My LAST Week of Treatments (We Pray)

I’m finally the young one in a picture! Sweet Mazy had her 100th day of school today and was encouraged to dress up as an old person. It’s moments like these that I’m thankful I didn’t have to miss, but it also makes leaving Mazy and my best friend Dan, all the harder.

After dropping Mazy off, the tears just flowed, even though this is my last treatment. Going back to Ann Arbor doesn’t necessarily get easier, but is a reminder of how far we’ve come. I look at how far Mazy has grown in her confidence and faith. I see how Dan’s and my faith have grown. God knew he needed to use leukemia to do so.

After meeting with my oncologist today, we were able to get a glimpse of what life will look like after these 4 consolidation rounds. Six weeks from now I will have an in-depth blood test to see if any leukemia is present. After that, I will go in for monthly blood draws, with more in-depth draws every 3 months. There is a chance of relapse, but with my kind of AML, inversion 16, it is the least likely to relapse. I started to tear up when I heard those words! Within the first 2 years is my biggest chance of relapse, so it’ll be 2 years of waiting and wondering what God’s will, will be. After 5 years, if it has not come back, then I will be considered cured.

The idea of relapse has been on my mind more and more as we near the end of the initial treatments, but even if I do relapse, there are still options. I would go through more chemo and possibly immunotherapy, but it’s not without hope.

On the way to the hospital today, Dan and I had a chance to look back. Reminisce about where we started and where we are now. At times it seems as if these past 5 months have flown by, yet at other times it feels like it has taken forever to get to where we are today. Leukemia and treatments have consumed our lives and is the topic of most conversations. This journey has had so many ups and downs, tears and times of celebration, and yet through it all, God has shown us his faithfulness, tender love, and sweet compassion.

I anticipate Saturday being a tearful day, ringing that bell. Though I’m not sure if I’ll be so overjoyed that no tears will flow! Regardless, we know we have been sheltered by God’s wings and carried through this journey.

No matter what happens tomorrow, in the next few weeks as I recover, and for years to come, we know His perfect plan will prevail and all we have to do is trust him in it. We know that my heart failure journey will only ramp up again once I am healthy enough to have a procedure and/or be taken of medications, but in this, we trust him too. He’s never failed us in the past and he never will in the future. What comfort that brings!