A fork in the road...

Quite some time has passed since our last post.

Mike has had many check ups and each has resulted a clean bill of health. Nonetheless, the days and weeks preceding each check up are filled with anxiety. What if the CAT scan shows something? Will the lab results be "within normal limits"? After Mike visits Mercy Oncology and the staff, that became in many ways a family to us, with the positive results we are able to breath a bit more easily.

Vivian has changed from a toddler to a big kid. She constantly challenges and amuses us. She wants to be a doctor like her biba and Daddy's "Dr. Ketchup". She has a very strong personality and is a joy to be around (most of the time).

Jonah is a BIG boy. He is possibly the funniest and sweetest kid around. He is so much like Mike it is scary. At this very moment he is sitting in the middle of the dinning room table. There is no amount of child proofing that would inhibit the little dare devil.

I have been enjoying every minute watching my family grow. Each day I am amazed at what I see. I cannot believe that my parents raised 6 kids. Where did the energy come from?

That brings me to the last member of the journey to Indiana, Janise. Janise, as always, never stops. She is an amazing grandmother, and person. When Vivian and Jonah are with her, and I suspect often when they are not, she is coming up with new ways to entertain them. She is very hands on, running through the sprinkler, letting them "cook", bringing them to the playground and Tom's favorite sleepovers with trips to Beal's for ice cream!

Janise has been undergoing treatment for Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (also called CLL). According to WebMD, CLL is a blood and bone marrow disease that usually gets worse slowly. CLL is the second most common type of leukemia in adults. Although she was diagnosed prior to my arrival in the Bryand/Monaghan family because of the slow progression Janise had her first official treatment not long before Vivian was born. She took a pill form of chemo over a long period of time. The results were good and she went in to a remission period. In December of 2009 the decision to restart treatment was made. Protocols had changed since her first treatment so this time the treatment would be intravenously through infusions. Janise was outfitted with a Mediport and was off to MMC for in patient infusion chemotherapy. The plan was to have monthly infusions on an out patient basis. Over the course of the last eight months Janise's levels have been off, which has not allowed her to be treated as the original plan was written. A few weeks ago Janise and Tom headed to Dana Farber to meet with her consulting physicians as she has done many times throughout the last several years.

The result of that trip is the fork in the road. In a few weeks Janise will have a stem cell transplant. She will receive donor stem cells at Dana Farber and will be there on an in patient basis for 8 or 9 days. Since this blog served our family so well getting information to our friends and family as we travelled to Indiana for Mike's surgery Janise will be using it to keep everyone posted on this next journey.