Força Aurelia

 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 wi...

 We are about a month in to the maintenance phase of Aurelia’s treatment. My parent ALL support group told a lot of horror stories about this phase (which is 1.5 years long). To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect because it seems like a huge celebration to be finished with frontline treatment, but Aurelia still has to have chemo and other treatments so it’s not like we are done. The big news: Aurelia returned to school this week! School hours are from 9:15-5:15 (yes, long school day in this country) but Aurelia is attending until 1:15 (lunch) for the time being. She hadn’t seen her friends in person since June 22, 2021…. Aurelia loves her “Team Aurelia” shirt my sister sent: I’ll admit, homeschooling my child was often a struggle because we were dealing with so much on a daily basis and I had to try to keep her going with school stuff. Not the most fun teaching I’ve done, but we survived. We did a lot of baking with fractions and some things turned out better than others: Aure...

 It’s been awhile since I updated, but we are home! The return home was a bit dramatic as Eston had COVID, but he was fine and we are so grateful to our friends who helped during this time. Aurelia is thrilled to be home. We have to go to Barcelona every week or two for treatment and blood tests, but it’s a huge sigh of relief to have come this far in the treatment process. Last weekend we participated in a walk that raised money for the oncology ward at Hospital Sant Joan de Deu. Aurelia was pretty excited to pin on a number, though she was less pleased with her fitness level. The run/walk was 6.5km and she did run some of it, but she told me she is coming back next year to win it all. 😂 Yes, her TDF lion has bows in its hair.  These two went about 3 weeks without seeing each other due to Aurelia’s treatment and Eston’s COVID quarantine, so they were quite thrilled to be together again. ❤️ Aurelia is psyched to be back on the trails of Girona. Last weekend we did a family bi...

 We have reached the end of frontline treatment! We made it! Aurelia’s blood tests and scans are all good, so we will be allowed to return home to Girona on Friday. Aurelia so so excited to go home after two months away. She handled the last two weeks of treatment really well and has been feeling pretty good. Her doctors think she will be able to return to school and sports sometime in March. From here we move to the “long term maintenance” phase of treatment. Aurelia will take chemo pills each day at home and go in to the hospital for treatment every 3-4 weeks. This will continue until summer 2023 (more or less). We still have a long way to go, but getting through frontline was a huge feat and we are so proud of her determination and strength. We will continue to take things day by day. Some kids do really well in maintenance and don’t experience any challenges while others struggle and are in the hospital a lot, so we don’t know what to expect. We have found that focusing on her ...

On Friday the 31st Rory called me in the morning from the ER…Aurelia was running a fever and if this happens we are under strict instruction to get her to urgencies immediately. Her blood work showed she had a bit of an infection and she was admitted to the oncology floor. Eston and I quickly packed our stuff in Girona and drove down to the hospital. I stayed with Aurelia and Rory took Eston back to the beach apartment. Aurelia was in the hospital for five days. She was feeling totally fine, but her blood work showed she needed antibiotics and observation. She also had a blood transfusion to give her a little more strength.  Aurelia came back to the beach apartment just in time to celebrate King’s Day! Kids here don’t get their presents on Christmas…the three kings (three wisemen) bring them on January 6, so Aurelia was determined not to be in the hospital.  We opened presents on the morning of the 6th and played on the beach in the glorious sunshine.  We returned to the ...

 Well, our Christmas plan went out the window last week. Rory and I were trying so hard to keep Aurelia healthy and out of the hospital so we could be together as a family, but COVID had other plans. Wednesday the 22nd was the last day of school for Eston and I was going to pick him up and bring him back to the beach on Thursday. On Wednesday at 5pm (school day ends at 5:20 here) we received an email from school explaining that a student in Eston’s class was positive and he would need to quarantine at home. Since he is vaccinated, he could take a test and then be with the family (or so we thought). I went to Girona thinking I would be there for 48 hours or so. Eston did test negative, but others in his class were positive, so the quarantine was extended to January 1st and Aurelia’s medical team told us he really shouldn’t be with her. Major bummer. We spent Christmas morning on FaceTime—Eston opening gifts while quarantined in his bedroom, me sitting in my bedroom, and Rory and Aur...

  From the beginning of this journey we were told various things about each phase from our medical team, the many books we have read, the support groups, etc. We were told how tough induction was, how the HDMTX would be awful and all sorts of other things. Quite frankly, Aurelia never had much a struggle with any of it, so we just continued on our way feeling grateful things were uneventful. We were warned that this current Delayed Intensification phase was rough and this warning holds true. Incredibly true. A little over a week ago Aurelia started to feel quite crummy. She now has very little energy and is irritable. It became a struggle for her to do schoolwork, ride her bike, hike...all of the things we have been able to do without much effort. I suppose this day was eventually going to arrive, so I am grateful it has taken months. Our original plan was for Rory and I to take turns being here in Barcelona with Aurelia and Eston in Girona, but last week he called me and asked me ...