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On June 1, 2010 our two year old, "Little Air Bear," was diagnosed with Childhood Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) Type M7. After enduring 146 days at Primary Children's Hospital, Erin is now in remission and living a full life at home with our family. Her strong will and constant happy smile is an inspiration to us all. Through our difficult circumstances we found great strength and peace in our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you for checking in on us.

Monday, December 5, 2011

How to get a treat

Yesterday our family was gathered in our Bishop's office at church.  I told the kids that if they were really good they could have a treat from his drawer.  Erin looked at me with a little worry in her eyes and asked, "do I have to get poked first?"  Before I could reply, our 6 year old declared that we were NOT at the hospital.  Ha ha!

Erin is doing great!  She has her 1 year....wait, let me say that louder....ONE YEAR check-up just a few days before Christmas.  She'll do a blood test, a check-up with her Oncologist and an ECHO and EKG to check her heart (one of her chemo's can cause severe heart damage).

AND
*....Ta da.....*
December 14th marks the day that Erin was released from Primary Children's from her last round of chemo.  And, of course, we'll be celebrating with cake and our whole family will blow out 5 candles (like last year) in honor of all that we've overcome.

I actually should count Erin's "official" 1 year remission day as Dec. 30th, 2010.  That is the day that we received the final results from Erin's last bone marrow aspirate that stated that her cancer was in complete remission, meaning they found zero cancer in her blood.

Phew!  It is that first year that has been the scariest for our family because 50% of children with AML relapse.  We are so grateful for the blessing that Erin is so healthy and that her cancer has stayed far away.  We will continue to pray that it will always stay away.  After 5 years, her chance of getting AML again becomes pretty non-existent.  Only 4 years to go!

Check out this cutie!!




So yesterday for church I decided to curl Erin's hair.  It was my first attempt at curling her hair since May of 2010!  I'm so happy she has hair to style and it looks pretty cute if I say so myself.  It took about 20 minutes to do those curls with a pencil sized curling iron and of course, a few (okay, maybe many) complaints from Erin while I reassured her that it was "fun" to curl your hair.  I probably won't attempt that again for awhile...but it sure looked cute while it lasted.


Finally, the tree in the background of the picture is our Festival of Trees tree we received last year.  It was so special to pull it out and decorate our living room.  So many beautiful memories of so many generous people.  Thank you all!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

3 comments:

  1. YEAH! Oh yeah! Oh yeah! What a nice thing to read on my father's 2nd birthday since he left us. I love seeing Erin when I'm at your church with the Parkers. I got to watch her whack a deacon at the Halloween party since Kate was doing it at the same time and I loved seeing how happy, and strong!, she is. Happy day, Happy month for the Hughes's, and yeah, posts like this remind me that yes, God is Good. God is very very good. He has blessed Erin with such a wonderful recovery from this illness, and that is Good.

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  2. Jill, this post makes me so happy! You guys have almost made it to a year!!! That is so huge!! Hooray! And Erin's long hair makes me happy. And your beautiful Christmas tree makes me happy. And your adorable kids all together out and about having fun makes me happy. Yay, yay, yay! So much better this year, than last year, no?

    I can't believe how long Erin's hair is and I'm jealous. :) She is beautiful!

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  3. Erin's hair is beautiful! I'm so excited you are almost at the one year mark!!

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