ALL for Ally: Girl Scout Cookie Day

Friends: I know I haven't posted for a while. Usually this means I am just getting along with life and such and time slips past me. Which is partially true, but I am also in a rut. I apologize to all of the people who have sent me emails, texts, phone calls, etc. I haven't been the best about returning them. Right now I am just sad and mad at the world that my friends are now facing leukemia with their child. At the hospital and amongst my "cancer family" it is a talked about that the parents face a bit of post traumatic stress disorder as soon as their child finishes treatment. Maybe you have to go through it to realize that this can happen but I can totally see how this occurs. Parents have to stay strong for so long...carrying the burden of their child's illness around with them for several years. The worry alone can bear heavily on the soul and noone wants to see their child go through the pain either. However, while going thru it, there is no choice other than to be strong. But when it is over, I can sense that there is a bit of a collapse. The worry escalates a bit (no more chemo safety net anymore), the child still complains (but no chemo to blame anymore) and then you look back at the enormity of what you have just been through and WOW. Stressful. Grateful yes, but also stressful. So to have some of your friends (who are pretty much like my family) be diagnosed just about a month after the port came out....well it doesn't help the emotional state any. I don't want anyone to feel sorry for us...we have so much to be grateful for...just want you to know where I am coming from and the sadness that now fills my heart.

What I can ask for, is that our army continue to support this family in their journey. I have seen so many of you post messages to them on their caring bridge site. Every time I see it another tear is shed by me. We are so lucky to have our army and I know Caulin and family will love all the prayers and support. So thank you.

Ally seems to be doing alright. She still complains of something pretty much every day (except for vacation week...why are there no complaints during vacation week?? ;) We never got the blood/platelets tested again. I assumed since the doctor was okay with it that Dr Mom needed to be okay with it too. It did shake me up quite a bit and with every symptom Ally ever speaks of I start my internal questioning, but I have left it at that. I followed my friend Suzanne's advice...I put my faith over my fears....and we went on with our lives. We went to an amusement park this week. For the past few years, everytime we do something like this we end up pushing our 100+lb girl around in one of those rental stroller things. Her ankles are too weak and she tires too easily...legs hurting, etc. And this time we still rented the stroller, and she even still sat in the stroller, but I noticed her able to walk a little a further on her own!! Her ankles still hurt at the end of the day, but I definitely felt like I saw progress in her. This is a good thing and makes me very happy. On Wednesday, she does go back to the clinic to get checked by Dr Broccoli and have her counts done. Praying for that. Wanting to see normal numbers again.

A while back, Ally started selling girl scout cookies. But we took a bit of a different approach and decided to sell them in order to donate them to the Hemoc patients at Dayton Children's. I was very proud of my girl for always wanting to give back and never forgetting her time spent there. She did great with this and had 131 boxes donated!! We took them to the 4th floor inpatient unit, the Almost Home unit (where she goes for spinals and such), and also had numerous boxes for the clinic. We also shared with the PICU and the NICU. Ally's BFF Madison had mentioned wanting to help her pass them out. And coincidentally, Caulin was there getting chemo that day so he walked a little with us too. So proud of these kids.