April 13, 2022

 It’s been a minute, but we are still rolling along this treatment road. We’ve been home since the beginning of February and we go down to Barcelona twice a month for treatment. Aurelia also has two different types of chemotherapy at home each day/week, but it all feels normal now.

Aurelia celebrated her 9th birthday with a very small family party. We are just thrilled we’ve made it to this point. A dear family friend took Aurelia to the mall (I despise malls) to shop for her birthday, so here is Aurelia showing me her new outfit:

Aurelia ran the last 500m of my 80km race. This girl is the best race crew. She can solve any problem!
Most days Aurelia feels like herself and we can be out and about:
We walked the Cursa contra Cancer here in Girona. It was a 5km walk on a really cold day. I’m wearing a down jacket under my green shirt and Mariona is pregnant, so we were not super fast walkers 😂
Yep, we still have our treatment days in Barcelona. Twice a month isn’t too bad and this will be our schedule for the next year and a bit.
This week is Setmana Santa (spring break) and we did a lovely hike near the coast with friends:
And a beach walk:
Life feels fairly normal for the most part and we are grateful for this. Aurelia was pretty psyched to be at a family friends house for Sunday lunch. Josep made her favorite arroz and she was so happy. 
Our friend Hannah gives the kids her old team stuff and Aurelia is running around in head-to-toe Rapha. 😂 we are planning a trip to the Tour de France Femmes this summer, so Aurelia loves having all the team kits.
Aurelia has been back at school and next week she will start trying full days. Her class went to “colonies” which is like Outdoor Education. They stayed three days and two nights and after a blood analysis and a lot of organizing…Aurelia went with her class!! They were only about 20 mins away, so we could easily reach her if there was an emergency, but she did great. Aurelia knows all of her medications and chemos and the amounts, but her amazing teacher supervised everything. This trip lifted her spirits so much and she was just so thrilled to be included and feel normal. I was a nervous wreck the first day, but her teacher checked in with us constantly and all was well.

The doctors increased the chemo dose a couple of weeks ago, so today in Barcelona Aurelia received platelets during treatment and they are giving her a week off the chemo. This is pretty standard as they adjust the dosage for this long-term phase. We also received permission to go up to the mountains for a few days, so we are heading there tomorrow. 

Aurelia has struggled a bit with the return to “normal” life. Before her diagnosis the kids didn’t have any screens and just watched the occasional movie and tv show with us. Then all of this hit and she had a phone and an iPad. Those things were taken from her and put away in February when we returned home and she only gets the iPad on hospital days (twice a month). She was not super thrilled with that decision. 😂 For months the world revolved around her care and now we are returning to a bit more of normal life. It’s been a bit of a struggle for her to go back to doing chores and homework and such. She has been through a lot, but we also don’t want a spoiled child. Hopefully she continues to re-adjust with time, but she has definitely pulled the “I don’t feel well” card when told to do something she doesn’t want to do. 

As always, we are so grateful for the continued love and support. ❤️❤️

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