post some before and after pictures when there is an “after.”

Love,
Beth

Bit by Bit…

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January 12, 2010

Tanner and Meredith... silly!

I have been trying to take Tanner to see the Princess and the Frog for more than a month. Either her counts were low, she was sick, Jake was sick and home from school or it snowed and Jake was home. Finally, today, we got to go.

We dropped Jake off at school and then ran a few errands, picked up a bagel, and headed to the theater. We were a little late and were really hurrying to get into the theater when I noticed Tanner skipping. Not awkwardly, not lurching to will her body forward and upward, not with one leg having to be slung along to cooperate… just skipping. I caught her reflection in the window of the restaurant we were passing and thought she could have been another child – one without cancer. I said, “Look at you skip, girl!” and she laughed and began running – fast and hard and with joy that she could.

She’s getting so much stronger. She no longer has that emaciated, fragile look she had even a month ago. Her legs look stronger and she is able to walk up stairs without holding onto the rail, get herself off the floor without using her hands and jump rope again.

She’ll hopefully start physical therapy soon to capitalize on this period of time that we have, before she is able to go back to school, to really try to build back some of the strength she has lost. Until now, we didn’t think she had any real chance to make a gain with physical therapy. Any gain she made would have been wiped out by the intense chemo and steroids she was taking. But, now, she has a chance to build some strength that I think she can actually hang on to.

We had a great time at the movie and went to pick up Jake at school. Usually Tanner sits in the car while I go into the church to pick Jake up. I bring in hand sanitizer and soak Jake to his elbows before we get into the car. Today, I let Tanner come in with me. It was the first time she had seen Jake’s classroom or met his teacher after having dropped him off and picked him up from school nearly every week since August. We stood in the doorway and when Jake saw her, he screamed, “Tanner!!!” and ran into her arms. He buried his face in her chest and then looked up to say in disbelief, “You’re here!” Even a two-year-old could recognize a special moment.

When we got home, Tanner’s friend Meredith came to play. Meredith was in Tanner’s Kindergarten class and is also in the 1st grade class she’ll enter when she’s cleared to go to school. The girls put on countless shows, dressed up and played Wii. She had a great time.

It’s so nice to be able to do these things… and to feel like we’re headed for more good things… school, a birthday party, a family vacation.

We still used the hand sanitizer, though. No sense in getting crazy.

Love,
Beth

My Monthly Steroid Rant

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December 4, 2010

I wonder if a month will ever go by where I do not complain about steroids? I feel for those of you who read this blog; you must be saying to yourself, “Enough about those stupid steroids, how bad could they really be?” That’s probably what I would say if this were someone else’s blog and I were reading it.

But, I write here about what I know and about our daily life and I would be ignoring the elephant in the room if I didn’t say, once again, how much I hate steroids.

I came out of the bedroom this morning to my early birds, John and Tanner. Tanner makes fun of my “morning face” – eyes scrunched up against the light, shuffling walk, scowl. She and John spring out of bed at the crack of dawn each day, chipper and ready to go. But, this morning, I came out and Tanner said nothing. She didn’t even look up when I said good morning. When I made a spot for myself in the nest of blankets on the sofa, she just crawled silently into my lap and cried a little. Steroids. They’re back.

She did rally mid-morning and wanted to go to Target. She and Jake got Target gift cards from “Uncle” Larry and wanted to go spend them. Tanner wanted to use hers to buy a doll for her best friend Corinne who, unlike Tanner, did not ask for an American Doll for Christmas. Tanner wanted Corinne to be able to play dolls with her and was prepared to spend the entire amount on a doll for Corinne. When we got there, the dolls were on sale and she was able to buy herself something, too. As Corinne’s mom said, “She was being rewarded for her generous heart.” She’s so excited about giving the doll to Corinne.

Before we left the store, Tanner started not feeling well again. When we got home, she started to get out of the car and screamed in pain. Her leg was hurting from the steroids or the Vincristine – hard to tell which. I carried her into the house while she cried and said over and over again, “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.” I put her on the sofa and went to the car to get our purchases when I heard a loud scream from inside the house – the kind that says someone is really hurt. I ran in and found her curled up on the hardwood floor, screaming. She had tried to go to the bathroom and fell on the way. Damn. I want to hold her and tell her it will go away, but I would be lying. We have to take the steroids for two more days, so it will likely get worse. So, I scoop her up carefully and take her to bathroom so she doesn’t have to walk and then I get her a dose of painkiller and tell her I hope it will help.

She spent most of the day in her room in bed watching TV. She just didn’t feel good. And, she won’t feel good again tomorrow. I told her I would take her to see Princess and the Frog after we dropped Jake off at school and she said, “I don’t think I’ll feel like it.”

We will repeat this cycle every month for another year and eight months. She will know that the pain and exhaustion will come back. She asked me today if she could use the “H” word to talk about steroids. I told her to let ‘er rip. “I hate steroids,” she screamed.

Throughout the day I would hear her get up and make her way slowly down the hall to the bathroom, wincing, crying out when it hurt particularly badly to walk. I would climb the stairs and scoop her up silently and carry her down the hall and wait for her so I could carry her back. There really isn’t anything I can say to make it better.

Recently, she asked me why the doctors made a medicine that made her feel so bad. “Why would they make chemo if it makes me so sick?” she said. The only answer to that question doesn’t seem appropriate for a six-year-old, but unfortunately, none of this is appropriate for a six-year-old. I told her that a long time ago, before they had chemo, people died from leukemia, so when they discovered chemo and realized that it could “fix” leukemia, people were happy to take it. They were happy to know that they would live. So, even though it makes people feel bad to take it, we should be thankful there is chemo at all. I tried to avoid the obvious, but as usual, nothing gets by Tanner. She said, very matter of factly, “Taking chemo is better than dying.”

So, I will probably continue to gripe monthly about these damn steroids. “Better than dying” just shouldn’t be good enough. I want to be grateful to these drugs, but oh, it is hard these five days of the month.

I know she will feel better in a few days, but it’s still so painful to watch her hurt and know we signed her up for it. Know that I administer the pill that makes her so sick.

Love,
Beth