4 years in remission

It's been almost 2 years since my last post. After Olivia's last chemo and surgery, we slowly started getting back to our old normal. I thought this would be a nice post to share with other families who are almost at the end of their treatment.

Olivia went to kindergarten 9 months post treatment. We couldn't have asked for a better timing to be done with treatment. It was perfect. She had just enough time to get back into the groove of things before she started school. While it wasn't easy getting adjusted to a school setting, she tried her very best. 

Before she went to Kindergarten, she was able to spend a couple months back in her pre-school. At that time we noticed that she wasn't really participating in the writing exercises. Her teacher would show me her workbook was always blank. She wouldn't even try tracing letters. At first we thought maybe she needed a tutor to help her.  But after speaking to a friend and consulting with our oncologist, we were advised to see an occupational therapist. We got her evaluated and my friend was right. She definitely needed therapy. After years of not really using her hand muscles and just basic fine and gross motor skills, she needed help to learn all of that. I was worried in the beginning but to us, her health was more important then than having to pressure her to work on this while in active chemo treatment.

It's been a year now since she started therapy. We are thankful that we were able to figure out she needed it early on. While it's still a work in progress, we know she'll catch up in her own time. 

When Olivia was first diagnosed with Leukemia, I read a lot about the disease. Knowing more about it and what to expect definitely made it easier for us to get through the 3 years of treatment. I read a lot about post treatment and how your worries turn into something else. What happens beyond treatment? During treatment, while we felt like we were always on guard through all the infections, fevers, complications -you name it..we knew the protocol and we knew the doctors are there to help us get through. Post treatment, we started to worry about what to do when Olivia gets a fever. Do we still call the doctor on call right away? Can we now go to public places, exposing Olivia to a lot of people (and germs) and not worry about her getting sick? We had so many questions but we're glad our doctor guided us through what to expect next.

For the first year post treatment, Olivia had to come back for blood work once a month. The doctors still monitored her counts just to make sure the cancer cells are not coming back. The frequency of check up/blood work lessens every year. Now that we are in the 2nd year post treatment, she only gets blood work done once every 2 months . Next year it will be every 3 months, and so on.

So far, everything has been going well with Olivia. It took a while before she got her first fever. While she was in treatment, if she gets a fever, we automatically have to go to the ER and get admitted. Usually she stays in the hospital about a week average. We were told now that she is done with treatment, we would be going back to our regular pediatrician if she gets sick. They gave us the assurance though that if we think we really need to bring her back to the hospital, they will be there for us. First fever came, and we went to our pediatrician. It was weird to just have to take tylenol and get some rest in the comforts of our home. That's when we realized we are back to normal. A part of me felt that we are now on our own. (Of course we we're not because we were blessed with a good pediatrician and a reliable oncologist). It just felt weird for a moment. Slowly we eased our way into our normal routine. Going out on trips not worrying about getting sick. Having fun again as a family.

As for her blood counts, we used to always want to know right away the results of her counts. It took us a while to get used to not getting the results anymore. We had to just trust that if something was wrong, we would be getting a call from the doctors asap.

Next year will be a big one for Olivia. 5 years of being in remission also means we can finally say she survived cancer. She has always been a brave fighter, a SURVIVOR! She doesn't really remember a lot about what she went through but I believe all of what she had to go through made her become what she is today... Strong, brave, very positive attitude and never worries about the small things. We are so proud of her!