Ava's Return

Ava has been integrating back into school these last two weeks and it is going great.  Her teachers have been wonderful and have offered to help Ava catch up in ways that go above and beyond our expectations.  We are so thankful.

In general, we are easing back into a regular sort of life.  We've had a lot of extra hurdles to deal with: health issues, a dead vehicle that needed to be replaced, ill family members, and other things that seem super minor compared to our brief (but intense) journey with cancer.  Holly will go back to work full-time on Monday after working a lot from home over the last couple months; and I will take on what I can with our landscaping business as the outside season wanes and will teach again next semester. 

We look at Ava and marvel that she defeated this illness in 4 months.  Her hair is starting to grow back - she was thrilled to be able to change the direction with a comb the other night!  She is active - plays in the yard and at school each day.  She is training our dog to be a therapy dog, which may be the cutest process to observe of ever. 

For Halloween, Ava has chosen to be a cancer patient.  She has a gown, homemade IV stand, and tubes/bags galore, provided by one of our amazing nurses at St. Jude.  We understand that this might feel a little bit "too soon-ish" to some folks, but we are choosing to honor her process and wishes to make light of her journey in this way.  In some form, this is part of how she is dealing with the trauma she has been through and we support her, with understanding that others may not view it through the same lens. 

Overall, Ava is adapting to normalcy really well and we are all committed to never taking dailiness for granted again, though I'm sure this mindfulness will be increasingly difficult as the days between cancer and regular life increase in number. 

Re-Integration

 

Leaving St. Jude

I walked out of St. Jude for (what may be) the last time on Friday, after Ava's surgery to remove her port.  It was a bittersweet moment.  We may all be back someday for Ava's scans, but for now, paying for extra plane tickets for a short visit doesn't seem do-able.  She'll have scans here in JC in December, and will go back to St. Jude for scans in Feb. and then every 3 months for a year.  The next four years will require scans every 6 months, and once a year after that.  

   

I'll miss St. Jude.  I've never encountered a place in the medical field where people enjoy where they work, where the space is designed to nurture the whole person, and where - for lack of a better term - the energy was good.  I think I'll have more to say about how amazing St. Jude is in coming posts.

Now, we work on establishing what "normal" is in this new chapter.  There's no getting around it - we are all changed, so the normal we knew can no longer be.  If we frame it in a positive light, it sounds good: we get to create our new ways of being.  

Ava's oncologists cleared her for a return to school immediately, so we've already been integrating her back into 5th grade.  Today, she'll go to one class, lunch, and recess.  Tomorrow, we might add another class.  Within a week we expect she'll be attending full days, unless something unforeseen happens.  Her teacher let us talk to her class today about Ava's journey with cancer and how to be supportive friends to her emotionally, psychologically, and how to do their best with hand hygiene/germs.  

Ava's energy level is amazing and her spirits are usually high and, as is completely normal, there are some behavioral issues to deal with as parents (to be transparent).  We'll just keep doing the dailiness the best way we know how, just like all parents do.