Thursday

Survivorship is hard. No one ever tells you this, but it simply is. The period of time following the completion of chemotherapy is fraught with a plethora of complex emotions and feelings that no one is really ever prepared to process.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Brooklyn had some enlarged lymph nodes in her neck about five weeks ago. I took her into Children's for a follow up last week and, well, the lymph nodes are still there. In addition to the lymph nodes, Brooklyn's last blood work showed that she is now anemic. A frustrating discovery.

To be clear, swollen lymph nodes and anemia are two common symptoms of leukemia. They are also common symptoms of viral infection and if you have forgotten, this is also what we were told back in 2013 when Brooklyn was initially brought into CHLA for further testing. Virus or Leukemia. I naively assumed virus. I could not have been more wrong back then. At any rate, we've been instructed to return on Thursday to see if her counts have adjusted back to normal on their own. If not, we will likely be staring down the barrel of a bone marrow aspiration to rule out a relapse.

It's been a looooong two weeks. I have been operating on autopilot, floating back and forth between sheer terror, to complete optimism. On occasion I'll feel guilt that I must have done something wrong along the way with her meds, other times I will feel anger with... I don't know, the statistics associated with this dumb fucking disease, maybe? It's all been very scattered. Occasionally I take a step back, look at the facts and use reason and logic to come to some kind of sane conclusion. Brooklyn is fine. Statistically speaking she met all of the markers to have the best prognosis possible with this disease. Our house has been grounds for a plague of viral infection for months now. It would make complete sense for her to simply be fighting something right now.

Anyway, if I can ask one thing from our friends and family right now. Please keep Brooklyn and our family in your thoughts on Thursday and send positive, healthy vibes to our girl.