Thursday, January 31, 2008

January 31, 2008

AFP - 1.8!

This will be a short update. Leah has been up since 5:15 AM when we left for Iowa City and has been coughing almost every spare moment all day. In fact, she often cannot go a full minute without coughing. She is rather miserable and tired, which translates into CRABBY. Chloe's nose is dripping as much as Leah is coughing. Normally this all would just be annoying, but this weekend is Dance Marathon in Iowa City and we are leaving for it tomorrow afternoon, so it would be nice to be healthy for this since the girls will have a late night.

Despite the fact that Leah doesn't feel so good, she had a great checkup, and still managed to shop and eat at the Olive Garden. We are thankful we can relax and breathe for about two more months before our next Iowa City trip.

Funny story: the other day Leah and I were reading a book about Baby Duck going to school. The grandfather in the story was so kind and helpful to Baby Duck and seemed to always have a solution for Baby Duck's problems. After we were done with the book we were reading about the author, who based the character of the grandfather after her own grandfather. Leah looked at me and asked, "you mean her grandpa was a duck?"

Thanks for checking in on us and all your prayers!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

January 23, 2008

The pictures from our last post were taken fairly recently. Leah is getting a lot bigger/older, and so are her sisters.

Just a quick update: we have our AFP draw scheduled for next Thursday, January 31, and we continue to pray for a very normal, routine, boring checkup and a very low AFP number. One would think that going back for checkups would get easier over time, but so far I haven't felt any more at ease. The fear of going back and living in the cancer world is horrible. And what is worse is knowing you have no control over this at all.

We had a great Christmas and continue to enjoy going to school and work and participating in all the regular day to day things: making supper, reading bedtime stories, going to story hour at the library, trips to Target, attending midweek at church, getting together with friends....

We ask that you pray for Hannah who has relapsed with Ewings Sarcoma just yesterday and is already undergoing surgery today to remove the tumor in her lung and have a port placed this morning. She has been in remission for eighteen months.....back in the swing of a normal, ten year old girl's life...and a tumor was found during a routine CT scan. It seems that no one is ever done with this disease. (www.caringbridge.org/visit/hannahknudsen)

I will update more after Leahs' appointment next week, and ask that you continue to pray for her healing here on earth.