Hey all!

Its been a couple of months. I just wanted to give some updates. Nieva has now officially been off chemo 9 months!! And she has been healing from her Varicella/Pnuemonia scare for 6 months!! Last week we had our monthly checkup with her oncologist, and today we had a dentist appointment and her FIRST well visit back in her regular peds clinic (She still will continue regular oncology visits monthly through May, and then every two months a year, then every three months a year, and so forth), SO we are excited to be entering back into normal clinic settings even if it is in conjunction with our oncology checkups.

At last week's oncology appointment we got news that if all continues on well, we can have Nieva's port removed in approximately 3 months (This will be close to the three year anniversary of her diagnosis date). All her counts looked great and she has been showing immunity to Varicella. This means we can breathe a little and not be so scared if we hear about a chickenpox outbreak (You can get up to date on the background of all of that here if curious: www.caringbridge.org/visit/nievarebecca). All in all, great news from the oncology stand point of things!! Leukemia holds relapse risk, but every month out we get from treatment, the chances of relapse goes down a bit more which is of course great!!

This morning at her pediatric dentistry appointment, we talked about the fact Nieva's front 4 teeth have almost completely worn away (seemingly just over this past year). We were assured this is likely a combo of chemo weakening the teeth and presumably also some acid reflux from meds (judging by the fact the erosion is from the back of teeth, as opposed to just straight on bottom from grinding which is what I suspected initially). Since she has all baby teeth yet, the good news is we can be hopeful there will be no problems when her adult teeth come in. Her dentist also seemed surprised by her great oral care (chemo can cause a lot of issues and I hate to say I had braced for the worst for today). Her teeth looked fabulous though. No cavities, no issues, no surgeries needed, and well.... no problems.

At her well child 5 year checkup we went through her checklist. They tell us it is common for them to be able to do a fair amount of the questions, but not everything is expected for the normal child. You don't do "well child" visits during treatment so its been almost 3 years since we have filled out one of these forms of questions. I suppose mostly they do not do them because you are just trying as caregivers to get through cancer. And well... they are WELL child visits and she certainly wasn't well. We had been made aware you can expect potentially lower scores and some falling behind with weight, height, abilities, dexterity, and overall success with this visit etc.... so I was a touch nervous about this.

Well... I guess noone told Nieva she should be behind, or shorter, or what-not. Her height and weight are perfectly in the 85th percentile and in perfect ratio to eachother. She pretty much aced her abilities tests. Many tests exceedingly so (Oh you want me to stand on one foot for 5 seconds and I get 3 tries, how about I do 20 seconds in my first try. No prob Mom). Lol! I don't say any of this in a bragging kind of way so much as a shocked and so incredibly pleasantly surprised kind of way!! Again I had sort of braced myself for there being some bad news somewhere and am just so thankful to hear all GOOD!!

Nieva has been sleeping great and eating great. She is for the most part super happy and fun and the spunky and zesty little fireball we have always loved. We are so incredibly blessed to have had so many fun adventures with her this winter.

We got our official notice yesterday talking about entering kindergarten! We couldn't be more thrilled!!! We had forgotten what words like "normal" or "peace" meant. Thanks again to all who have prayed for our daughter, lent a helping hand to our family, and/or believed in her healing. Also, a huge thanks to those who have helped directly with her through school and child care and in the hospital. You are all awesome and part of why she is so happy. We have been homebodies a bit more and slowed down to focus on peace and relationships this year. It has been a beautiful season of healing and transformation for all of us. I think we have all grown and learned so much about what is truly important in this life. Thanks for reading.

Image by:   Amanda's Imagery 2016  www.amandasimagery.com — Image by: Amanda's Imagery 2016 www.amandasimagery.com

Image by:    Amanda's Imagery  www.amandasimagery.com — Image by: Amanda's Imagery www.amandasimagery.com