The Next Step

This post is #80 in a year-long series ... Through this series of posts I plan to share our family's experiences during our 17-year-old daughter's year-long battle with brain cancer, which began in February of 2008. My desire is to process through the events of that year from the perspective that a decade of time has brought ... for myself, really. But if you'd like to follow along, you're welcome to join me.

May 28, 2008

Hannah had finally completed her radiation treatments, triumphantly capped off by an "all clear" MRI report, and our family settled into a much more normal lifestyle.  We enjoyed a nice stretch of days where the girls were both attending school regularly, Brad and I were back at work, and we were able to resume our typical family activities.  For the time being, at least, we could push our concerns about Hannah's health off the front burner.  It felt like we had surmounted a huge hurdle by getting this first round of treatments behind us.

However, in our more lucid moments we knew we were really just at the beginning of this battle.  We had been told that Hannah would take an oral chemotherapy drug five days out of every month for twelve months.  And when those twelve months were up?   Well ... the doctors were a bit vague on that point, but basically we were told that we would be finished.  We assumed that was when Hannah would finally be considered cured. 

Ten years ago today, she started this twelve-month period.  Here's my email from that date ...

Just a brief update tonight…Hannah had her bloodwork done yesterday, and her platelet count was up to 111,000, which was a great improvement over the 62,000 she had last week. So, that means she gets to start her chemo drug back tonight. She will take the drug for five days, then have 28 days off. This pattern will continue for ten cycles. This is a much higher dose of chemo than she took initially, so please join us in praying that the side effects will be minimal. The biggest side effect of this drug is depressed blood counts, as we’ve already seen. Please pray that her blood counts will stay up, and that she will be able to avoid any infections over the next several months.

Again, thank you so much for your continued faithfulness in prayer for Hannah and for our family. God is truly good, all the time!

Jill and Brad