The picture of resilience

Dear Madeline,

You, my dear, inspire me. A few days ago you rang the bell down in radiation oncology to signify the end of your radiation treatments.  Before we left that day, the nurses there made sure to keep a central line accessed in your port. A few hours later, you showed us that your victory would not be confined to the morning hours by ripping off the dressing over your port and pulling out the needle from your central line into your port. You "deaccessed" yourself in a declaration of this was to be an all-day victory celebration. (After a phone call to the hospital's on-call pediatric oncologist, we were relieved to hear that no further action was needed on Monday.)

During your clinic appointment (your scheduled follow-up appointment with the oncologists), the doctors were quite impressed. All of your counts - your platelets, your red and white blood cells, your nutrition, your ANCs - were all "normal." Not bad considering you had some low counts prior to last week's double-duty chemo doses. What's more, the docs were very impressed that you deaccessed your port all on your own. They were also inspired by this, and speculated that you may have a grand surgical career in your future.

Your fight and resilience continue to be on display every day, side-by-side with your smile. With the help of some specialty medicines designed to help cancer patients deal with the effects of chemo, you're doing incredibly well. And you've managed to hang on to your hair! It has indeed thinned out just a little bit, and I must admit that I fully expected to be using your bald head to catch my own reflection by now. Keep proving me wrong, Sweet Pea. You are my hero.

Love,
   Daddy