Aug 16, 2016   9:30pm (Sara)

While Maya’s labs are looking good and her energy level is better than should be expected at this point in treatment…I think watching Maya play doctor with her pediatrician today was the highlight of my week. Maya, Lincoln and I went to visit Dr. Papez for Lincoln’s 18 month wellness check. We really try to not take Maya out as much as possible to limit exposure to the community bugs but it just worked out that Maya needed to join us this time. It turned out to be a wonderful visit for all of us.

During our visit, Maya was able to hold Linco’s hand during his shot and she got to talk story to some new ears. Dr. Papez was very accommodating to Maya’s wishes of play time; this time Maya was the doctor as Dr. Papez became the patient. I’m actually not exactly sure who was more excited to play. She he even played doctor with the “real life doctering toy” which she talked about all the way home. She checked her patient’s eyes, ears, and heart as many times as possible. It was precious (I’m slightly devastated that I didn’t take any pictures). At some point, the kids were able to distract each other while the doctor and I talked about all sorts of things.

On our way home, Maya and I had pretty funny conversation.
Maya: “is doctor Papez your friend?”
Me: “ummmmm…I would call her my friend, yeah”
Maya: “how come we have never seen her out in the wild?”
Me: “bwahahahaha….did you just ask why we haven’t seen her in the wild?” I had to confirm what I thought she had said.
Maya: “yeah, how come?”
Me: “We haven’t hung out but one day we’ll see her out and about and you’ll know her”.
Maya: “I like her. I think she’s my friend too”.
One of these days we’ll actually get to have lunch (out in the wild) so we can talk with out a time limit. I suppose I’ll be busted if Maya isn’t invited. I’m so lucky to have a wonderful woman and mother as my children’s pediatrician. Thank you again.

As for the results of Lincoln’s appointment. He is hovering in the awesomeness that is the 99th percentile. I know that Linc has genes to be big (Scott is 6’7″) but really? How is he THIS big already? He most certainly has a blend of Scott’s length and my density. And he is awesome. My gentle giant and Maya’s King Kong. He’s doing great.

Maya continues to impress and amaze me. Her labs are stable and there has yet to be a need for transfusion.

Hgb: 8.9, Platelets: 245, WBC: 1.5, ANC 470.
We’ll check again on Thursday to make sure she isn’t dropping again. I am always concerned that we are “going in the right direction”. Good numbers should feel better…I just hope we dropped low enough to wipe out any leukemic cells that can sneak in. Because we don’t check labs every day, Maya may have bottomed out over the weekend – though the lowest we have seen was a white blood cell count of 0.9 (still not zero).

We love breaks in chemo. A day that does not include worrying about which medicine to give her and at what time is a good day. 7 more days like that till we start Interim Maintenance 2 in a week. As Maya heals (well really as we all heal) we have enjoyed visits with family, bubbles, splash pads and back yard baby pools, amazing peaches, and watching the Olympics. Both Maya and Lincoln are aspiring divers as they jump onto the couch from the ottoman. This is after Lincoln says “eddy, eeet, boop”…this is his version of “ready, set, sound effect for beep”. Our lives are still very fun – not something I thought was a possibility 6 months ago. 6 months. Wow. We are hoping for some lake time this weekend…and more healing.

Love is life.