Day 1 of Interim Maintenance.

Ally made her counts today. She had to hit ANC of 750 and she was 760....so just by a teensy tiny bit. So tomorrow is the official start of her "Interim Maintenance" phase and it begins with a dreaded spinal tap. I am so nervous about this after our bad experience last time. But there is nothing I can do to help matters other than be there at the bedside to support my daughter through it. Tomorrow is a bittersweet date for us in a way. If Ally would have been diagnosed with standard risk ALL, she would have been starting the once a month maintenance phase tomorrow. We would have been done with the extremely hard stuff. But our daughter was classified as high risk and also had that MRD number come back higher than they wanted. In turn, we are facing four more months of very intense chemotherapy and eight days in a row of radiation on her head. This is something I never wanted to do, but I am trying to come to terms with it. I am believing she has to do it to prevent the cancer from coming back.

We are also due a big snowstorm tomorrow. I love the snow, but get scared when it comes on days like tomorrow. Unfortunately, there are areas of the world that do not get "snow days" and the hospital is one of them. We are grateful to all the medical staff that brave the elements no matter what...sometimes they even sleep there and then start working again. The importance of the medical care comes first to them, and that is a good thing.

Tomorrow Ally gets a spinal tap. A push of vincristine. A new chemo push of methotrexate. An hour long infusion of her monthly antibiotic. And an hour long infusion of her IVIG immunity booster. It is going to be a very long day. I just hope she continues smiling as she has been doing lately. Smiling is good.

Thanks for praying for our girl.