1 year in Maintenance

This month marks Olivia's 1st year in Maintenance. She has been doing well overall. I get questions once in a while asking if Olivia still has leukemia or is she completely healed. She is currently in remission and is in the final stages of her treatment. 6 more months to go and she's done with chemotherapy! The chemo during maintenance phase is like finishing antibiotics. You need to make sure you take it through the required duration to make sure the leukemia cells doesn't come back, and to make sure it continues to kill leukemia cells that might be hiding. When Olivia was considered in remission, there's this "minimal residual disease" that doctors measure. So it is still possible that there are some "monsters" still hiding and that's why we have to continue chemo for this long. Once she reaches 5 years in remission, we can finally say that she survived cancer!

I can't help but get sentimental at times especially when we found ourselves in the same restaurant (and the same table) where we were at exactly a year ago. Last year we celebrated Olivia's last chemo before maintenance phase. And look at her now. She has grown a lot, grown her hair and is the sweetest now more than ever! We celebrate her life every day!

1 year ago - last day of chemo before maintenance

Olivia 1 year later