Isabel had her post chemo check up and blood draw today. She's been off treatment for one year and four months!

The phlebotomist was awesome and the blood draw was painless. Isabel still has anxiety over it, especially when we have to sit there and wait, the needle laying on the table in front of her. I was very grateful that her anxiety was the worst of it and there was no actual pain involved.



The check up was easy as pie and the pediatrician signed off on all the paperwork involved in sending Isabel to Camp Okizu in August.

Ta-da! Done and done for another two months! Isabel's blood counts came back with perfect numbers across the board, just the way we like it.

Actually, this time came with unexpected milestone. The day after her blood draw, I got the phone call from the pediatric oncology clinic with Isabel's blood results while Alan was at work. I tried giving him a call to let him know Isabel was doing great but couldn't get a hold of him. By that evening when he was home it had slipped my mind. He never asked and I didn't remember to tell him until the next morning. Never, ever did we think we'd just up and forget something like that!!! These days we just assume that Isabel is in the clear and we never obsess on her blood count numbers the way we used to. What a huge deal it is to be like this now, compared to us mentally pacing and checking our phones every twenty minutes, anxious to hear the results. I remember once we even paged the oncologist at the hospital because we hadn't heard the results and we were freaking out. Nowadays we don't even need to hear the results to know deep down in our hearts, that Isabel is perfectly fine and will stay that way.

We made it through, we really did and we're just basking in the sunlight outside that long, dark tunnel. Life is sweet.