Late Nights with Acute Myeloid Leukemia

It's almost 10:30 pm and Erin is still awake reading books (in the dark) in her bed. My once strict 8:00 pm (on a good day 7:30 pm) bedtimes are out the window since Acute Myeloid Leukemia changed our lives. I guess though that when you are in the hospital you just sleep when you can. It has been easier though to sleep now that we aren't doing chemo at 10:00 pm and we don't have to change her diaper every two hours.

We are just biding our time until her blood counts go up so we can take her home and say goodbye to our first round of five treatments. Erin's blood pressure continues to be high, but the medications are lowering it. One of her chemo drugs is tough on the heart. Before we started chemo the Dr.'s did an EKG and ultrasound. When she is partway done with the chemo treatments they will do another ultrasound and EKG to make sure that there isn't any heart disease. We are thoroughly enjoying being all together here at the hospital! The kids are keeping Erin happily entertained either through play or fight. She is still a precocious two year old. This little lady is going to expect us to all wait on her hand and foot when we take her home.

We have had a few visitors and a fun filled day.

We met Daisy.

We also met this really cute dog.

To our surprise, Belle came to visit!

Erin and Belle had a good chat about princesses.

Belle read a story to the kiddos. They were completely captivated!

My cousins Melanie and Ryan visited for a bit and dropped off a few adorable hats.

They shared some wisdom about staying in Primary Children's

(their son had a liver transplant and they also stayed in ICS)

And, Cecily gave Erin that "pink snow" she is holding.

While Erin took a nap we took the kids to Hogle Zoo for a little break.

As I post these pictures, I am reminded about the most important things in life. Last week I took the kids to Kmart to do some shopping. We got a bit silly and I started tickling them in the shopping cart. I told them that the most important thing in the whole world is that I tickle them! Defiantly Cecily replied, "No it's not, Mom. The most important things are Jesus and Family."

How true to have a four year old remind me that the most important things in life are the Gospel of Jesus Christ and family. That is what life is about, right? To come to earth and gain a body and have experiences. We live in a family with a loving mother and father who teach us about our Savior and how to be like him so that we can make good choices each day and some day return to live forever with Jesus and our families in a glorious place.

Tags: "Childhood Acute Myeloid Leukemia" "AML" "Leukemia" "M7" "Acute Megakaryocytic Leukemia"