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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.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

36 Month Clinic - 3 YEARS in remission!!

Erin (and the rest of us) have made it three years.  THREE years!  Yay!  We are so happy.  It feels so good to have gotten to this point.

So a few months ago all our kids got flu shots at our local clinic.  Our 7 year old son has a particular fear of needles and screamed (like so so so loud!) and thrashed throughout the entire clinic while me (super pregnant) tried to hold him down with the help of a nice grandma-aged nurse.  The nurses were so upset with him, like super upset.  They gave me that look that said, "you are a bad parent."  Then we left and the 20 people in the waiting area all gave me looks of disgust that our son had scared their kids and now no kids in the clinic wanted to get shots.  So due to that lovely display from my son I had a good talkin'-to to all the kids on the drive home.

Did I mention that we have 5 kids now?  I know this blog is nearly all for Erin's-cancer-related-things but our family is also a big part of who Erin is now.  Here they are down below, aren't they cute?  We banked the cord blood for our two youngest little girls in the event that Erin would ever need a sibling match for a bone marrow transplant.



Today my Little Air Bear decided that she was not going to cry during her blood draw like her brother had.  (Thank you!)  She went in like a champ and had a few tears and a few little sad cries, but I did NOT have to hold her down this time.  After 3 years of awful blood draws she is finally getting the hang of it.

Erin is doing so well.  No complaints here.  She has another appointment next June for an ECHO on her heart and a blood draw.  But after that we will only have to visit her Oncologists ONCE A YEAR!

Dr. Verma had a good chat with Erin and Erin responds funny and silly because she hardly remembers anything cancer related.  Dr. Verma said that now that Erin has reached 3 years it is very unlikely that her original cancer will return.  Super happy dance from me!  Erin did have some serious chemotherapies and the Daunorubicin can cause heart failure many months or years after the chemo was stopped so that is why we are having the yearly ECHOs.  The Etoposide that she had has a 3-4% chance of causing a secondary cancer.  Then there's the future possibility of infertility, endocrine problems, learning problems, and emotional issues.

It is a relief to know that she is pretty far out of the risk zone of being one of the 50% of kids with AML who relapse.  Now she only has a 3-4% chance of getting a secondary cancer from her chemo.  That's something to celebrate

Looking at Erin you wouldn't even know that she had cancer.  
She is truly a miracle!
She is proud that she beat cancer!



Labs from 36 Month Clinic
White Blood Count 7.6 (normal 6.0-10.0)
Hematocrit 40.1 (normal 34.0-40.0)
Platelets 238 (normal 150-400)
ANC 2800 (normal 1500-8500)

Previous Labs from 30 Month Clinic
White Blood Count 8.6
Hematocrit 39.4
Platelets 400
ANC 4600

2 comments:

  1. Yay! We are so happy to hear the news! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Heart warming news! Very happy for your family xxxx yaschica

    ReplyDelete