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.