Ori's Leukemia is back...

Ori has had a relapse of his Leukemia. We're entering a new 2-year treatment plan tomorrow, starting with a 4-day hospital stay. These next 2 years will be more intensive than the 3-year treatment plan he finished 6 months ago. He'll get a port surgically implanted in his chest again, to eliminate the need for repeated needle pokes in his hands and arms for chemo. Over these next 2 years there'll be all-day chemo sessions at the oncology clinic, shots administered by us at home, multiple 3-day hospital stays, and one stretch where he'll be confined to a hospital room for 4 straight weeks. And there may be a bone marrow transplant, if Andon is a match.

We're pretty well floored by all of this. We thought he was doing so well, finally feeling normal and healthy these past 6 months, taking tennis lessons and re-starting swim lessons. All of that is on hold these next 2 years until the intensive chemo completes and his immune system numbers have a chance to build back up.

Sorry to be sharing this news impersonally over the Internet like this. We first tried talking to our parents about it and there were times where the emotion was so overwhelming that words literally could not come out. Typing this is the only way to talk about it right now, I'm afraid.

As for these next 2 years, we've been down this road before, so it's not frighteningly unknown. But the fact that this is a relapse is what's unknown, and that probably has us more uneasy than anything else.

The good news is the Phoenix Children's Hospital was recently added on to with a towering new wing with all private/individual rooms for patients, so all of our hospitalizations will be as restful and quiet and comfortable as possible. Right now, that qualifies as good news (and at this point, we're grabbing on to whatever good news we can find).

We'll post updates here throughout the process, as there's news.

And now we begin the next 2 years of our lives, one day at a time...