Round 4

Anne and I are not particularly good at taking selfies. This was us getting in the car on the way home from chemotherapy. It was a pretty good day. All of her blood work came back very strong and that was fantastic news before starting another round of chemo. The staff where Anne receives chemo are fantastic, and they always take good care of her. The team was really happy with how Anne’s side effects went last treatment cycle, so we are hopeful that we have a good plan moving forward to manage the side effects.

The doctor has ordered a PET scan and we hope to have that scheduled in the next couple of weeks. That is pretty standard after the first two cycles (four rounds of chemo equals two cycles) because the team wants to make sure her treatment plan is working as anticipated.

There is an organization called Caps for Kids that gets celebrities to sign baseball hats for kids with cancer. Anne was given the opportunity to write down the name of someone that she would like to have sign a cap for her. Anne did not pick a typical celebrity – she picked the engineer Mark Rober who does the YouTube videos about glitter bombs and other fun videos. He has a fun video about a backyard squirrel obstacle course that you can watch here. He signed a hat for Anne and sent an extra hat to her from his Crunch Labs. She was happy.

Anne’s high school Calculus teacher reached out this week and sent her some great materials to help her with her Calculus. Another friend sent a website resource that she can use with practice problems. We are happy that she now has a plan to work on Calculus and Physics, and we are grateful to Anne’s former teachers for their help. She has several art projects planned that involve building too. It is fun to see her mind focusing on constructive things.

We are also going to take advantage of this time off from school and responsibility to work on Anne’s sleep habits and schedule. She really began to struggle with sleep her senior year, but the stress of having to get up the next morning for school was always looming as we tried different approaches to sleep. We are going to use this time off to try to reset with sleep. There is a holistic oncologist at Anne’s treatment center who is going to work with us. We are excited about this opportunity for some downtime for Anne to build habits that will hopefully help her with wellness for her lifetime.

This weekend starts Anne’s hard recovery week, so prayers for Anne to stay healthy are appreciated. We know you are all continuing to remember Anne. We remain grateful.