insights to living with cancer....

I decide I would make this blog entry about life with a child that has been diagnosed with Leukemia. When you first get the news, you feel like the floor has just drop up underneath you. No ,it can`t be my child, why,why!
It was hard for her going thru the treatments, taking the yucky medicine, besides losing her hair twice, yes ,I had a bald little girl at one time, wearing a mask everytime we went somewhere and having people stare at her, those that don`t know. Wondering if her counts were good ,so she can go to school or go someplace fun or even take the mask off. Wearing the mask is to prevent her from catching something, in which she still caught a few bugs during that time. I had one person came up to me during one of those times of wearing the mask and he asked if she was gonna to hold up the station, I just said her counts may be low and you could give her something, he didn`t say anything after that. Her treatments have been over with for alomst 3 years, yay!
The people around here that know her, each time we say well we are getting ready for another trip to St Louis, is she sick? No, we just have check-ups every 6 months, to make sure everything is ok. Just like her teacher, who I asked how she was doing with her school work, oh she is doing ok and she is done with her treatments so their shouldn`t be a problem now.She may be done with the treatments, but their is still the late-effects from those treatments. My biggest complaint is her being soooo tired at times. Sometimes ,a full day of school wears her out soo much. She falls asleep on the way home. She would like to play Basketball, but I am soo worried about her....I could just see her laying on the bench during a game and sleeping, lol.
I think she is starting to have trouble in her school work, its not really showing yet, except for her reading ,in which she can`t remember what she just read and does bad on the test for the story she just read.In which this is a late-effect from the chemo that she had.

I remember thinking one day while at the drug store, while waiting on them to make her meds, while she was taking chemo, I seen the lady come up with a mask on and she had just made her medicine am I putting in my daughter, then it occured to me, these meds are making her better and keeping the cancer away for now, so she needs them.

So ,please remember that after the chemo is over, their are still late effects that the families have to deal with.