Léo était ravi de sortir sur son vélo… il allait à fond (les pieds encore au sol, pas encore sur les pédales!) mais s’arrêtait souvent pour regarder des petits détails attentivement sur sa route, jusqu’aux petites mouches! 😉

Il est resté longtemps à observer, toucher, cueillir les olives dans l’olivier du quartier. “Pourquoi les olives poussent dans l’arbre? pourquoi elles sont vertes et pourquoi y’en a des noires?”. Il en a mis plein dans sa poche, puis les a lâchées dans l’herbe (“elles me gênent!”) en les comptant une à une.

Il se souvenait aussi qu’il avait vu une grande toile d’araignée tissée haut dans l’arbre juste au-dessus du chemin la dernière fois qu’il était sorti dehors (il y a 2 bonnes semaines!); elle avait (ce que j’avais oublié!) une feuille prise au piège… la toile était encore là, mais la feuille s’était envolée! “Pourquoi elle est pas là, la feuille?” On a aussi vu une toile débutante, juste un fil reliant un arbre à une voiture… fascinant pour ce petit garçon curieux! Du coup à la maison on est allé chercher une vidéo sur Youtube d’une araignée tissant sa toile: Léo, fasciné, a demandé à la regarder plein de fois! (notamment celle avec le piano en musique de fond). Puis on a enchaîné sur les requins et les koalas! 🙂

Léo est en grande forme; quel bonheur de le retrouver comme ça! Il a passé sa journée à jouer, à s’occuper dans sa chambre, à “lire” des livres… et demain on recommence! On ira peut-être même se promener à Temescal Canyon pendant que Charlotte est à l’école.

So, Leo’s ANC was a little too low yesterday to start treatment today. It’s actually good, as he will have a break and we will be able to enjoy the outdoors this week and next week, after spending 2 full weeks in the house. He is doing so well, he is just a happy camper! He did a lot of art and play dough projects over the last few weeks and played a lot with Charlotte. We also made him run in the house. He had fun and kept himself busy!
🙂

We are scheduled to go back to clinic next Monday to start treatment on Tuesday. Then it’ll be 3 weeks of intensive chemo again… but by Charlotte’s birthday we will be all done: a nice way to celebrate! 🙂 Maintenance should start early November once he recovers from this very last phase, and it will be much easier.

We started to look for schools for him, as he may be able to start in the Spring. Most of them enroll in September but, if there is room, some of them told us that they will make an exception and welcome him to their classroom. The directors were all just so friendly. We are looking for a school with a good program obviously but also where all children are immunized to protect our little one, as he probably lost all of his immunizations over his course of treatment. We won’t be able to know where he is at before the end of treatment, i.e. June 2015! But since he was neutropenic most of the time, he probably doesn’t have much left…

Anyway, the light out of the tunnel is coming right up… and it feels GREAT!!! :):)

Léo is much better today: it’s a relief! His face is still pretty swollen from the steroids but he is in good spirits… and so are we!

Thank you all for your support: it surely helps us out to go through all this! 🙂

We all had a very rough week, and especially our little one of course; we are glad that this part of treatment is over. Léo’s bottom still hurts a lot and we are doing our best to manage it. Hopefully it’ll get better over the next few days… Today he was still occasionally in pain but was much more active than the past few days and he had a really good time with Charlotte tonight: it makes us think that he should be much better tomorrow and we sure hope so! As he is still neutropenic we are keeping him safely home and he hasn’t broken a fever yet. Let’s keep our fingers crossed! 🙂

Léo lost his hair again today, but we know that he will get them back slowly during the second stage of this last phase. And he is cute like this too! 😉

We will go back to clinic on Tuesday to see where he is at and then on the 17th to find out if he is ready to keep going on the 18th. Then there will be only 3 more weeks to go, so…… YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂

We are slowly getting back to a more normal life in which we can actually start planning things again… we kind of forgot about that over the past few months, as we had to shoot for one phase (sometimes even one day or one week!) at a time. Our habits will come back quickly and we already have fun things in mind that we all look forward to! Geez, what a marathon but our hopes are really high! 🙂

Chemo is surely working very well!!! So, we are back on our “neutropenic mode”… but it’s all good and we are almost done! Today we were pleased to hear that Léo didn’t need any transfusions. 🙂

Things went very well this morning at clinic, he is such a champ! Léo is a little tired from his intense chemo treatment though; we know that he will get over it just as fast as last time, and we are ready for a week of steroids and its challenges! 😉

We will go back to clinic next Friday to test Léo’s blood and if he is ready we will start the last phase September 18th. Can’t wait! In the meantime we will keep him busy at home.

We had a really rough one this week, but it’s all better now: what a relief! Leo was very agitated, always hungry and irritable all week long, mostly because of the steroids. It was pretty draining. This week will be easier as he will be off (just had chemo yesterday, which he seems to be tolerating very well); we can already enjoy the difference this morning! He is so talkative ever since he woke up and just in a great mood! 🙂

His ANC was 4700 yesterday! The doctors recommended that we take advantage of this to go to the beach over the weekend, which we did yesterday afternoon. Both kids were so thrilled! Charlotte went to look for a spot where there was nobody around. We still have to be careful, as we don’t want him to get sick at this stage of treatment!

Today we will be going to the mountains and tomorrow (and maybe again every day until the middle of next week, when his counts should start to be on the down slope again…) we will enjoy the beach again.

This feels so great and we also gave him a yogurt with brown sugar yesterday and of course tons of raspberries! He was so happy and he asked “c’est fini, le traitement maintenant?” (i.e. “Are we done with treatment now?”). He is starting to realize what is going on and it is a good thing. We just simply answer his questions. He remains so good and patient, like a little angel! 🙂

This week will surely be easier to go through, then we will start one more week of steroids on Friday… we are clearly starting to see the light out of the tunnel! We celebrated with a nice croissant from Amandine today… which was surely appreciated! 😉

Léo was ready to start his last phase of intensive chemo before we (finally!) start the maintenance phase, probably at the end of October. His ANC was 1,200 and his platelets were at 267,000 this morning! He received a lot of chemo via his port and got his lumbar puncture (+chemo in the spine). We were there from 8 am til 2 pm! He was NPO since 8 pm last night and had to wait until noon for his procedure, but he was so patient and everything went very smoothly. We gave him a big dinner with French fries and all yesterday night and it certainly helped!! 😉

We will be going back Tuesday and Friday of next week for more chemo treatment, a little less than this morning though, one dose at a time.

One of the molecules that was administrated this morning is supposed to be cardiotoxic, but apparently, after talking to the head of the department today, there is nothing to worry about as the dose being used is very small and most kids go through it very nicely. His “cardiac reserve” was detected at 60% over the summer during his last hospitalization; this morning I was told that he started at 61% when he was diagnosed in February… so, so far so good! 🙂 It felt good to clarify this but obviously we will have to monitor this over time!

We also got the results of the lumbar puncture tonight and it came out good, like always so far, i.e. free of leukemia cells: yeah!! 🙂

Léo is in great shape; his cheeks are colorful and he is very active and playful. He gained weight over the summer and is now at 13.5 kg (29.9 pounds). He also grew a lot! He will get hit over the next few weeks obviously but apparently this phase is easier to go through compared to the last few ones. 🙂

Léo had his blood test on Friday and his ANC was 1200! And it should still be climbing up for a while, at least until the end of August. He is allowed to eat berries, which he is thrilled about! He ate a whole box of raspberries yesterday… 🙂 He has been so patient, we are so glad that he can enjoy the summer fruits!

Next Friday we will test his blood again and if the ANC is above 1500 we will definitely spend some time at the beach. It feels great to see him like himself, happy and energetic… and so hungry! He definitely got his weight back. 🙂

We are SO glad this phase is behind us… Leo did very well again at the hospital this weekend. He also had a blast at the hospital’s playroom a few times! 🙂 So far the side effects are not too bad and our little one has good appetite and is active. We will check his blood on Friday as his ANC dropped down to 800, which is to be expected. We are so happy he stayed on schedule so that we could get rid of this phase! 🙂 That was a challenge even if everything went pretty well!

Next: if he Léo is ready we will start the next phase August 17th, which should last between 2 and 3 months. We were told that this is like a combination of a mini-induction and a mini-consolidation. They call it “delayed intensification”. It’ll be very similar to what Léo has been through these past few months and we know that he handles all this very well. He will probably be neutropenic most of the time, but we now have experience in the field! 😉

We are glad he could enjoy the summer pretty well as his blood counts were so good. Then we will finally be in maintenance for the next 3 years: we are moving forward and it feels good! 🙂

Léo is not suffering from any side effects this time around…: what a relief! 🙂 He is playing joyfully and is very active. This morning we went to Temescal Canyon with Charlotte and his cousin Romain; Léo ran everywhere, playing ball and frisbee, like he used to before he got sick. Such a joy to see him like this! 😉

We are taking a break from the hospital and it feels good. We are scheduled for a blood test on the 25th to see if he is ready for the last hospitalization of this cycle, which would start on the 26th. Nothing in the meantime… just a taste of normal life, which we are all enjoying a lot! 🙂