Back to School

This week has been a big improvement as far as how Kera's been feeling.  Each day she has gotten better and better.  I think the fact that she has only 7 more treatments to go helps.  We are all getting anxious for the treatments and daily trips to Salt Lake to be over.  Kera's nausea has been the biggest problem, and lately we are seeing her feel more normal.  There is still a little bit of an issue with her eating.  She is very particular about what she will eat, and certain foods do not agree with her.  But for the most part she has been feeling good and not having too much nausea.  At our appointment with the oncologist Friday we talked about trying to decrease the steroid pill back to 1mg.  We tapered it down last Friday, but then she was feeling so sick and throwing up all weekend, that we went back up to the 2mg because the steroid helps with nausea.  It's been two days of 1mg pills and she is still feeling good.  I am giving her a nausea/anxiety pill called Atevan that she takes along with the Zofran, and that's working well.
Now that we have gotten her nausea under control and her right eye has improved, she is feeling less self conscious.  She even went back to church today!!  She stayed for all three meetings.  She was excited to be back in primary, and I know her friends and leaders were glad to see her there, and I was so happy to have her at church with us.  Kera also decided last week when we were doing back to school shopping and after they found out who their teachers would be that she wanted to be there for the first day of school.  That's what she said at first, that she wanted to be there for the first day, but now she says she wants to be there every day.  We will still have to leave at 11:15 every day to do her treatment, but she is wanting to be at school, and she was concerned about the things she would be missing when she leaves early.  Luckily it's the first week of school, and she only has this week and two days next week that she will be missing.
I'm glad that she wants to be back in school and return to a normal schedule, but I'm also a little bit sad.  I will miss having her at home with me each day, and I was kind of looking forward to home schooling her.  I know that it could still be an option if going to school every day gets to be too much for her, but I'm glad that she's feeling well enough to be at school.  That's such a good sign.  She is really doing very well, with very few symptoms at all.  It is my constant prayer that she will continue on this path for as long as possible.  We will return in a few weeks to do a diagnostic MRI, and they say that we should see a difference in the size of the tumor, but more importantly it's the not showing increased symptoms that will tell us how she's doing, more than the results of the scan.  We could still see a tumor on the scan, but as long as she is doing well with few symptoms, then we know it is working and that the radiation has helped.  Of course I hope we go in there and there is nothing there at all.  :)
We had our back to school night last Thursday, and at first Kera wanted to come with me.  The boys were spending the night down at my parents house in Riverton so Jacob didn't go.  Dave's sister Carrie came up to visit and they went to get frozen yogurt, so I went alone to the school.  I was glad I did because after meeting Jacob's teacher I went to Kera's classroom and met her teachers.  She has two teachers this year, and I was very impressed with both of them.  I had to explain to them about Kera's condition, and reality hit me hard and I broke down crying.  It was hard to be there seeing her little desk and the papers to hand out, the normal things that you would expect on back to school night, but now things are not normal, and I don't know what the year will bring.  So I got very emotional as I explained about Kera's diagnosis.  Her teachers were very helpful though and one of them actually helped write the online curriculum for 3rd grade last year, so we can easily transition to online schooling if we need to do so.  Just another one of the tender mercies that I am so thankful for.  :)  I'm also glad that she has two sweet girls from Kera's primary class in her school class with her.  I feel good about her starting school, and I feel very positive right now about everything.  It's a good day. :) :)