We are very happy to announce that Josh had his best labs since he was diagnosed! Very excited over here. Everything important was in the normal range this time - even his platelets! They finally inched up to the normal range, so we are thrilled.
This month has been crazy, and Josh experienced his first illness since his CML diagnosis. We weren't sure how he would deal with it - some sort of cold/virus the kids picked up and brought into the house. It seemed to hit him quite a bit harder than the rest of us, but within a week he was feeling better. It was a relief - I was worried it would really knock him down longer than that. He even went into work completely miserable! Which I guess is no good, but I'm saying at least he felt like he could handle that. :)
We have such a weird situation. Exactly a year ago we were in the hospital. A year ago to the day. Of course last year we were delivering our baby girl, and this year we were checking up on Josh's leukemia. To say we never would have dreamed that in a billion years is an understatement. Last night I was laying in bed thinking about how surreal this whole situation is. I remember the night before Annie was born - I was so nervous knowing I was going in for my third cesarean. Nervous that the baby would be OK. Fast forward one year and I was so nervous about this cancer staying suppressed. This was our first appointment where we just really had to maintain healthiness, and I was more than a bit worried about it.
We even had planned a birthday party for Annie this same evening, but at the last minute canceled inviting all our friends. I just had this horrible feeling of "what if the bloodwork comes back bad?" I didn't think I could handle entertaining a whole crowd. Instead we just had family over and had a really fantastic night at home celebrating our precious angel.
I keep thinking about how long it took us to get pregnant with Annie (which didn't happen with the boys) and I just know God brought her at the exact time we needed her. He knew that Josh would experience his very first cancer symptom just minutes after she was born. He knew we would be in a hospital where people would take care of Josh. Not many people can tell you the exact day and time they had their first symptom. But we have it seared into our memory that day Annie Rose was born. Heck, we even have a picture. Of course at the time we had no idea what it meant, and I seriously just thought Josh was being more than a bit of a drama queen. Of course now we know that they exact same repeated symptom is the ONLY reason we made that appointment for the doctor in March. And really is there ANYTHING better in this world than a tiny baby to melt all your cares away? I truly believe she is the best medicine Josh can get!
I'm not sure if we have mentioned it before on this blog, but this cancer has essentially limited us from having any more children. We were told from our very first appointment at MDA that it is important for us to not get pregnant while Josh is taking the chemotherapy. Well, he will be taking it forever. They told us that some patients, after stabilizing, go off the pills for a few months in order to conceive safely. At this point that is just not a risk we are willing to take - it is not as if we don't have kids yet, which is probably the only thing that would be worthy of that risk.
On the other hand, it has also put an end to our dream of adopting. It would be very difficult for us to get past the physical health part of qualifying - they are looking for a doctor to say that you "have a normal life expectancy." When we ask the docs about this they say they don't know what Josh's is (since he is so young and the drugs are so new). And even if we could qualify in that manner the financial situation is just not getting any better. Those few dollars we had planned on saving specifically for adoption are now going straight to MDA, and will be for as long as we can see.
I just wanted to explain this so people will understand why Annie is so precious to us. We know she will be our last baby, even though our hearts long for more. And our hearts break for those sweet babies that are waiting for forever families, knowing that we will not be able to bring one home. So please excuse our sappy lovefest we have when discussing our baby girl!
So to sum it up we spent the day giving thanks for Josh's continued improvement and for our little girl. Two amazing things worth celebrating, don't ya think? Next up for Josh is another round of bone marrow testing at the beginning of October. Please join with us in praying for a complete cytogenetic response!
