And so it continues...

This has got to be a record. Grace is still home!!! We've had clinic visits every week day and a blood transfusion but we've been able to be at home in the evenings and mornings!!! Tomorrow, September 4th, Grace starts her 5th round of chemo. It's the same chemo she had the first 2 times that made her so sick with mouth sores--on the up side we've been getting the medicine to help with that--cross your fingers!!

Her home bound teacher is amazing with her. It's been so good for her to have that structure and know that no matter what education is important. Grace has "school" on Tuesday and Thursday from 9-11 in the morning. She has homework in between sessions. They are moving at a very fast pace--We were skeptical that 4 hours a week could actually keep her up with the class but it's amazing how much they accomplish in that time. It'll be interesting to see how it works when we are in the hospital. Hopefully, we'll only have to have school in the hospital on Tuesday and we'll be home for the Thursday class time.

We are anxiously awaiting the clinical evaluation that will be done after her 5th round. The doctor said that they wait 3-4 weeks to do the evaluation so the patient is feeling a little better and the chemo side effects are wearing off. It's really the results that we are anxiously awaiting. A little girl a few weeks ahead of Grace had a lot of scar tissue and they couldn't determine conclusively that the scar tissue wasn't tumors so they opted for 4 more chemo rounds. We didn't realize there could be scar tissue from all the tumors but it makes sense that there would be some damage. We are hoping for the best but we'll do whatever we need to.

Grace was so sad on Labor Day. Her cousins were here and we went to the pool/park to play and she couldn't go swimming. She could just dangled her feet in and she said to grandma, "it's just not fair that Jessica and Jane get to go swimming and I don't!" Grandma just told her that she was right. It's not fair and that probably next summer she'd be able to go swimming too. Grandma also got her another Popsicle--that always helps!!

She seems to be doing well. We hope that means she's doing a great job at "beating up the cancer". That's what we always tell her when she's sick of everything--we tell her we have to keep fighting and beat up the cancer.

This is definitely the worst and most amazing experience of life so far--we know prayer works and we know service changes lives because our life is better because of all those willing to help us at this time. We hope this finds you well.