Have you heard that Lola got a dog for christmas??   It is the most wonderful/awful little dog ever. Its a tiny 4lb 2yr old yorkie that lets lola haul it all over the house, and put it in party dresses and force it to lay next to her any time she is tired, including all night long.  It is wonderful because Lola LOVES it so much. It helps to keep her happy, it gives her a ‘purpose’ when she isn’t feeling well and can’t do much else but pet the dog and tell it how cute it is. This past friday when Lola had clinic we scheduled the dog to go to the vet the same day to get fixed (We sure don’t need any puppies around here…) and to have some teeth pulled (really??  My dog has a dental bill?!! ). Lola thought it was so great that they were both going to the hospital on the same day. They both needed medicine, and they both had to get ‘pokes’ And lola made sure to tell every person we came in contact with that day that both her and the dog were going through medical procedures. The dog is awful because it seems to have bonded to me. And I am not bonded to it. I want it to be Lola’s dog, and the dog wants to follow my every move and snuggle up close breathing its hot stinky breath on me any time I take a break. If that dog catches me in bed, it is sure to jump on in, snuggle down under the covers and give me a big stinky lick on the face. gross. So. Thats the story on Lola’s new dog the famous Ms. Roxy Fur. (she was going to name it fur…. thankfully she decided to go with that for its middle name. )

Let’s see. What else is going on. Lola has been doing fairly well. Her spirits have been high, and she is just all around happy. Last month (december) she had gained enough weight that at clinic they raised her doses of chemo. That seems to have been more than her little body can handle and she is now dealing with a lot of nausea and vomiting. She eats and like 4 minutes later will throw up and then just continue on with her day.  While so far all of these ‘incidents’ have been at home, I am slightly terrified to leave the house with her for fear of puke. I just make sure to pack some plastic bags and extra clothes every time it seems we may be at risk for an explosion.  This is also effecting her eating habits, and it has become nearly impossible to get her to eat. Nothing sounds good, and it is so hard for her to eat even a little bit. When we were at clinic friday she had lost weight, but not enough to need to lower her chemo doses back down. Her PA at clinic didn’t have any real great ideas for how to deal with this, so we are basically going to give it another month. She is now on some high doses of chemo, and high doses of meds to deal with the side effects of the chemo.  Its just so frustrating knowing she needs the chemo, but that the chemo is affecting her negatively.  This whole situation makes life a bit more difficult.

We went to church in town today, so decided to run to the mall while we were there. Lola still has some leg/ankle weakness from last year when she stopped walking, and I could tell that the cute little leather boots I had bought her were just not giving her enough support so I really needed to find her a new, better pair. It was lunch time so we decided to grab a bite to eat at the food court.  Lola doesn’t want anything to eat, and after trying to figure out what to get her for about 15 minutes I get frustrated and tell her to pick something, or we’re going to go home.  She finally decides on chicken tenders and chocolate milk. We get our food, and she drinks about half her milk, says her stomach hurts and that she can’t eat anything else. I become slightly afraid that she is going to throw up in the food court (which she doesn’t).  Matt becomes slightly suspicious that she is just saying her stomach hurts so she doesn’t have to eat.  After some discussion it is decided that her stomach does indeed hurt. We decided just to suck it up and try to find a pair of boots since we are at the mall and probably won’t be back for a couple of weeks. We make it to store #1. No good boots. on to store #2.  They have a cute pair of Keen boots. They looks supportive, cute, comfy and they are on sale. perfect. Oh wait…. they don’t have Lola’s size. On to store #3 (stride rite). They have about the same options as store one, but we decide they are an improvement over what she has now, and they are on sale so we just snag a pair and start to get the heck out of the mall. Lola suddenly has to go to the bathroom and the events that occur in the bathroom prove that her stomach did indeed hurt. I’ll spare you the details of that…..

That is a pretty good description of our lives right now. Lola is happy overall, feels good most of the time, but we just never know when these stomach issues might creep up and cause trouble. Hopefully we can get things under control with this so that Lola can go on being happy  and feeling good all the time!!

Since moving into our new home, Matt and I have been working like crazy people to remove the 1990’s wallpaper on every wall. Now…   poor matt had to do a bit more work than me since I was SO SICK for the first 4 months of this pregnancy. It was all good when we started fixing things up and I wasn’t pregnant….   and now…. well….  matt will probably never let me start another project again for the rest of my life.

I’ve been waiting until our house was nice and clean to get pictures of all the rooms, and well…. they just never seem to be clean at the same time. So, i’m just going to start with pictures of the kitchen, and we’ll go from there. And we’re still not done, but we are done enough for now.  I really LOVE our new kitchen and feel a little like I could run a cooking show out of it. Well, if I cooked I could.  ;) I am pretty spoiled to have some fabulous help picking things out for our house.  If you are ever doing some remodeling or redecorating check out Mindi Freng Designs.  She has been a HUGE help in finding fun stuff for the house (she even had my fab new orange table legs just chillen in her garage waiting for a new home!!)  and with helping me to know where to put things that I already owned and make it look like it belongs there, not like I just took it out of storage and stuck it somewhere.  The black cabinet in my kitchen used to be in my photography studio, but with a new paint job it was ready for the kitchen!! Check out Mindi’s website or facebook page to see some more of her amazing work!!

This is a picture that I posted back in August of the work we had done up to that point.and these are pics I took today!!

Oh… and who are these cute children in jammies at 3pm??  Why they are my children doing their school work of course. Clothes are totally overrated.

Dearest Lola,

Today is such a special day. Birthdays are always wonderful, but this is the most celebrated birthday you have ever had. You have had such a tough year, and you are such a tough little girl.

The next 5 years we’re so fun!!  You were such an amazing little girl. You started to crawl  around 6 months, and then you started to walk around 9 months and then you started to talk!!!  And you haven’t stopped talking since!  I have a video of you just past your 1st birthday saying ‘I’m 13 months old.’   You we’re and still are a brilliant child.

Right before your 2nd birthday we brought home your baby sister form Ethiopia.We had been gone for 2 weeks to pick up Kia and we missed you so much!!!   When we got to the airport you ran up to us, looked at your new sister and said ‘Can I pet her?’ You became such a good big sister, and it didn’t take long for you two to become best friends. You have a truly caring spirit, not just for your family but for ALL people. You really are such a sweet, sweet little girl.

We did so many fun things together as a family. Our lives we’re nearly perfect. Last year you even got to celebrate your 5th birthday in Africa!!! You loved living in Tanzania. Everyday you would play outside in the warm sunlight  running around and making up some pretend game. It was so fun to be a family in Tanzania. Life was easier, the pace was slower, and we got to spend a lot more time together as a family!!!  There was no hustle and bustle like there is here in the US. You LOVED it there.

Shortly after your 5th birthday you started to get sick, and we ended up coming back to Michigan. We found out that you had Leukemia and I felt like the world had stopped spinning.I just kept thinking about how you were to sweet of a little girl to have to go through that. But you know what Lola??  You have survived this past year and made it to another birthday!!  You have done SO good, and I am SO proud of you!!  I know that it has been hard, and I know that you haven’t been able to play as much this past year, and I know that you have a lot of days when you don’t feel good, but you are AMAZING!!! When we were at clinic last week and it was time for you to get poked you we’re so strong!!  And when you asked to have a minute before the poke, and you then prayed out loud that God would make it not hurt, and you thanked God for the sunshine that day and for all the people at the hospital, I just thought about how strong of a little girl you are. I have learned so much from you, so much about happiness, and faith in the Lord. I wish you didn’t have to go through this, but I am thankful that you are still here on your 6th birthday.

My dear Lola, we have another hard year in front of us, but I KNOW we can do it!!!  There will be a lot of hard days, but there will be even more good days. Days where you smile and run and play. Days where our family is together and days where I feed you pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner….. just like you like. I love you with all my heart and then some. Keep smiling and loving God. Happy 6th birthday!!!

Love always,  Mommy ]]> http://followingthecall.org/2011/12/to-my-darling-lola/feed/ 4 http://followingthecall.org/2011/10/when-16-miles-is-just-far-enough/ http://followingthecall.org/2011/10/when-16-miles-is-just-far-enough/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:41:33 +0000 Lindsey http://followingthecall.org/?p=1047 NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

WOW!!!   I can not believe it has been over a month since I posted to the blog. I am considering getting rid of the blog because A- I barely post to it and B- I’m not sure if anyone really reads it??  Hello?? Is anybody out there reading this?? I know most people probably find out whats going on in our life through facebook… so maybe the blog is not necessary??

Moving on. Last time I posted I was asking for prayers about Lola’s treatment. We were really hoping and praying that Lola would be put into a certain treatment and as it turns out… she was not put into that one. I took the news pretty hard and needed some time to adjust to the thought of what this was going to mean for our lives for the next 2 years. Lola will be on a TON of medication for the next two years, and every four weeks she will be on one chemo for 5 days that really effects her. It takes almost a week for it to wear off, so that leaves us with about 2 rough weeks out of ever 4 weeks. Not exactly something we were hoping for….  But at the same time we fully believe that God put Lola into the treatment that she needs, and if this is what she needs to stay alive then we will do it, and we will do our best to do it with a smile on our face.  Lola did have her port removed about a month ago, and we are just thrilled with that. She is SO HAPPY to have it gone.  Lola goes back to clinic on friday for IV chemo and she will also be starting up on that nasty chemo again , so please pray for Lola as it will be a couple rough weeks.

Good news about Lola- She made a change in her make a wish. The mini horse was getting a bit complicated and a vacation was sounding pretty good so she decided to go to Disney instead!!!  We will be in the market for a friendly mini horse in the spring though, so if you happen to have one just lying around let us know  So… in December we will be going to Disney and we are pumped!!!!   I’m crazy excited and have been keeping myself busy planning out our amazing trip. I have never in my life felt the need for a vacation like I do now. It will be wonderful to just escape for a week with my family and have some fun and not have to worry about all the junk that we have to worry about all the time.

Next up… Ultimate hike!!!  The Hike was this past weekend and it was AMAZING!!!  The trail was slightly horrid. It was full of HUGE hills and a really tough trail. We had to get up at 2am to get to the trail and started hiking at 4 am. It was pitch black and I was pretty sure there was either a hungry bear or a murderer waiting for us in the dark. Luckily there wasn’t.  We hiked for over 3 hours in the pitch black and then the sun slowly started to peek out exposing just some amazing beauty around us. I hiked 16 miles along and then had to stop (I knew ahead of time that I wasn’t going to be able to do the full 30) due to the reason pictured to the right. yup. its true.

5 people from team Lola continued on for the full 30!!!  I can not even tell you how much it means to me to have so many people doing something as crazy as this to help find a cure for childrens cancer. There were even a couple people that joined team Lola that I had never met before!!!  AMAZING!!   I worked hard to make it 16 miles. Well… the 30 mile hikers worked like crazy. It would be one thing if the trail was flat and easy. But it was not. Basically you were always either going up or down a huge hill. Team Lola still needs to raise a bit more money, so if you are willing to sacrifice a small amount to help we would appreciate it!! CLICK HERE to make a donation.

Well. I think that’s about all I have for now. I need to get my little bunny and poodle ready to go for the festivities of the night!!

I went to clinic with Lola last week armed with a list of questions that would make any one nauseous.  Every now and then I do that, I just like to make sure everyone knows that I am a completely crazy mom who will do whatever it takes for my child. So…  as a result of my crazy mom moment that day Lola is now scheduled for Surgery next week (Oct 7) to have her port-a-cath removed. This is BIG for Lola at this point. The port is meant to be a helpful piece of medical equipment, that helps both the medical staff and the child, making it easier on them so that they don’t always need to have IV’s in their arms etc. But….   Lola’s port went a bit hay wire a few months ago and it started not working as it was supposed to and she kept having to have dye studies done on it, and it would be difficult to get blood draws, and her poor nurse would really have to wiggle the needle around in Lola to get things to work. It was AWFUL. As a result of that, even though the port has been fine lately Lola has some HUGE issues with it. She greatly prefers to be poked in the arm over her port and she is really just scared of having her port accessed. She really wants it gone. So…  for the sake of Lola, we are glad she is finally reaching a point in her treatment where she does not need the port and it will soon be gone!!

As for Lola’s treatment…..  She is now ready to move into the section of treatment called ‘maintenance.’ She will be on Maintenance for about 2 years. Lola is currently on a trial, and prior to beginning maintenance she will be randomized into 1 of 4 different treatment options. Here is where you all come in. We REALLY need your prayers for this. This is another time where we are completely helpless in our daughters care. We have to rely on a computer that will randomly put her into a treatment plan. But…  I think we all know our amazing father God is in the ultimate control of this.  Of the 4 treatment options, two of them Lola will have to take a steroid chemo for one week every 4 weeks. The other 2 options she will need the steroid chemo for one week ever 12 weeks. Now. Here’s the thing about the steroid. It ruins Lola’s life. It makes her so depressed. Back at the beginning of our adventure with Leukemia it was the steroid that caused Lola to stop talking. When she is on it is a struggle for our whole family. Lola will find a patch of sunlight on the floor, and lay on the floor all day long under a blanket doing nothing. It is nearly impossible for me to engage her in anything.  It is awful.  And I do not know that I can endure that for 24 weeks in the next 2 years.

So it is our prayer that God will have Lola placed into whatever arm of the treatment she needs to be in. And it is also our prayer that where she needs to be is in  Arm C or D, where she will have steroids every 12 weeks.  We are asking you to come along side us for the next week in prayer for Lola. We can find out what arm she is in 72 hours before she begins treatment, which puts us at next tuesday. So please pray hard specifically about this until then!! I know that there are people all over the place praying for our family and I can not tell you how much that means to us.

And on to our next ‘issue.’ I have been sick as a dog since friday.  I’m OK being sick… life goes on, BUT Lola CAN NOT get sick.  For one thing, if she gets a fever its an automatic trip to the hospital and….  it is not good if she is sick when she is scheduled for surgery and for her treatment to start. So please also be praying for that. Thankfully I seem to be on the upswing of whatever it is that I have, and I only had a fever for a few hours on saturday. My kids have runny noses, but no other symptoms. Pray that they just stay with runny noses and don’t catch what I have!!!   Thankfully I have the world’s greatest husband who has been playing super dad/house keeper/ food cooker/ take care of Lindsey person. He is home from work today holding down the fort while I am in seclusion in my bedroom for the 3rd day.  Oh…  and if your considering living without a TV I would like to encourage you to think long and hard about what you will do if you ever get sick. I am BORED out of my mind!!!    I thought the ‘no TV’ thing was a great idea…. until this happened!!!  Thankfully Super Matt to the rescue!!  He dug out an old TV and an antenna for me this morning so I could watch the today show and whatever other junk is on during the day

Here’s a picture of me. If I had blond hair. And if I wore pig-tails. And if I had a teddy bear. Well…  I guess this really looks nothing like me.

Wow.  Eight years ago if you had told me that this is where my life would be, I don’t think I would have believed you. BUT…   if someone had told me that this would be my life, and I had a choice to make a decision and NOT marry Matt, so that this would not be the path of my life, I STILL would have married him.

September 12,2003 was an amazing day in my life. 8 years later I STILL have guests from our wedding come up to us and say how fun our wedding was. We were SO excited to be getting married. We were young. (I was just a baby at 21 yrs old!!) We were completely crazy (and still are) and we were in LOVE!!!! I loved matt so much, and the good news is that I still do. I would say that the first 7 years of our marriage were completely ‘normal,’ we had a baby and then another through adoption (maybe adoption isn’t normal to you… but it is to me ) We bought a house, and then another when we needed a bigger home. Matt got a real job, I realized how much I hated having a job so stopped working I later decided having my own business was more suited to me, and that worked out pretty good. And so on and so forth was our first 7 years.

And then there is this last year. My life in the last year consisted of moving your family across the world, learning a new language and culture, being robbed, having a forest fire invade our yard, and having to put that fire out by hand because there was no ‘911,’ (truth be told…  Matt and a couple other guys put the fire out, while I stood in the house deciding what I needed to toss in the car in case the fire engulfed our home.)   living without electricity or clean water, caring for a very sick orphan newborn who only slept 30 minutes at a time and screamed in pain the rest of the time, we were  forced to leave our new home on the other side of the world to come back to the states to find out our daughter has cancer. We realized we had no home, no car, no job, no nothing, to have to rely on others to care and provide for us, we had our very sick child stop talking and stop walking, we bought a new home 5 months later, and moved into our home and realized that EVERYTHING was broken in it. You guys can relate to that right??  No?  anybody??  no. hmmm….  But you know who can relate to all that stuff with me??  My amazing wonderful husband.  If I had not had him along on this crazy life journey with me, I don’t know what I would have done.  Now, I have a huge faith and find great comfort in the Lord, but there are days when the good Lord would use Matt’s amazing patience to just be there for me when i’m freaking out about medications and side effects, and things left in Tanzania and dishwashers that don’t work.  And yes, I am real good at freaken out. Our life is hard. I mean really hard. But together Matt and I have become better people through it all and I really wouldn’t trade it for a normal un-eventful life. I’m sure that you all have issues in your life, struggles that stink. And it is my prayer that not only do you find strength in the Lord to get through those hard days, but also that you have someone that can hold your hand through it all. Some times we just have to reach out for help, but getting through all that ’stuff’ will be so much better with  someone who cares.

On Anniversary this year is not going to be fun. It won’t be exciting. We will do nothing special. But we will be together, and again I am thankful for that. Lola has a big appt at clinic tomorrow. I’m thankful that Matt is taking the morning off work to help me out with Lola. She has to be sedated in order to have chemo put into her spine. While I have gotten used to her being put under, it is never an easy thing to watch my baby go life-less on the table in the basement of the hospital. And it is never easy to watch her wake up confused, tired and hungry. So I am thankful that matt will be there to help me with our sweet baby girl. Lola will also be getting a number of other Chemos, and they will be upping her doses. The night after clinic is never real fun for Lola. She generally doesn’t feel real great and ends up with bad diarrhea during the night. And I am always so emotionally drained that it takes everything I have to take care of my sweet babe. Clinic days are not fun. So that will be our 8th anniversary. A prime example of what marriage should be. Caring for each other, loving our family, and helping each other when we need it most.  So Matthew, the Love of my life. Here’s to our 9th year. We survived the 8th year so we now know we can get through anything together, and i’m pretty sure it can only go up from here.

Please keep praying for our family, as we continue to survive the best we can. Pray for Lola at clinic in the morning. Pray that her blood counts look good, so she can get the treatment she needs. Pray that as they up the doses of chemo once again that the side effects are minimal. Pray for NO long term side effects for Lola. Did you know that 3 out 5 children with cancer live with long term side effects for the rest of their lives?!!  I’m not real interested in that for Lola. She still has a lot to do with her life. We don’t want side effects slowing her down.  Wanna know something cute about Lola?  Well…  if you said no, I can’t hear you so I’m still going to tell you.

A few nights ago I had tucked the girls in for bed and I was listening them discuss the star they could see out the window, and they decided to ‘wish’ on the star. Lola says the whole star light, start bright  etc…  and do you know what she wished for???   A ‘double blessing of the Holy Spirit.’ My 5 year old. She is 5 yrs old and THAT is what she wishes for!!!  And then last night… stars out again and this time she wished for ‘Grace, Peace and Mercy for people around the world.’  Did I mention that she is 5 yrs old?? This child is AMAZING. God has big plans for this little angle. She is going to take her double blessing and do amazing things.

LEMONADE!!!!  GET YOUR LEMONADE!!!!!

Oh Lola. My sweet caring little girl. Love that kid. Once I started talking about how I was going to be hiking to raise money for kids with cancer, Lola decided she wanted to help me raise some money, and the best way she could think of was to sell her ‘Razzle Dazzle Rainbow Juice.’ Now… here’s the issue with that. Lola and matt invented this juice, and while I try real hard to stay out of the kitchen while it is being made I have witnessed some of the process and if I do say so myself… it seemed a bit gross. There was a lot of squishing with hands and ringing juice out of cloth into the pitcher. I flat out refused to drink it AND I made matt boil it before he fed it to our children.
The good news is that Lola agreed it would be OK to sell some lemonade as well at the sale… you know… to prevent being sued when people become ill from the unsanitary conditions of razzle dazzle rainbow juice.

So the sale. I don’t have time in my life to plan anything. It is now September and we have still not planned the lemonade sale. I was getting nervous that this was going to have to be a hot chocolate sale. Well… this weekend looks like it might be decent out so we’re are having Lola’s lemonade sale on Saturday. We are also going to be grilling up some tasty hot dogs in hopes of luring in some people who don’t feel like cooking lunch on saturdayAll proceeds from Lola’s lemonade sale will go to Cure Search- childrens cancer research. Because we now live out in the middle of no where….  the sale will be taking place at Lola’s grandmas front yard. Please join us and show Lola your love, and also support a great cause.

• Saturday September 10. 11:30-1:30
• 3615 Yellowstone Dr
• Grandville MI 49418

Its a miracle!!! After my 10 millionth attempt I managed to upload the video to the website!!!!!

Please click HERE to support Team Lola’s quest for a cure through a tax deductible donation.

Today marks six months since my sweet girl was diagnosed with cancer. 6 months since our lives were flipped upside down. Six months since I felt like my world was crashing in on my. Yet…   6 months later life has continued. We are all still standing, we are almost back to where we were a year ago (which I don’t necessarily like).

In the past 6 months, Lola  has been sedated 10 times. She has had 10 spinal taps, 3 bone marrow aspirations, 2 dye studies on her port that functions poorly at times, She has been ‘poked’ with needles about 50 times. She has had 10 blood transfusions and countless amounts of chemo. We have had to give her 8 shots of chemo at home and who knows how many pills of chemo at home. She lost her hair. Twice. She lost the ability to walk. She regained the ability to walk. She became very depressed and totally stopped talking. She starting talking again, and hasn’t even come close to stopping since. Although sometimes I wish she would.  She stopped sleeping at night. She actually went about 5 days getting about 15 minutes of sleep at a time.  She now takes sleeping pills at night.  She has become my hero.

In the past 6 months our family learned that we could not return to our homes in Tanzania. We realized we were un-empolyed and homeless. We learned to depend on others.  Matt found a job. We found a home. We bought a puppy. And some chickens.  We have learned a lot in the last 6 months. We have learned to be happy with each day. Now…. that does not mean that we don’t have some HARD days. Like crazy hard days, but at the end of that day we still have so much to be happy for.  There have been many hard days at clinic with Lola, where  she gets upset, and it hurts, and I cry with her. I squeeze her hand and we sing together through the tears and pain.

Having a child with cancer is a feeling of helpless-ness. There is not really much I can do to help keep the cancer away. I have no control of what happens. I have had to put my child’s life in the hands of people I don’t know at all.  In the midst of all this helpless-ness I have found a way to help. Its a small way to help, but its a way none the less. Most of you have probably read my posts on The Ultimate Hike. I am hiking 33 miles down the Tecumseh Trail on October 29. I have already started training and I some what hate every minute of it. haha…. I am not a running/hiking/walking kind of girl. But…  I would do anything for Lola!! The money raised goes to Cure Search, which is the organization that lola’s treatment plan comes from. I love cure search. Their goal is to find a cure for every child with cancer. I think thats a great goal.  They also work on coming up with effective treatment that is not so hard on the kids. And believe me…. the treatment is HARD on kids.

And this is where you all come in.  We have 9 people on Team Lola, with a fundraising goal of $22,500!!!   Thats $2,500 each person.   I am hoping that you will all consider helping this amazing cause. Help to find children a cure. While Lola is doing well at this moment, there are many people who have lost children to cancer and they never got to have any good days, or extra smiles like we have. Shortly after being diagnosed, when Lola got REALLY sick, I was terrified that she was going to die and I would never see another smile on her face again. Praise that Lord that that wasn’t the case, but my heart breaks for the parents who have lost children at that point and were not able to see their babies smile again.

6 months ago we experienced the most amazing outpouring of love from friends, family and strangers alike.  It is my prayer that you will all once again surround us with love and support, only this time we want that support to go out to ALL children who have, or will have cancer at some point in their childhood. Please visit my Hike webpage to learn more about cure search and to make a donation. CLICK HERE

So… Lola and I made a video that I attempted to upload. Well… turns out that youtube does not let you use copyrighted music anymore and I could either go to jail for a million years, pay 8 trillion dollars or just upload it to face book instead. SO thats what I did. The facebook option… not the jail or money option. If you want to see the movie and your on facebook just go HERE. I think you have to be my facebook friend to watch it. Feel free to friend me….

EDITED TO ADD:  On my third attempt to upload this movie, I think you can know watch it from the link below.  Go on… try it. All the cool kids are doing it.

Why We Hike

Sweet Lola on clinic day.

Lola is doing decent now. Her blood counts are really crazy low again, so we can’t leave the house or have any visitors. It was a very sad day when we found out her counts were low, because she was supposed to go to a birthday party the next day for her sweet friend (Matt’s cousin’s daughter Stella) and she was SO EXCITED about it. One of the main crappy things about this whole cancer (other than that she HAS cancer..) is that we can not ever make plans.  I generally do not even tell Lola if something fun is happening, but I thought her counts would be fine and a sweet little invitation came in the mail and I knew Lola would be excited!!  But…  of course as usually cancer ruined the day.  For those of your familiar with cancer treatment, Lola is finishing out Delayed Intensification and will be starting Interum maintenance 2 once her counts come back up, hopefully in a couple weeks. After IM2, on to maintenance.