The long-term effects

I've heard some pretty sad stories of how chemo could possibly affect kids long-term. For one we won't know if Bianca could ever have kids until one day when we get to that point. And then of course there is the risk that the chemo could cause concentration or learning difficulties and of course these things are a worry, but since there is not much we can actually do about it until something like that is identified, we choose to shift it to the back of our minds and not think about it. Life is too short and there is no point in worrying about something that may or may not happen.

And right now, we have no reason to worry at all, let me tell you! I felt so incredibly proud today when Bianca's teacher sent the following through email: "She is reading above her chronological age... congratulations". She mentioned something about Bianca being on the turquoise level, but I don't know what that means and so on Tuesday when we have our meeting with Bianca's teacher we'll learn more about this. This meeting is to give us a progress report on how Bianca is doing and we are so excited to find out where she is at and how we can support her learning at home.

And today is exactly 6 months until we are completely done with treatment. 6 months until we take that very last tablet. I can't help remembering when we sat there at the beginning of June 2007 and all I could think was how badly I wanted to get through the first 6 months (our intensive bit) because then I would start looking back and I knew then that when we got to this point it would be hard to believe just how long we've been walking this road and how far we've come, but of course at the time it felt as if time stood still. As if each day just dragged its feet.

But here we are and I can't believe our last 6 months are ahead of us...