How do you help your child believe she won’t be known as the girl with cancer for the next four years of high school? How do you assure her that if she is, it will be a badge of honor? That people won’t pity her? Unfortunately these are the questions I wasn’t able to answer for Ava today. They’re the ones that require the grace and compassion of teenagers. Who can fully guarantee that?

Thankfully conversations like these were the hardest part of our day. Though she had a few headaches and some nausea Ava had a pretty uneventful day after chemo. First, we were happy to learn that she had no leukemia in her CSF and will not need additional treatment in her spine. We got a better understanding of her chemo treatment. She will be receiving treatment this Friday and from then on every Tuesday until August 13th.

Ava’s been looking forward to today since she was admitted on Friday. On Wednesday’s the Bloomberg Building has so many fun events planned for the kids. First she made a Build a Bear for her cousin, Amaya. Then she had friends and Ellie visit during BINGO. In the evening she and Ellie dropped by movie night and got Dippin’ Dots. She was able to complete 8 laps around the floor. Yesterday she was only able to do 3, but when Dr. Cooper threw out the incentive of a visit from her pup, she got moving. I’m sure she’ll be walking 10 laps a day in no time. After all that walking we celebrated with Ledo Pizza for dinner.

So though there were moments of anger and weakness it was all in all good day for us. Kevin was even able to get some work in. I’d be more than happy to have many more uneventful days like this during our stay.

P.S. I inquired today about the prizes they give out during BINGO and all the treats the nurses drop off. Turns out they come from donations or the nurses buy them for the patients. While they get a large influx of things during Christmas during the summer there’s a lot less. A nurse told me that they are always looking for things for older children and teens, because that’s the majority of their patients. So if anyone is interested in donating please let me know and I’ll pass on the information. We will be donating a couple Kiwi Crates in hopes of bringing some distraction to a future patient.