Where to Begin

** Please note that you may comment with well-wishes. We DO NOT want any suggestions or vocalizations about treatment etc... We will only be accepting that information from Emma's medical treatment team. Thank you for respecting this.

This unsuspecting journey began on Friday 10 March, 2023 when Emma woke up with some non-descript left hip/leg pain. It was a minor complaint and we put it down to a probable growth spurt. She went to school and at the end of the day, it was no better - in fact, slightly worse as she was now limping around. Saturday, in talking with my Dad (readers will all know that he is a Family MD), he suggested I take her to Paeds ER for an x-ray as it might be something like a slipped capital femoral epiphysis.  Chris was at soccer coach training (for what would be Emma's summer soccer team) and so I packed both kids off and went to ER. A few hours later, we had the x-ray done, with no abnormalities. For whatever reason, the ER Dr decided to do some bloodwork..... and there it was: Emma has leukemia. Emma has leukemia. 

First days: 

That same day (Sat 11 March, exactly one month before Emma's birthday and one week from when we were due to fly to Australia for a LONG overdue trip to see family), we met who will become Emma's primary oncologist and they admitted Emma to Children's Hospital with the plan to start chemotherapy as soon as possible. We learned more about what type of leukemia (acute lymphoblastic leukemia - ALL) and what the treatment plan looks like (1 month of 'induction', the next month called 'consolidation' and then I forget what comes after that because I can only take this in pieces). 

By Monday morning, they had place a port-a-cath (a central line that is placed beneath the skin for ease of access for longer-term IV treatments and bloodwork), done a bone marrow aspirate and a lumbar puncture. Poor Emma - that was a lot for one day, but so important to get it all started. Later that day, she had her first dose of IV chemotherapy. She generally tolerated it well, though you can imagine how awful all of this is for a previously well almost-11 year old to have her body handled in this way and be confused and scared. It was awful. The rest of that week was just trying to adjust to all of this - this was now March break and Alex off school, actually with strep throat (what else could possibly happen?) so he couldn't visit for a couple days. He is also confused and scared and all of it is just terrible. But we're trying to look at the positives - we caught this quickly; we have an amazing Children's hospital with a ton of services and support right down the road; we have oodles of support from family, friends and colleagues; and there is a treatment plan and a good prognosis, despite a hard slog of chemo/treatment ahead.