Next week

We are headed to Utah for a family reunion, some hospital appointments, and visits with friends and family! Not only is it exciting that we are getting to go back to Utah AND visit friends and family. But we are also having a couple of very exciting, very special, and very long anticipated hospital happenings. Prepare yourself.

Elena is getting her LAST. HOSPITAL. CHEMO.

THE LAST ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We've waited two years and three months to be able to say that. It feels amazing and strange and scary and liberating and surreal. It's here. We are arriving.

Well, things lined up just perfectly and the Lord granted us a a huge tender mercy in that our family reunion lined up in the same week as Elena's last scheduled IV chemo. When we found out we were moving, one of the things that made my heart ache even more was that Elena would have to leave Primary's and finish up her last three treatments in a new, strange hospital where we didn't know anyone. We've grown attached to Primary's. It's a strange relationship. We love it and hate it. Well mostly we love it. It has saved both of our daughter's lives. We've met amazing people there. And learned and grown and had experiences that have forever changed us. We've been well taken care of there. And we have created some of the most poignant memories of our lives at that hospital - both good and bad. So we mostly love it. Maybe hate was too strong of a word - we just also don't mind leaving it behind. :)

Anyways, so we were thrilled when we realized that we would be back in Utah anyways and could just jaunt up to Salt Lake to receive her last treatment! When you go "off-therapy" at Primary's, you have a little mini-celebration with some of the docs and nurses in clinic and you get to ring "the bell". THE bell. It isn't just any bell. There is a bell that hangs in clinic (for those that receive mostly outpatient therapy) and one that hangs in ICS (for those who receive mostly inpatient therapy) that our little cancer fighting cuties get to ring as sort of a "rite of passage" and way to mark the end of treatment. It is a moment of tears and victory and gratitude and relief and hope - one that every family eagerly anticipates getting their turn at. The bell has a little poem on the placard with it:

Ring this bell
Three times well,
It's toll to clearly say:
My treatment's done,
My course is run, 
And I'm on my way!

We have been waiting and hoping and longing for our turn every time we heard someone else ring the bell. And it's coming! Next week! I am so thrilled and grateful that we'll get to wrap up Elena's hospital treatments at the same place that they started. It just feels right to bring it all full circle.

Then the day after that, Elena will have her port removed at Primary's. That wasn't part of the original plan, but came into being a week or so ago. Weird insurance glitch. For some reason, our insurance will not cover the surgery here at Phoenix Children's, but they will cover it 850 miles away at Primary Children's. It makes me shake my head a little at the insanity of the health care system. But I am grateful it's all working out and we'll be up there anyway.

And then we'll come home and give her oral chemo for three more weeks and then she'll be officially DONE with cancer! July 14th, baby! We are so stinking excited here! Now we've just got to figure out some grand way to celebrate with our medical bill/student loan riddled budget. But how many times do you finish cancer treatment in your life? Actually, don't answer that, please. So, we'll probably throw responsibility to the wind and do something Dave Ramsey would not approve of. Haha. I don't really care at this point - Elena has been so strong and amazing and brave. We are so proud of her and I think it's worth an awful lot to make this a special celebration for her. The fact is that we don't know what her future holds and I want to celebrate that moment while we can. Right now her only request has been that we eat at "In and Out" and that she go swimming with her cousins. :) Sweet girl. We shall see.

Anyways, tangent over. So we'll be absent here on ye olde blog for a bit. But do a happy dance for us next Thursday and Friday. And I'll have the recap after we get back. And to celebrate the awesomeness of this milestone, watch this AMAZING video made by a fellow cancer patient (seen towards the end of the video in the orange shirt - he's like 22, but at the children's hospital because he's on the threshold age wise as far as what treatment they use with leukemia). This video is the most perfect thing in the world and makes me smile so dang big. Seriously, I can feel my heart smiling when I watch it and I get big old, fat tears running down my face. I think I love it so much because it reminds me of Elena's cancer journey. The obvious things like living in ICS and hospital play rooms and feeding tubes and IV poles and fun nurses and bald heads and having your little baby stay in the hospital with you at the same time. But also the strange paradox that we see in so many of our cancer kids - sticking it to cancer and being so happy and alive and full of spunk when they're not "supposed" to be and in spite of everything. 

See you on the flip side!