Last Round of Chemo - Party Time!

Yesterday was such a long day. An extremely good long day, though.  The last couple of weeks I've been able to spend some one-on-one time with Kaelyn as we've had to spend more time at the doctor's office.  Because her counts have been low, we have first had to go in to the office to see if her neutrophils were high enough for her to get chemotherapy.  So, we would head in and have some blood drawn, grab some breakfast in the cafeteria while waiting for lab results, head back to the office to play with the awesome Hematology/Oncology toys, and then wait for the chemotherapy drugs to be made up if the labs looked good (They don't want to get the drugs ready if they don't know for sure Kaelyn will be taking them because they are so expensive, i.e. $2500 for 1 syringe of dactinomycin. Thank heavens for insurance!, and they expire very quickly).  Yesterday we followed this same procedure.  Anyway, because we have been in the office longer lately, I've found babysitters for Isaac the past couple of weeks.  Thus, I've had more time to hang out with Kaelyn since I have been spending less time chasing after Isaac and preventing mass destruction! (I do love that boy) I was extremely grateful that Kaelyn's neutrophils were high enough for her to finish off her prescribed 25 weeks of chemotherapy!  And to top it off, we were able to celebrate this milestone with a VERY special night for Kaelyn at Texas Roadhouse.  And believe me, they went way out of their way to make it special.

Kaelyn and Sophia learning the art of line dancing.

 Kaelyn had such a fun time dancing.  Sadly this was all I caught since my SD card was full!

Our Texas Roadhouse experience was pretty amazing.  It all started when a friend from our playgroup set up a fundraiser with Texas Roadhouse, where they would donate 5% of all the proceeds for Kaelyn's medical bills. What a great friend, and what a great restaurant! Texas Roadhouse took this opportunity and ran with it, and did WAY more than I would have imagined they would do.  They advertised all over Billings, putting up signs and handing out flyers.  They made announcements at the local Hockey games and as well as on the local news and in the newspaper. Old Navy and Papa Murphy's even participated by handing out flyers to all of their customers for us.  What a great community!  When it came time for "Kaelyn's Night," we were all so excited! We walked in to Texas Roadhouse which was decorated with balloons and tons of pictures of Kaelyn.  Most of the workers were waiting at the door to meet and greet Kaelyn, and they all had such big smiles on their faces. The place was already hopping at 5 o'clock on a Tuesday night.  We got to our reserved table and enjoyed a wonderful meal and our kids were spoiled with gifts.  I mean SPOILED!  A lot of people we had never met before stopped at our table to meet Kaelyn, and of course they loved her.  Our server was such a nice guy.  Really the entire staff was just so nice, and we are especially grateful for the manager who arranged it all and made it into such a big party!  My favorite part of the entire night was each time a certain song came on the staff would do a little line dance.  Kaelyn jumped down from the booth and danced with them and really had such a fun time. I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate her last day of chemo, we just wish more of our friends, and especially family, could have been there with us.

Kaelyn being ridiculously spoiled, but sharing with her brother.

Rikki presenting Kaelyn with a gift card for a mani-pedi.

Thanks to everyone who came out to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate with us! We had a great time and we appreciate everyone's support. And thank you to everyone at Texas Roadhouse for making Kaelyn's night so special!

Kids n' Cowboys

(Before I get in to this, I just wanted to follow up on my last post.  Kaelyn was not able to get her chemo last Tuesday as her neutrophil count was too low, so we will be trying again tomorrow!)

Several months ago I got a call from the man in charge of Kids n' Cowboys, inviting Kaelyn and her family to come to this event.  We have been so excited to go since we got this phone call!  Kids n' Cowboys is a special day for kids in the Montana area undergoing cancer treatment.  The event included riding horses, getting to tour a fire truck, meeting rodeo queens and rodeo clowns, a delicious dinner, spectacular prizes, and all followed by reserved seats at Billings biggest rodeo of the year (and indoor, to top that off!).  Needless to say, we had a blast, especially Kaelyn.  We went out to a local cowboy store the night before so Kaelyn could pick out a cowgirl hat.  She loves it! She put the hat on and ran around the store yelling "Yeehaw!"  It was pretty cute. 

The rodeo queens sure liked Kaelyn. I'm thinking it was because of her hat.

We hit the fairgrounds Saturday afternoon and started off with horse riding. Kaelyn had been talking about this forever, but once she saw how big a horse was close up she wasn't so sure she wanted to get on anymore!  But, lucky for me, she was willing to ride as long as I was up there with her.  After we got up, and she relaxed a little, she started yelling "Yeehaw horsey!"  She eventually did ride by herself too, but sadly we didn't catch that on camera. 

Kaelyn riding Wealthy, a gentle giant. Kaelyn loved the fire truck too.  And the fireman, of course.

We sat by the Martin's for dinner, a little family who's oldest boy, Gavin, has been doing chemo for 4 years now, starting when he was 9 months.  He is such a cute boy and he and Kaelyn love playing together.  Following dinner there was a drawing for some pretty big prizes.  There were iPods, $100 gift cards, bikes, Hot Wheels 4 wheelers, and belt buckles.  Sadly there weren't enough prizes for everyone, but Kaelyn was one of the lucky kids to have her name drawn. She was so excited and ran to the front to pick her prize.  It was between a pink bike that was way too big for her or a Cinderella-themed Hot Wheels car.  After much thought (tapping her finger on her chin and saying "hmmm," she picked the Hot Wheels car.  Spoiled girl!  She was so excited though, and we loved watching her reaction.  Afterwards Kaelyn and I hit the rodeo.  She loved it, with a little help from some cotton candy of course.

We are so grateful that there are so many people in this world who can turn something negative into something positive.  The founder of Kids n' Cowboys has a daughter who had cancer 20 years ago, and after her treatment he decided to start up this program.  What a great thing this man does every year, along with all those who help him out.

Tomorrow night is Kaelyn's Night at our local Texas Roadhouse. We are all so excited and I will post pictures of her special night in my next post.

The End is Near!

Not the end of the world.  Though I guess if the Mayan's are right that end is near too.  I'm referring to being finished with chemotherapy!  Kaelyn is scheduled for her last round in 2 days, October 16th.  There is a good chance that won't be the actual day she gets her last round though, since she has been getting more and more neutropenic with her latest doses of chemo.  Neutropenia refers to low neutrophils, one of the many types of cells that make up the white blood cells.  My brother told me a great analogy taught by one of his professors was that the neutrophils are the "marines."  Because of the build up of chemo in her system, or "defense funding cuts," her marines are low in number and her immune system isn't working so well.  So, in order to prevent any worsening or other illness it could be put off until her neutrophils recover.  The other downside of neutropenia is having an overly-cautious mother who won't let the little girl have any fun! At least not with friends, or any other people, who may have sickness they would like to spread, because that would mean another stay in the hospital, and we are quite comfortable sleeping in our own beds with no needle pokes. :) I'm really hoping her counts will be up so we can to a lot of playing with friends this coming week!

 Waiting on counts for the previous round of chemo.  

Isaac always finds something to do.

And the iPad is the main reason Kaelyn is so excited to 

go to the doctor every week.

It makes me laugh as of late how excited Kaelyn is about going to the doctor.  One way of knowing this is anytime we leave the house, she asks, in the following order, where we are going in hopes it will be one of these: 

Kaelyn:  We go to grandma's house?!

Me:  Nope.

Kaelyn:  Oh. We go to play with friends?!

Me:  No.

Kaelyn:  Oh.  Go to Kaelyn's doctor?!

Me:  No Kaelyn. We are going to pick up your medicine.

Kaelyn:  Oh! Medicine! (Because all of the sudden she likes it? I'm ok with that.)

Oh yeah, and fall is here! Or at least it was that one day last week, between the summer and winter weather days.  But who isn't excited for hot chocolate, Halloween decor, caramel apples, and winterizing your cars?!

And corn mazes! Although we didn't do the actual maze because 

there were so many other things to do. So fun!