Arms Opened Wide

One month ago, the skies darkened over our lives as a skin infection revealed that 99% of Ava's blood had Leukemia cells. And to think, that my main concern that day was a case of MRSA on Ava's skin and a missed day of work! The initial hospital stay after her diagnosis was 23 days and we geared up for a terrible and long road to recovery. We were told that Ava had a very rare type of cancer, one that only hit 3-5% of the Leukemia population. There was no protocol for this type of cancer but they would do everything in their power to cure her. "We will not disappoint you," the medical team said. But it seemed every piece of news after that brought us lower and lower until we were on our knees in desperation. 

And that's when you stepped in. 

We were inundated with the love. I mean, it was to the point of overwhelm. How would I write back to each of you thanking you for your kindness? Who were some of you and what motivated you to give so freely to our family? What could we do to repay you?

That was our first lifeline.

Then we found out that Ava's treatment was not effective in bringing down her blasts. She stood at 30% blasts in her blood weeks after her first round of chemo. We were told a Bone Marrow Transplant was a strong option and a search was made to find a match. We posted everywhere and friends planned 6 drives in Ava's honor. We asked for prayers and you stormed Heaven on our behalf. Interestingly, her blasts went all the way down to an undetectable level by the end of the month. Our doctors were "very surprised."

That was our second lifeline.

Today we went into clinic ready to stay one night, ten nights, one hundred nights. We didn't care. We just wanted her to get better. Her doctor walked in and said that they had conferred and decided that Ava would be switched to a different treatment because the first one still left 0.7% blasts. This new treatment would require a weekly visit to the hospital to push a few drugs into her pic line and then we could be on our way home to heal in the comforts of our home. 

This was our third lifeline.

We know we aren't there yet and we know that there are no guarantees. We know that nights might still leave us frozen in fear and that the good days might still be clouded with doubt. But, we also don't know how many surprises God has planned for us along the way and we will take them all, with arms opened wide.