The fight or flight response. One of nature's most well known reactions. When facing a dangerous or potentially life threatening situation, a person (or animal) might have two responses - to fight the danger or to flee to safety. When Maia was first diagnosed with cancer at 3 years old, as a mom my natural instincts kicked in. My immediate reaction was to face it head on and do whatever I could to help her beat it. My fight mode took over without me even realizing it. And, in every scary situation that came up (her getting a blood clot, middle of the night ER visits, scary blood counts, infec ..read more

Maia's treatment is coming to an end in just a month and a half. When we found out that Maia had cancer, just over two years ago, I thought that we would never see the end of her treatment, and now we are so close I can't even believe it. I've written a lot of things as we have gone through this journey, and to be honest I haven't written in a while because I felt like I was out of things to say. Or at least insightful things to say. And I'm pretty sure I still am. But, insightfulness aside, there are some things I haven't said. Some of them I haven't said because they have been held too close ..read more

A few weeks ago, I was off for a rare night out by myself and Juan was staying home and planning a nice night with the kids. He bought pizza and Jenga. You know Jenga, it's the game where you build a giant stack of blocks and try and remove them one by one and stack them on top to create an even taller and ever wobblier tower until someone pulls out a block that knocks the whole thing down. In the weeks since Juan taught the kids how to play this game, they have become obsessed with it (particularly Anden - I think it speaks to his daredevil nature). And the more we play this game, the m ..read more

Let me preface this by saying that Maia does not have the flu. Thank goodness. She has been consistently sick with some slight sniffles and cough since before Christmas, but has somehow avoided a fever and therefore the hospital (besides her regular appointments). But even without catching the flu, the flu has been impacting our lives quite a bit. Maia has been reading some stories in kindergarten recently, one of which is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. She came home the other day to tell me all about it. She was extra excited since this is a book that we have a ..read more

It's been a long time since I've posted here about Maia and her treatment. I've started to write a few times, and thought about writing even more than that. But, to be honest, I've just been living life the best I can. Things have been busy. Things have been good. But also, things have been hard. Maia's treatment has been progressing pretty much as usual. A few months ago we found out that Maia has a specific gene mutation that makes her metabolize one of her chemotherapy drugs, Vincristine, differently. Vincristine can impact the muscles, and we have seen it specifically in Maia's legs. She ..read more

Back when I became part of a support group on Facebook for moms of kids with cancer, I noticed a word that came up now and then. Cancerversary. It is the word used to describe the anniversary of a cancer diagnosis. For some people, it was a day to remember and celebrate. For others, it was a day of dread and would bring up horrible feelings that would cause tears and fears. And I never understood it. Any of it. Why the day specifically would bring up the memories and feelings. Why it would be remembered and celebrated. And why it was given its own name. And then, Maia's first Cancerversary rol ..read more

Anyone who has ever been through a major life change has heard someone say something like, "Don't worry, it will take some time, but you will get used to your new normal." I have heard it many times, from doctors, nurses, family, and friends. And I hate it. Not in the, why would anyone say that it's so insensitive way. Because it's not rude or insensitive, it's a reality. Just in the way that when I go home and really think about it I want to scream. You see, I don't want a new normal. I want my old normal. I want to not think about medicine or what time I'm feeding my kids dinner for fear ..read more

We are now just over a month into maintenance, and it has been just as much of a roller coaster as the rest of this treatment process. From the beginning, the doctors all told us that maintenance is when life gets back to normal. I've also heard some moms say that things get back to normal. But, then there have also been the moms that have said that maintenance has actually been worse than frontline treatment (frontline is what the first seven months of treatment is called, since there are so many different phases). There is a part of me that was holding my breath for the entire frontline tre ..read more

We made it. It seems like it has been both a million years in the making and like it happened over night all at the same time. We have reached the first cycle of Maintenance. For those of you who (like anyone normal) can't keep track of all of the phases, Maintenance is the final phase of treatment. It is also the phase that lasts two years, which means we are 8 months down with 2 years to go. Maia's last phase (Interim Maintenance 2) went by fairly smoothly, with just a few small bumps in the road. One bump is that she did have a bit more nausea than before (mostly concurrent with car rides ..read more

Anyone who has ever dealt with a cancer diagnosis knows what the first question on anyone's mind is. What's the prognosis?? Quite honestly, it's the first question I had when Maia was diagnosed too, and I can only assume it's what people want to know when they are being diagnosed themselves (though feel free to tell me I'm wrong about this one, I don't have expertise in this area). When people hear about Maia's cancer and her prognosis, they often comment about how good it is. And it is. Some people are bothered by comments like this. I'm not one of them. In fact, I often make this comment m ..read more