A Birthday to Remember

It has been a few days since chemo. Actually, it has been 5 days since chemo and 3 days since celebrating a very special 5th birthday for our sweet Ansley. What a roller coaster of a week! The chemo day went well. Her counts were great and her port access went well. The de-accessing didn't go very well. She shed a lot of tears and had a lot of pain with it. Oh, how helpless I feel to hear our baby girl cry while having something like that done to her. The last few days have been hard. We now know to expect these days to be hard. The days following chemo are never easy... Nausea, itching, achy, mouth sores, hunger, fatigue just to name a few of the issues she deals with daily right now.

It was a sweet day on Friday as we celebrated the blessing of 5 sweet years with our baby girl. There has never been a birthday that I have had a wave of emotions like this one. It was a day to remember. I pray we will have many, many more birthdays to celebrate with our daughter.

We will leave for a vacation this Friday to be with family in Florida. It is the first time we will have left Charleston since her diagnosis in December except for the Make-A-Wish trip in April. Please pray she stays healthy. I am fearful of taking her away from a place that knows her so well. But, our family is in need of a break. This season is beginning to take a toll on all of us. It is definitely a marathon. We need a break from the daily struggles that a family undergoes when life changes so drastically from a sick child.

I am so proud of how our kids have handled this stress in life. They are really troopers and have become selfless, patient and sensitive people along this journey. Pray that our time in Florida will be sweet. We could use a break and I am excited to enjoy time together. Pray that our precious Ansley is healed of cancer and that it never again is in her body.