Cancerversary

First off, for those of you who may still be wondering, Victoria came home about 2 weeks ago. Her counts eventually came up and we have just started her back on her chemotherapy, at half of the dose. Next week, she goes for blood work and we will find out how her body is responding to treatment. Her bone marrow biopsy results were fine, putting our relapse fears to rest. She just has "tired" bone marrow, meaning it's taking it's time bouncing back from everything it's been through.

Her little body has been through so much. Today marks the one year anniversary of when this whole nightmare began, a date that is often referred to as a cancerversary. It's a weird thing. Most anniversaries have a happy connotation but this day last year was nothing but. But then again, November 13, 2014 is a different day. One year later and she is better than she was. Her body shows no signs of cancer, only the effects of chemotherapy treatment. Her hair is growing back, her many scars don't stand out quite as much. She is happy and full of energy - as close as we are going to get to a normal almost 4 year old.

We have all been tested this past year. We are no longer in the dark about the beast that is childhood cancer. My facebook news feed is pretty much filed the with updates of the many children we know that are fighting, While so much more awareness is needed, I wish no one had to know what we know.

We have seen so much good in people as well. The amount of fundraising and support we have received over the year has been amazing. Recently, there have been some amazing events. There was a very successful motorcycle poker ride, "Victoria's ride" and spaghetti supper fundraiser for our family in Huntingdon, the Neon night walk for Childhood cancer in Kemptville (which raised over $52,000!!) and the Light the night walk in Montreal for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Just this week a giant cheque was presented to the Children's Wish Foundation for Victoria's. The money was raised at an annual charity golf tournament that is held in memory of Brian Millar. We went to the same high school and he lost his life to cancer in 2010.

Thank you all for every note, wish, dollar, babysitting, dinner, blood donation, thought and prayer. Her journey is far from over. She will likely receive treatment for another 15 months but hopefully the hardest parts are over.

Back at CHEO playing the waiting game

If you've already realized that my lack of posting usually coincides with me being too busy with our family, leading a more or less "normal"  life, than this post would signify that something is up. In a world where I can't find time for all sorts of things I'd like to do, cancer can make our whole family, and then some, come to a complete stop. On Friday, we enjoyed a nice meal with the kids, two Aunties and one very cute little cousin. We stayed up later than we should have, and then, just over an hour after we had shut our eyes, little Ms. Victoria walks to my bedside complaining about her bobo. I picked her up and instantly knew she had a fever. That's when normal life stops and cancer life takes over. We immediately go through the drill of temperature checks, getting dressed, packing bags, paging oncologists, packing food and making sure we have everything. The whole house wakes up. It doesn't matter that it's 2 am. Sometimes you go in, have blood work done and you are well enough to leave. We knew that this time there was no chance that the emerg. doctor would send her back home.

For the past 4 weeks Victoria has been neutropenic. Her immune system has been somewhere between 0.0-0.2. There is no obvious reason for this. Because of her low counts, most of her chemo has been on hold for this whole time. She missed out on traveling to see some family for Thanksgiving, she missed the start of her music classes and she could not  participate in the Light the Night walk our families fund-raised for, in honour of her. She has required another transfusion. As per the protocol, after 4 weeks they had to do a bone marrow aspiration to get a better idea of what's going on. This just took place on Thursday. Jeff and I spent Thursday with knots in our stomachs and worry on our minds. I think I spent half of the day holding my breath. The preliminary results we were given that day were reassuring. From what they could immediately tell, there was nothing alarming going on. The oncologist said it looks like she has "tired" bone marrow - it's not producing much and needs more time to recover from the effects of the chemotherapy. The bone marrow sample is undergoing further analysis, some at CHEO and some at the Ottawa General. We should have the results later this week. 

Despite how bad Victoria looks on paper, she is otherwise fine. We were shocked one month ago when we first heard how low her neutrophils were and that she needed a transfusion. She has amazing energy and a fantastic appetite. You should see her play, fight and roll all over the floor with Jake. Her hair is really growing in and she looks great. Even if it can be very misleading, seeing her like this helps us to not worry.

Back to early Saturday morning: After spending a few hours waiting around in emergency, she was admitted due to her fever, non-existent neutrophils and a couple of very red spots on her legs/bum. In a strange deja vu, exactly 11 months to the day, we were admitted onto a non-oncology wing and discussions about her spots ensued. Last year, they questioned whether or not her spots were chicken pox and they kept us on that dreary wing for 7 days while she was frequently biopsied in hopes of, unsuccessfully, fully figuring out what was going on. This time, they swabbed her sores, the infectious disease doctor decided that it did not look like chicken pox and then they transferred us to our home away from home, 4 North.  

It seems her sores are from a bacterial infection. She had already been started on antibiotics when we arrived and they don't appear to be getting any worse. Her temperature has been normal since early Saturday. For now, we just have to wait. We are waiting for those bone marrow tests. We will probably have to been in the hospital until her counts go up or until she completes 10 days of antibiotics. Her last admission was in August and we had to wait it out until the 10 days. We will play Lego, make puzzles, watch a lot of cartoons and make way too many Halloween crafts. 

September

September 2014. It seems this summer has flown by. Normally, the passing of time is not something I look forward to but in a life where we are happy to scratch months off of the calendar, in order to bring us closer to the end of treatments, but also trying to learn to live in the moment and not take any of the time we have together for granted, the passing of time is a welcomed event. 

The start of this new month, however, fills me with sadness and anger. Tomorrow was supposed to be Victoria's first day of school. She would have been the youngest in her Junior kindergarten class but she wont be there. She has started her maintenance phase, but by the time her meds are well sorted out, it will be prime cold and flu season. Not a good time to start reintegrating into social settings, especailly in JK. The hope is that she will join her class in the spring. Have a chance to learn the routine, make some friends and figure out the rules before Senior kindergarten next fall. She is only just a bit older than 3 and a half years old so it's not that big of a deal. What upsets me is that this is really the first time, since her diagnosis, that she is not doing what she would be doing if everything was "normal". There are lots of things about her life that are not typical for a 3 year old, but the first day of school is a pretty big deal. Worse yet, she is missing out on something she knew about, something she wants to do. Instead, when we drove past her school yesterday and she asked about going, I had to tell her that she has to wait until after the snow melts and when she is a bit better. To which she replied that she was "all better now" :)

I am happy to report that Victoria is a couple of weeks into the last phase, maintenance. This phase just keeps repeating itself over and over again until roughly Feb 2016. We had some initial difficulties trying to get her to take all of the new medications but things have sorted themselves out. The best news of all is that she no longer has to take an injection form of her blood thinner. Yay for no more needles!!!!

We have been taking her into CHEO regularly for blood work but that's been about it. Her treatments now consist of nightly chemo and blood thinners, steroids for a week each month, chemo at CHEO once a month and 2 lumbar punctures every 3 months. Her counts have been great, too good in fact. If they are still as high next time, they will likely increase her chemo. It's all about finding the right dose of chemo to keep things in check. For now though, we are making the most of her immune system being so strong. We went to the park together, the pharmacy, the grocery store and Canadian tire, all the normal stuff she has been deprived of over the last 9 months. She had a blast just being out in public.

Last week, the whole family was fortunate enough to spend 4 nights at Camp Trillium. Camp Trillium is a camp for kids with cancer. In the typical "can't plan or count on anything" childhood cancer lifestyle, we almost didn't make it. The morning of, we received a phone call from a CHEO emerg doctor informing us that some of her previous blood work/cultures showed that her port a cath may have been infected. It meant that we had to drive back into Ottawa to repeat the blood tests. She was otherwise fine and fever free so they did clear us for camp. We were 10 minutes late arriving at the boat (but they waited for us!) and I had to spend the next 48 checking my phone, but we were happy we made it and she was just fine. Unfortunately, 2 other families we know were not so lucky. They also ended up at the hospital that day and were not able to go. We had a wonderful time meeting other families who are either going through similar situations or who have finished treatment. Each of the children were matched up with a counselor, their "special friend", who spent the whole day entertaining them on the island. This was great because it meant that the parents got a bit of downtime too. We enjoyed canoeing, kayaking, sailing, a trip to the Sandbank sand dunes and more. It's a magical island filled with wonderful people. No one wanted to leave and we hope to return next year.

September is also Childhood Cancer Awareness month. The ribbon colour for childhood cancer is gold. Until our own personal experience with cancer, I never new about any of this. I know I'm not the only one. There are many activities going on including a Neon Night fun run benefiting Childhood Cancer research and and awareness event at Parliament Hill that we plan on attending.

Beautiful view of West Lake from the top of the sand dune

Waiting at the dock with their special friends

Campfire with a lake view 

Playing dress-up

Back home

Hi Everyone,

Victoria's has been home since Tuesday :)
We were so happy to get her home and continue on with our busy life, that I didn't feel like writing more than a Facebook status to announce her homecoming. We haven't had to do it often, but it's amazing how we have adjusted to putting our life on hold. Bags get packed, Jake gets shipped off, meals for a week and coffee K-cups in excess come along too. Once we get all settled in on 4 North at CHEO it's like we never left. Our home away from home. Every plan gets put on hold. And then, we come home, do laundry and pick up where we left off.
Victoria is doing well. She is just as happy and active as ever. We had a great weekend at home all together. We enjoyed the beautiful weather and Victoria was happy to swim and play in the backyard with the hose -just like a normal 3 year old. It was nice to have a 5 day break from the hospital. That is a really long time in her world.
Tomorrow, she returns for blood work. We are again waiting for her counts to rise again. When they are high enough she will begin maintenance treatments.

We did get to take our lunch outside for the picnic I had promised her

Stuck at zero

So, it's Saturday night and Victoria is still at CHEO. I'ts been one week since she was admitted for febrile neutropenia. This means that she had a fever when her immune system was very low. In Victoria's case, her neutrophils were 0.0 - yup that's as low as they can go! She was put on a course of antibiotics right away since her body cannot fight off whatever was causing the fever. The good news is her fever came right down (not like the last time, back in November, that lead to a 2 month stay and trials of endless medications). All we had to do next was wait for her neutrophil counts to start climbing. Once they start going up, then the hope is that her body can start fighting off things on it's own. Well, here we are stuck at zero one week later. Every morning we have been anxiously awaiting her lab reports only to be handed a sheet that says 0.0. Some of her other white blood cells have very slowing been climbing up by 0.1 each day. Her platelets are increasing and her red bloods cells are holding since the last transfusions. Her bone marrow is working. It's making "stuff", just not as fast as we would like.
If you could see her you would see that she is climbing the furniture, running the halls so quickly that we sometimes don't know where she is hiding (the nurses are being well entertained), eating so many cheese strings, yogurts and bowls of oatmeal that it's hard to believe she only weighs 13 kg and spending her days doing puzzles and endless crafts. She is sleeping well and she is not in any type of pain. We are not worried. It just sucks to be stuck here. She is having a lot of fun but she still wants to go home. She misses Jake :(
If by the end of Tuesday she is still stuck at 0.0, she will be allowed to go home. She will have had 10 days of antibiotics and if her fever doesn't return she's good to go.
Fingers crossed that tomorrow's the day!

Her beautiful new seal skin headband from another mother at the hospital

Refusing to remove her mask (even though she is allowed to outside) and not letting me adjust it so that she can actually see!

Can we eat out here tomorrow Mama?

Update

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to provide you with an update on Victoria. All in all, things have been going quite well. We have been enjoying the summer and even though we aren't able to do any traveling and have had to limit our visitors, the summer still seems to be flying by. Victoria is almost done the last phase in her treatment before she starts her maintenance therapy. She has been tolerating the treatments well up until now, however, the intensity of the chemo is really starting to wear her down. Her immune system has been very suppressed, she has been more tired and nauseous and she has started to require platelet and red blood cell transfusions again. Unfortunately, today she developed a fever and had to be admitted into the hospital. When they checked her blood work today, her neutrophils came back at 0.0 - meaning she pretty much has no immune system or any way of fighting off an infection. She was put on antibiotics and will likely have to stay in for at least a few days. 

We are hoping things will get a little easier soon. She has one more chemotherapy needle to do on Monday and then this phase wraps up. We are looking forwards the maintenance phase. She will still have chemotherapy, just not as much and she should have less frequent trips to the hospital. We are also excited because we will probably be able to take her off of her blood thinner injections. She will still need oral blood thinners but that's not a problem. She is a pro at taking any oral medications. Two less needles a day are going to make for one very happy little girl. 

For those of you who didn't get to see the telethon and hadn't yet discovered the link to our story here it is. This is the 5 minute video they filmed to tell our story. We haven't yet acquired (or even seen) our live interview - the one where Jake decided to re-arrange the set and Tori just wanted to tell the world that I actually had makeup on...funny kids!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLwki9Ld8rs&list=UUQdmVr7jeIWxsQLJ97ZauyQ

Hanging out in Jake's bed

Celebrating Jake's 2nd birthday

Get your Kleenex out!

If I were a journalist or reporter I might be fired. I seems like I'm always writing old news. Thankfully, I'm not and I know you will all forgive me :)
I have a few things to share with you, but before I get to those I wanted to let everyone know about the CHEO telethon. The telethon starts at 7 pm tonight and I believe it runs for 24 hours. Tomorrow, our family is set to appear on TV at about 5:40pm. They will play a short video, telling Victoria's story, followed by our live update. Hopefully, I can hold it together and you won't tune in to find be crying my eyes out (lets hope they use water-proof mascara!)
Though this won't be Victoria's TV debut. Some of you may have already spotted her on CHEO's latest commercial. If you don't know her well, she's the younger girl, 9 seconds in, sitting with one of her favorite nurses. Her speech isn't that great but she is saying "I love CHEO" (we couldn't get her to say "I need CHEO").
Here is the link to the commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxnU5j6gqF4

I hope that this is just the beginning of our family doing our part in helping out. There is now a list of various causes and charities near and dear to our hearts. We certainly have our work cut out for us in repaying all of the help we have received to date.
Many of you have already been doing an amazing job of fundraising and we are so thankful for all of your hard work. More on that to come.

Pineapple Challenge

If you haven't already heard about the Pineapple challenge, you need to look it up.  In less than a week (on Saturday to be exact), 10 amazing people will be participating as a team in a 5 km obstacle course challenge. The best part is that it's a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. Oh, and they have to dress up in costumes and carry a pineapple along with them! So far, their team, Team Tori, has done an fantastic job of fundraising. They started out so strong that the organizer contacted them personally to find out what the story was behind their super successful start. And it didn't stop there. When last checked, they had raised $4,475 - putting them in second place in the Montreal teams! A huge thank you to Team Tori and also to everyone who has donated money to the cause.
Check it out at   www.pineapplechallenge.ca
I hope that everyone participating has an amazing time. Maybe next year Jeff and I can participate too :)

Victoria did well with her last admission of interim maintenance. We had to share a room with another child, and unfortunately, he became sick with something that they thought may have been contagious. This meant that we got transferred to our own room, but because we had shared the room, Victoria was told that she had to stay in her new room to avoid any further possible spread. It wasn't "official" isolation but minus the gowns, gloves and masks, it might as well have been. When Victoria is at the hospital she LOVES being in the playroom. From the moment she wakes up, it is all she asks for. We do crafts, paint, watch movies and play with all the toys. It's where she meets other kids and gets to do some people watching too. She was very upset and it was hard for her to understand why she wasn't allowed. Instead, I brought the playroom to her. They may have had a lot of disinfecting to do later but if I could carry it to her room, I did :)
We tried to make the best of an understandable, but crummy situation.

The CHEO telethon film crew came by on Thursday to get some footage to use for their commercial. I'm not sure when it will air, but keep you eyes open for it and you might spot her.

Up next is her "delayed intensification" phase. This is supposed to be a more intense phase of chemo. She should start this in a couple of weeks. She has been on a few of the upcoming chemotherapies before, and they were all of the ones that made her sick. There are also a few new ones. It's expected that her counts will really drop, she will likely require more transfusions, and she won't feel that great. She will also be on more steroids. She hasn't had steroids since the first 2 weeks of her treatments but from what I hear it won't be fun. I'm expecting the worst and hopefully she'll get through it fairly well. Until then, we are going to try and enjoy the next two weeks. Right now, I think life is about as "normal" as it will be for another while.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone!

Victoria has been doing very well. She is still in the "interim maintenance" phase of treatment where she has planned 3 night stays at CHEO. We are hoping to complete the 4th and last one this week. Tomorrow she will go back in for blood work. If her counts are good, she will be admitted on Thursday. She continues to be such a strong and brave little girl. While we have been there, she has been feeling pretty good. This means that most of our time has been spent in the playroom having fun. She hasn't been back in on a Wednesday so we haven't crossed paths with Boomer the sun glass wearing dog again.
Instead, two weeks ago, the kids had a surprise visit from some Olympians. Genevieve Lacasse and Brianne Jenner from the Canadian women's hockey team and Cody Sorensen from men's bobsledding came by. Victoria and one of her hospital friends spent the morning crafting their very own gold medals. Later, Victoria got to hold and wear Genevieve's gold medal !

We had a pretty low key Easter weekend. After having spent last weekend in the hospital and expecting to spend this upcoming weekend there as well, all we wanted to do was stay home. We had and Easter meal with Nanna and Grandpa and then spent the rest of the weekend alone. It's so nice to finally have spring like weather here. The kids really enjoyed playing outside and running around in the bush. It's been a very long and hard winter for us. With Victoria not really being able to be out in public, we just had to stay home. Our visitors were limited and we all had a lot of cabin fever. Spring always brings renewed optimism and new energy. With the nicer weather we will be able to go for more walks, walk around town and maybe even head to the park. Out in the open air there is much less risk of getting sick.

Here are a few more pictures from our Easter celebrations. 

Egg Dying while Jake napped

Jake's new love: foil wrapped eggs

Chocolate monkey from Auntie Lisa and Uncle Mitchell

Their excitement when they find out this is a chocolate monkey!

Diving right in

This is Tori's excited face :)

Their new caterpillar friend. I hope Jake didn't think it was a chocolate egg...

I hope you enjoy spring as much as we are. I will keep you posted if anything is going on. Remember, no news is good news ;)

Back on Treatement

After having a bit of a break from the hospital it seems like we can't get enough of the place this week!

On the weekend, Victoria had a fever so I had to take her into emerg on Saturday night. Of course, I had just poured myself a glass of wine when Jeff decided to take her temperature and the fun ended right there. Fortunately they don't make the oncology kids wait at all. We called ahead of time so they would be sure to have an isolation room ready. The last thing you want is someone without an immune system hanging out in the waiting area of an emergency department! Just 2 weeks ago, a child with Measeles ended up there (he had also been at our pediatrician's clinic a few days before I was there with Jake...) They took her blood and a urine sample right away. As it turned out, her white blood cell count was high enough that we could go home. Unfortunately, the resident forgot to take a sample of blood from her port-a-cath which is super important (now I know) so we had to take her back in on Sunday. Again, she skipped the line, they took the sample a plus a nose swab and off she went.

Since Victoria's counts we high enough, she was admitted for the next phase of her chemotherapy. This is what we have been waiting for. Yesterday was an early day. Jeff and Tori went to the hospital for 7:30am and by 10 she had been put under and had her lumbar puncture with chemo. She was given a room upstairs and a few more chemotherapies. One of the IV chemos runs for 24 hours. She will most likely be in until Friday but it all depends on how long it takes her body to recover from the 24 hour high dose methotrexate.

Starting this phase is significant because her treatments continues for 24 months past this point. The countdown is on!

The other exciting thing that happened yesterday relates to something I haven't yet mentioned on here. Some of the staff at the hospital submitted Victoria's name to be one of about 6 children chosen to be on CHEOs telethon in June!!! Now, I am not that thrilled about the fact that we will be on TV. I am happy to be part of something that can make a difference. A little while back, they filmed one of our first visits for day treatment. They also interviewed Jeff and I (I cried through most of it so I hope they cut me out...). Yesterday, they filmed some of Victoria's time in the hospital as well as her lumbar puncture. The telethon airs in June and our family will appear on live TV to give an update on her condition. We know Victoria can pull on the heartstrings of most people she meets -hopefully she can pull on their purse strings as well lol.

Jake just happened to have his one year follow up with a urologist at CHEO today so we got to go visit. It was nice for the kids to see each other. They ate snacks and watched Barney together, just like at home.

On Wednesdays they have pet therapy on the oncology ward. In the past, Victoria's immune system hasn't been good enough to go. Today, is was still okay as the chemo hasn't yet taken it's full effect. Both kids enjoyed meeting Boomer. He is a big dog so I think they were a little hesitant at first but he won them over with his sunglasses. He was such a friendly dog. He hopped up on the couch beside Victoria and laid his head in her lap. The dog is groomed each time before he comes to visit and  each person is required to clean their hands before they touch the dog. 

Waiting

Hey everyone,

I've titled this post "Waiting" because it's what we've all been doing. You have been patiently waiting for over a month for a post from me (sorry!) and we've been waiting for Victoria's treatment to continue.
Not much has been going on around here lately. We have settled into our new day to day life. Jeff take's Victoria to CHEO, usually 2-3 times per week, for treatments. Things have been going as planned and she continues to respond well to the treatments. At home, we have our regular routine of medications memorized. Victoria's last phase of treatment ended over a week ago. In order for her to begin then next one, her white blood cell count needs to come up a bit more. She was tested last week and it was too low. In a way I think we were a bit relieved. While we want her treatments to be over with as soon as possible, it was a nice break.  This past week was the first time since the beginning that Victoria had a week without chemo. Again yesterday, her counts were too low.
Tomorrow, she returns for more blood work. If her counts are high enough, she will be admitted to the hospital on Thursday. This next phase of treatment includes the only planned admissions into the hospital for treatments. She will have to stay for 3-4 days and this will repeat itself for 3 more times over the next 2 months. It includes some high dose chemo that needs to be given over 24 hrs as well as a lumbar puncture. After that, the next couple of years are all supposed to be outpatient treatment. That is unless she gets sick. Any fever still means an automatic admission at this point.

Victoria continues to amaze us. She has never once said she didn't want to go to the hospital. When she is there, she definitely does not enjoy the treatments. It's the playroom, the volunteers, the great nurses and the Barney DVDs that keep her very happy. I am sure that her positive personality and also her lack of knowledge of the seriousness of the situation help to keep our thoughts so positive as well. She does not think she is sick. She tells us she is all better. I'd like to think she knows more than we do :)

The oncology floor at CHEO was recently renovated. They put out a video to showcase the new ward. If you want to have a peek at what our home away from home looks like, take a look. It's a bit long and might make you shed a tear or two ;) Some of our new friends are in the video. There is also a little girl that walks by that, for a split second, had Jeff and I both wondering if it was Tori. It's not, just  in case any of you think the same.

http://youtu.be/LwfjMUiFfD4?a

I'll let you all know when she get admitted to start the next phase.
Love Jess

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Hey everyone!

First off, I have to apologize for my lack of posting again. I realize that being MIA in the blog world has caused a lot of concern. We are all fine. Victoria is doing REALLY well :) The truth is, if we were back at the hospital, I would most certainly be blogging because I'd need to do something to occupy my time.

Being home is wonderful yet I've never been so busy. The kids have been a lot of work. They have been through a lot lately. Jake has been spoiled by all kinds of family and is having a hard time re-adjusting to our routine. Mostly, he just wants his mommy (ALL THE TIME!) Victoria is also used to having our undivided attention. At the hospital, when we weren't doing medical related things, all we did was play, colour, eat, watch T.V. together etc. It's a big adjustment for everyone. Our new day to day life includes taking Victoria to the hospital 2-3 times per week for day treatments, giving her all of her medications (including twice daily injections), finding occasional care for Jake, home care nursing, work and trying to get the household back in order after 2 month of neglect.

Victoria has been such a great little warrior through this all. She impresses me so much. She has never once complained about having to go back to the hospital. On the days that Jeff takes her in for treatment, upon my arrival home from work, she loves to yell at me that she got to come home! We never promise that she will be coming home, because that wouldn't be fair, so she doesn't take it for granted.

Her white blood cell counts just came back up to the level the doctors wanted, so on this past Monday, she re-started another round of chemotherapy. It's a mixed bag of IVs, injections and pills. She still has a blood clot that she had developed around the time when her first port was removed. It's clearing up as well, but she still needs to be on blood thinners. The blood thinner that is the most compatible with her chemo is, unfortunately, in injection form. We have to give it to her twice a day. Giving her these needles is, by far, the worst part of the day. It takes both Jeff and I to do them. On the three days of the week that I work early, I have to wake her up to give it to her before I leave - not the nicest way to start off your three year old's day!
Her appetite is still not up to par. She still usually picks an item and then can't get enough of it. For days all she ate were grilled sandwiches and then it was pizza (at all hours of the day). Thankfully, she has gained back a bit of weight.

In happier news, she loves playing and fighting with Jake. We have a new little niece and she talks about her all day. Last weekend, her blood counts were not half bad and we knew that with the upcoming new chemo, that they would be lower soon enough. We took the opportunity to drive to Montreal for a little surprise visit to meet the tiny, beautiful Aria. Victoria is so in love with her and even asked to take her home.

After having sewn an insane amount of monkeys, my sister, Lisa, has decided to pass the torch along. Jeff's family is now taking up the sweat-shop business and have been making some really cute, creative monkeys. My co-workers have been making new monkeys with a valentine's Day twist and now some Olympic themed monkeys have been showing up. Again, thank you for all of you support in making and buying monkeys. We love seeing your pictures of the monkeys in your home, especially the ones with your kids.

Going home

Good news: We are being discharged today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't even tell you how happy I am and Victoria is even happier. We've known since Friday night that her chest CT was "markedly improved"  but we didn't get a definitive answer until later on Saturday. If Victoria could tell time she would be counting down the hours. She had a lot of fun taking her artwork off of the walls and windows last night, packing her bags, emptying the fridge and most of all announcing her departure it to everyone who would listen. It was a lot of fun but the whole time I've been worried that she will spike a fever and we would be told she will have to stay. It would break her heart. She knows that she will have to come back often for more medicine and that there will be times in the future that we will sleep over again but for now we all need a break. This morning we were up early due to the excitement. We had been in the playroom and had a sign made about going home before breakfast even came up.
She has a few more chemo injections to go and then we have to wait and see how her body responds. The next part of this phase of treatment is count dependent. That means that her platelets and white blood cells have to come back up to a specific level before they can give her more. She has been doing fairly well but they are lower now and it's not expected that they will be high enough by Friday (that would be the earliest they could start it).
Today we learnt how to give her her injections. The blood thinner that she is on will have to be given twice a day for some time so we will be doing that at home.
I can't wait to have everyone under one roof! She'll be back at CHEO on Wednesday and Friday for chemo but otherwise the plans for this week and the upcoming weekend are to stay put. Wish us luck!

Update: I didn't have time to publish this post before we left the hospital. We are now home and both kids are happily sleeping in their own beds. I feel like I never want any of us to leave the house ever again :)
I'll put up some pictures tomorrow, I just wanted to get this one up before another week goes by.

I am 3

Victoria is three years old! Well, really, if you are counting, she is three years and seven days. This blog post is a week overdue! On December 31st she celebrated her third birthday. Still on a high from her passes out of the hospital and a few visits from Nanna and Gramps, we got her out on another four hour pass to celebrate with her.

My parents came to the hospital and we had a little birthday party for her in the Sen's Den at CHEO. She proudly showed off her "I am 3" shirt, opened more presents and blew out her candles on her sock monkey themed cupcakes. After her afternoon nap we took her out on a pass to continue the celebration with Jeff's family at Tina and Randy's, not far from the hospital. Once again, she was reunited with Jake and couldn't have been happier. More gifts and cupcakes followed. She has been spoiled and with everyone coming to visit her at different times for both Christmas and her birthday there has been a steady influx of gifts. Hopefully her expectation for presents wears off soon.

Medically, Victoria has been doing very well. There hasn't been much going on. She gets her antibiotics several times per day, various other medications and her chemotherapies depending on the day. The only issue was that last Thursday she had a severe allergic reaction to a chemotherapy drug. This particular drug is known to be more allergenic than others. The first time it was administered, the nurse brought in a anaphalactic kit and watched her the whole time it was running. Everything went well. The thing is, you usually don't developed an allergy until after at least one exposure. This second time, within seconds of starting the IV, her face swelled severely and she immediately vomited and started crying. Thankfully, it was noticed right away and she was fine. She had to take benedryll for the next 24 hours but was otherwise fine. There is an alternative chemo but it is a series of injections 3 times a week. The hospital pharmacy didn't have any on hand so we are still waiting for her to get those.   The good news is that we are coming up to the 6 week mark of being on the main antibiotic. On Friday she will be having a repeat CT scan of her lungs and if it looks good we might be taking her home on Monday. Fingers crossed!

Victoria has also recently changed her tune about being in the hospital. Since Saturday she has been asking to go home. I'm taking this as a good sign, one that she is feeling better and starting to feel the cabin fever of being in the hospital every night since November 28th. Perhaps these few passes out have also reminded her that there is still a whole world out there beyond the walls of CHEO.