The first last!

Today has been a tremendous day. Tremendously long, tremendously anticipated, tremendously tiring, tremendously fun, tremendous amounts of driving and sitting in a car, tremendously emotional, and chock full of a tremendous milestone.

Really, I guess you could say all of that description applies to the last month. Which is why I'm still so far behind. I'm sorry for the calls I haven't returned, the blogs I haven't commented on, the e-mails I haven't responded to, and so forth. We are living the fulfillment of many long awaited and hoped for dreams and trying to recover from a move and adjust to life in a different state. Right now my head is swimming with a million miscellaneous "moving-in" to-dos, my house is bursting with boxes needing to be unpacked and organized, my back is achy, and my mind and heart are incredibly full of happy and bittersweet thoughts and emotions to process. And now, it's 3 am on Friday night/Saturday morning/whatever, but I just have to get this out in spite of all the happy overwhelmed-ness in  our lives right now. To honor how incredibly brave our little lady has been, if nothing else.

Today Elena had her last LP (lumbar puncture) EVER!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Yes, we're daring cancer and saying "last one ever" in spite of how it makes our hearts stop and our minds worry. I've decided that life just has to be lived and we have to celebrate this moment for what it is, come what may.

We counted it up tonight and, by our records, she has received 23 LP's and 4 Bone Marrow Aspirates (which we are counting in the tally because, while it's a different procedure for a different purpose, it feels the same to Elena - it's anesthesia, fasting, a big needle, and she hates it.) for a total of 27! That is an amazing number for such a young kid. And now she has two more treatments, two additional weeks of oral chemo, and a port removal surgery left and we'll be DONE! DONE WITH CANCER!!! It's so close we are starting to feel it.

In spite of having done this routine 27 times, I never once managed to document any of it with the camera. Something that I'm sad about because I really wanted to have pictures for Elena to look back on when she is older to see what she went through. But, today, as I put my camera back in my purse yet again to help Elena as she was freaking out while they were prepping things, I realized that a lot of the reason there aren't any pictures (at least on the days I didn't forget the camera... which were few :)) was because I was present - living those moments and trying to be there for her. And that is something, too. So, I'll just have to keep the mental pictures of those moments in my head to describe to her someday.

This LP was different because it was in our new children's hospital here in Phoenix (a subject for another post) and because it didn't go down without a fight and we had to be flexible. But in the end, they did it with just a few changes and a little extra time. As soon as it was over and she woke up again, Elena started celebrating. She is SO excited to be done with back pokes - she has become more conscious of them over the last six or eight months and really started to dread them. Yesterday in the Costco parking lot, she made me do a cheer with her outside the car after we loaded our groceries (with hand raised triumphantly in the air): "YAY FOR ELENA! Last back poke!!" And intermittently today, she has broken out into spontaneous dancing and songs to the tune of "no more back pokes, all done with back pokes".

And tonight we celebrated. Elena chose Chili's for dinner (that's my girl) and then wanted to get a treat from the store and watch a movie together as a family. We all shouted it at the top of our lungs on the drive to Chili's to try and make it feel real, "NO MORE BACK POKES!". It is amazing how far Elena has come and how brave she has been.

One of the great things about our new hospital - and probably attributing to why I've been feeling so emotional today - is that they bend over backwards to welcome and accommodate the siblings of their critically ill patients and Lily was able to come along for the first time since she stopped nursing a year and a half ago. It was a very special thing to have the girls together on this very special "last" day of one of the big and ongoing parts of treatment. It brought things full circle for me. For the first six months of Elena's treatments, Lily camped out at the hospital with us. She was there for everyday of our inpatient stays; she came for every single clinic visit those first six months. And now they have both grown up so much - it astounds me and makes me a little sad at the time cancer has eaten up and how much older they are. But at the same time, it makes my heart so happy that they've had each other. They really have. They are best friends and it has been very tender to watch them go through the last 2+ years together in their innocent, sweet, happy, compassionate way. They are amazing girls. 

Together- two years ago:

Together - today:

I love these little ladies so dearly and I'm so glad they have each other! 

Hooray for such a big "last"! Here's to many more soon! GO ELENA!