August 26

Hi everyone!  We are enjoying having nothing to report these days!  No news on this blog, is good news.


Yesterday Madelyn had a CBC.  Our first visit to the Cancer Care Center at Island Hospital!  No drive to Seattle!!  It was wonderful.  The nurses we worked with were knowledgeable, helpful and caring.  They had no troubles listening to Madelyn and accessing her exactly how she wanted it done.  They asked me if there was anything they needed to know about how MJ liked things done.  I said "oh you ask her.  She can tell you."  Somehow though, I still started to chime in about this and that.  Madelyn turned to me with her little attitude chin swing and a roll of her eyes and said "Mommy, I can tell them."  "Oh yes, yes, your right honey you tell them."  And she did.  


A super big thank you to whoever that caring, giving man is who anonymously donated $50,000 to the new Cancer Care Center at Island Hospital... and alllll the donors that are making this new facility possible.  We need it.


Madelyn's CBC results came back so fast - in about 15-20 minutes - and they faxed our Oncologist directly at Seattle Children's.  She is still good and holding steady right where they want her:


ANC 1000     RBC 38.8    WBC 2.2 (up quite a bit from last)    Plat 348


Madelyn has continued the one week of not feeling good and three weeks of feeling just fabulous.  Seriously, we have not seen her this good in a couple years.  It makes Peter and I so incredibly happy.  The one week of not feeling good comes from the steroids, constipation from the chemo and pain from the chemo.  It lasts about seven days.


In emotional news... this week I had an MRI.  When I was 19 years old I had a bone tumor on my knee.  I had surgery immediately after it was found and the surgery revealed the tumor to be benign (non-cancerous).  There wasn't a lot of time to be worried... although my Mom and Dad might say differently...


Well the site of that surgery has been bothering me for a few months.  Luckily everything is fine.  The results of the MRI were negative for new tumor growth.  The surgery was almost 20 years ago so it is probably just going to bother me a little for the rest of my life.  Our bodies aren't really meant to be cut open.


The MRI was hard for me though.  I do not sit still well.  Laying there for 30 minutes was torture.  It also gave me too much time to think about MJ.  I laid there and cried.  Cried about all that she has gone through and how I just couldn't do it.  She is so brave.  I know we say it over and over and over again... but laying there I realized I couldn't do it.  I am an awful patient.  The MRI brought back all these awful memories of being diagnosed.  That blur of an evening driving to Seattle after Dr Olmstead told us the suspected Leukemia.  My moments of absolute sobbing, confusion and worry.  Our 10 day inpatient stay learning about caring for a child with cancer.  Getting used to the word cancer being so intimately part of our lives.


Then after the MRI and the crying, I went to the beach to find Madelyn in her underpants and swimming in the ocean laughing.