As One Chapter Ends, Another Begins

Iron Man and Iron Jonah had a staredown before Jonah's last treatment.  The Iron Man mask was a normal part of treatment, just to make it more fun, so actually having Iron Man show up to help celebrate the end of treatment was beyond awesome!

There is a Proton Center tradition that at the end of treatment kids get to paint their hand and put it on the wall.  Here the prep work is underway.

 This is Jonah's handprint - to permanently commemorate the end of treatment.

 Jonah and Iron Man race across the finish line to start his final treatment.

Jonah and Iron Man

When Jonah was diagnosed in July, the end of treatment seemed like a hundred years away.   There were so many hurdles and unknowns that were in front of us that coming to the end didn't seem possible.  Yet here we stand - 301 days after diagnosis - Jonah is done with treatment!  To add to the celebration, tomorrow is day 100 post stem cell transplant.  Day 100 is the benchmark for being officially recovered from the transplant and it's a day to celebrate.  As if that wasn't good enough news, on Friday we are taking Jonah's central line out because his weight and counts have been nice and stable for a few weeks now.

With all of these reasons to celebrate - one chapter closes and another begins.  The days of chemo, blood transfusions, neutropenia, hospital stays, fever anxiety, dressing changes are over.  The days of scanxiety from regular monitoring MRIs, specialist follow ups, therapy and defining the new normal are ahead. Cancer is a journey that never ends, it just changes.  I guess that's true about all of life actually, I just feel it more acutely now.


Fact:

Cancer kills more children than AIDS, asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and congenital abnormalities combined.  However, as a illustration of the lack of funding dedicated to pediatric cancer research, the NCI's funding for pediatric clinical trials is $26.4 million while funding for AIDS research is $254 million and breast cancer is $584 million.