A year ago…

A year ago…

A year ago our lives were so different.  The last few weeks have been emotional ones to say the least.  It seems we are reliving in our minds last year and it is still so hard to fully comprehend how blessed we are to be where we are.  Kimbell says every time she closes her eyes all she sees is Erin giving her chemo.  I’ve cried so many tears not because of sadness but pure joy.   So this time last year Kimbell was three days into chemo and either had a blood infection or was in the process of getting her first one.  She was so sick and they just kept telling us everyone reacts differently, she is just having ALL the side effects.  We prayed and prayed things would go well, that God would leave her with us but really we had no clue what the future would hold.  Today in my opinion we are in the best scenario we could have ever dreamt of being in.  Yes, K went through so much but the future is looking bright.  I keep telling her God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.  Her response isn’t so eloquent.   John and I will never be able to thank everyone who has helped us along our journey, been there for us, for K, prayed for her, and on and on.  Without all of you she may not be here today.

So back to present day.  K is doing great.  It is all relative, I keep telling myself that every time I stress out about her labs.  Her counts are down but ya know what this time last year she was bleeding for hours and we had a notebook with all her drugs written down.  Today she isn’t bleeding, we don’t have a notebook and she is playing outside!  I actually laughed when I got her last CBC, every cell line was down and I mean every cell line EXCEPT her neutrophils!!!  K has been taking shots her entire life for neutrophils so it was quite comical that they were the only line that was up!  So we want all the numbers in the CBC to go up and they went down so of course the kidney numbers that we want to go down went up.  They were the highest they have been since they took her off all of her nephrotoxic drugs 🙁  That was quite a shock to be quite honest.  Poor K, I instantly yelled at her, you need to drink more.  It’s amazing how quickly you go to old habits except this time she doesn’t need to drink more.  Her hydration numbers were the best we have seen since I can remember so fluids aren’t going to do the trick this time.  We go back to clinic in a couple of weeks for a bunch of tests and we will be anxious to see what her cells are doing, her kidneys and of course her engraftment labs.

We were so excited to be back in MN for her 1 year anniversary and watch the fireworks for real this time but alas clinic is closed on that Friday and Dr. Tolar only sees patients on Friday 🙁  The only problem with having a world-renowned doctor as your doctor… he is in high demand which means K won’t have her anniversary visit until July 24th!  She has tons of tests scheduled that have to be done in MN to test various organs.  High toxicity chemo has a lot of long-term side effects, one of the chemo’s we used has been taken off the market due to it being so toxic!  So it may be years before we know what damage has been done but she is ALIVE and thriving and that is what matters!  The only thing we have planned for her celebration is to take cupcakes to the BMT floor with notes for the patients.  If any of you have any great ideas of what to put on the notes please let me know!

Last but not least, I sincerely apologize for us being MIA lately.  We seem to be in the never ever catch up mode!

Love,

P, J, & K

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John & Paige