Fall 2019

I had such a great summer after we found out I didn’t have cancer anymore. Everyone was just happy all the time and I got to do all my favorite things, like go swimming, go to the lake and have sleepovers. I had so much energy and I was thankful to not have to be in the hospital anymore or talk about the things. I kept taking a chemo at home to keep the cancer away. But it wasn’t a kind that made me feel sick so I didn’t care. 

I started sixth grade in the Fall and I loved it.  I met a bunch of new friends and they loved to be crazy like me. We called ourselves “The Banana Squad” and Addie was in it too. I don’t really remember where that even came from but we were crazy so it worked. It was nice to have a whole group of friends that didn’t care that I was a little different. It didn’t bother them that I didn’t have hair, they just liked me for me. 

For Fall Break we got to go out to Arizona. My dad has always wanted to take me out there to see the place where he grew up and it was so fun. We did A LOT of hiking. Everyday basically. Mom was kinda worried about how I would do with all of it. She worried about my energy and my legs hurting and she made me drink water all the time. But the thing was, I felt great. Sometimes the grown ups would take breaks on our hikes but I would just keep going. I was always wandering off the trails and they were always yelling for me to come back so they could see where I was. I was just so excited to be out exploring and so excited that nothing was hurting.  We went to lots of different parks and even to the Grand Canyon. I saw people that were hiking to the bottom and I decided one day when I’m older I want to do that. There’s a place you can camp at the bottom and I can’t wait until I’m old enough to do it.

A couple weeks after we got back it was time for scans. That’s when we found out I had cancer again, but just a little. The scans showed a small spot in each of my legs right above the knees. We talked to Dr. Weiss a lot and since the spots were so small and I was feeling so good we just decided to keep doing the same chemo. It seemed like the only other thing we could do was my last MIBG and no one wanted to do that for two little spots. The spots worried me a little because I was afraid I would start having real bad pain but I just tried not to think about it. Mom said we shouldn’t spend our good days worrying about bad ones, she said we should just enjoy them. Don’t tell her, but I thought that was the smartest thing she’d ever said. So every time I started to worry about the cancer getting worse or my pain coming back I just took a deep breath and tried to remember that those things weren’t happening. Not yet anyways.