Check up

Luis went for a check up in London last week. It has been over 5 months since his last chemo treatment and everything is still progressing well. All of his blood work is in the normal range and even a bit better from last month. We got to stay at a local hotel. It had a living room, dining room, bedroom and bathroom. Luis loved playing house. He said "Let's make this the best night ever". When I asked what he wanted to do first, he said "Let's clean up".

I laughed....that's my boy :)

I'm excited that Luis will finally be getting his port out this month. His port is a metal device embedded under the skin in his chest that is connected to a vein. The port simplifies the process of delivering medicines and drawing blood. Now that Luis is off chemo and doing well, he doesn't need it!

There's a local boy was recently diagnosed with leukemia in January. Seeing the pictures of the boy go from a cute, normal looking kid, to a chubby boy hooked up on tubes was reminiscent of the our own experience. The treatment protocol is very similar to what Luis went through. I connected with his mother online on a few occasions to express my support. Since we were in London, we took the opportunity to pay it forward. We picked out some groceries and toys to bring to the mother and son. We didn't stay long because the boy wasn't feeling well.

Throw back to the beginning

When we were on the sixth floor, Luis asked about which room he was in when he was sick. We did a short tour and peeked into the large room that he spent most of his time in.

I remembered walking the halls of the sixth floor in those first few days nearly three years ago when everyone else was asleep and finally allowing myself to really cry.  I couldn't believe how walking down those hallways now and looking into that room brought back so many memories, and stirred up so many emotions. My eyes started to well up.

I pulled it together, told Luis how much I love him and how happy he makes me, and we went home, back to our normal lives.

Amen.

--Mommy