Léo has been great ever since he started maintenance: completely back to himself, such a joy to see him like this! We went out to Joshua Tree National Park this weekend, our first little getaway of the year: it was much appreciated by the whole family! Léo couldn’t hold himself: “I love the desert, it’s SO fun!”. We looked for Jack rabbits and big horn sheeps, but couldn’t find any… still, we enjoyed hiking and Léo walked pretty much all the way to an oasis, which was a hike of 3 miles! He didn’t want to be carried, or even being helped walking on the rocks: he was just happily zooming ahead with Charlotte, like you will see on these pics!

Today Léo’s ANC was at 1,100, which is great. We are aware that his counts may drop at some point, but there is no new restriction and we can keep enjoying the outdoors! He goes to the park or the beach pretty much every day and he is curious about any kind of food… even salad!!! 😉

Maintenance is still heavy in a way since he has to take a lot of medications orally, but he is taking them pretty easily, which helps a lot! Next step is the Tuesday following Thanksgiving: Vincristin + LP and chemo in the spine, followed by 5 days of steroids. We will make it through! 🙂

Well, maintenance started this morning; Leo was ready, his ANC was at 1,000. He did very well this morning, like usual. We then started the rest of the medications tonight: there is quite a bunch, it’s pretty impressive… a long road is ahead of us and we will follow it slowly but surely, always hoping that we truly beat these freakin’ cells!

Léo had so much fun at Halloween with Charlotte. They were so cute, so happy to look for the lights and ring the bells of these gorgeous houses north of Montana. We chose a more quiet street and were among the first kids trick or treating; it was much fun and their bags were so full of chocolate and candies! 😉 It felt really good to hear their happy and energetic little voices saying out loud “Trick or Treat”! 🙂

It’s really moving to watch Léo being so happy rediscovering life; he is just so excited about everything! Next week we will take our first trip of the year, just for a couple days, in the desert of Palm Springs: we so look forward to it! 😉

Every day we take a step forward to a more normal life and we are thrilled to be able to go to places again! Sunday we will also take them to the science museum at USC: it’ll be fun too! 🙂