Isabella has been in school all week, except of course the two days off because of the snow/ice storms. But when she is out, her desk does not sit empty. We found this program called “There’s a Monkey In My Chair” that provides a big stuffed monkey that sits in Isabella’s chair while she is out due to treatment. “Charlie” participates in the classroom activities, and usually one of the classmates is in charge of taking care of Charlie and reporting back to Isabella. This allows Isabella to keep in touch with her classmates while she is out. Some of the reports back to Isabella are really cute:
“Charlie went to art but he did not do anything. He was a little lazy. But he was listening great.”
“Charlie was a good monkey today.”
“Charlie learned about pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half dollars today.”
“Charlie ate his banana at lunch today.”
“At gym, Charlie didn’t run because he didn’t have shoes.”
Unfortunately, Charlie will have to take Isabella’s place again next week. Our doctors have suggested that since Isabella did not have any severe reactions during this last cycle and that her neurological symptoms have not gotten noticeably worse, that it would be worth another shot for chemo. After this round, we’ll do another MRI and see what’s going on in there. After that, we still have no idea what’s next, but we do know that we can’t do this high dose chemo forever.
But Isabella still has another day of school left for her to enjoy before having to go through the chemo again.
