Great News Everyone!

Great new tonight everyone! So the doctors decided to check Jillians blood just as I stated in the last post anddddd……… HER ANC WENT UP TO 150! Now I know that isn’t the greatest jump or anywhere near where her ANC should be but man are we happy! It’s so awesome to see her numbers going up and not going down. But considering we were at zero I don’t know how it could have gotten worse. Also because her hemoglobin was down and she had to get a transfusion (which is why they checked her blood today) we saw that her hemoglobin also went up. AND her platelets went up about 50,000 counts. So awesome, I was so happy with her count tonight, even though her white blood count went down we were still ecstatic about all her other numbers. We know that we have to expect her numbers to fluctuate every day, especially because she is on chemo, but we have to appreciate the days that she has the good number. Hooray for today!

So tomorrow marks the first day that Jillian and I will be at the hospital solo. Daniel is taking my mom back tomorrow and he will be staying the night so William can be at home for a night. I can’t imagine how hard it is on William and the fact that he cannot express his frustration or his feelings makes it so much harder on us. So I think it will be so great for him to spend a night in his own room and to be able to be with his dad. Jill and I are prepared to be here, just us two, and it will be good for us because we may be spending a lot of time when it will just be us. And because of all the amazing people who have given Jilly so much to do, we will be entertained all day!

Today we met another mom whose son was just diagnosed with ALL, along with ALL he also has another diagnosis that is not similar to Jillians but does put him in a higher risk category. It was nice to meet another mom, but hard to see her suffer with accepting his diagnosis. They are on day two of their treatment and just remembering what it was like for us at day two is just overwhelming. I already feel like a veteran here! And I barely know what I’m doing! I would love to try and help her as much as possible but at this point in Jillians treatment I just don’t know if I have the energy to pay it forward yet! Once Jill is in remission and doing well then I think it will be a good time to see about helping other families too. Her son is truly amazing as well, we got meet him and to meet a child who is a little older and understands more is comforting. He was such a cool kid, I hope everything works out for them. Keep them in your prayers as well everyone!

Considering Jillians age we often don’t realize how much she is listening to everything and understanding more than we think. When Daniel and I went out for a few hours today she asked her grandma to take her for a walk. Now going on a walk is not an easy thing to do with a sick child. They have to be bundled up and Jillian cannot leave the room without her mask on. So grandma got her all ready to go BUT forgot to put Jillians mask on right before they were about to leave. Jillian says to her grandma “my mask!” and then she tells her “the doctors going to get mad at you!” haha. Its so funny to hear that a four year is making sure to prevent herself from getting any sicker. She is listening to everything! Jillian is truly so amazing and she is making this whole ordeal easier on everyone. She still misses home and most of all her brother but she is hanging in there! We do more blood work on Monday, Christmas Eve, maybe we will get lucky and Santa will bring me a good ANC count for Christmas!