August 6th was the one year of Karlee being diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Some days it seems like only yesterday, but other days it seems like we have been going through this experience forever. It has been long year of some pretty low lows and some pretty good highs with a bunch of different experiences thrown in.
We were camping at Old MacDonald’s Resort for her first anniversary and we still wanted to do something special. We decided to go out onto the beach before supper and let balloons go. Someone pointed out that this was very symbolic of letting go of some of the baggage while still holding the important things close.
So Saturday morning I drove into Stettler and found the Walmart. I bought a helium tank and a bunch of balloons. We spent a while blowing up and tying balloons. Thankfully Jon and Allison had their eating shelter set up so we didn’t have to worry about the balloons floating away. We ended up with about 50 balloons that we carried down to the beach. We had several families with us there… the Haskeys, the Hunters, the Perzans and the Suttons. We met the Suttons while camping this year and the kids had a great time playing with them.
We walked down to the beach and just before supper we handed out the balloons to everyone and let them go. It was a pretty powerful sight seeing everyone with the balloons and then seeing them floating away until they were no longer visible.
It is hard to believe everything that Karlee has been through in the last year. She has had one surgery, over 12 procedures (where she is put under), countless doses of chemotherapy through her port and has learned to chew chemo and all kinds of other pills. She has had 2 blood transfusions and has spent too many nights in the hospital. She has also had several positive experiences over the year. She has been to family camp twice, has spent a week at the Kids Cancer Care camp and even stayed over night. Kids Cancer Care has done a lot for us over the year – more than we could ever expect. We have also been looked after by the Church, by all our family and by numerous friends. We have all met many incredible families and special kids over the year that have touched our lives in ways we couldn’t imagine.
Karlee still has another year and 8 months of treatment and we know there will be tough spots, but with all the support we have we know we can get through it.
Wow… just realized how long it has been since I last blogged and how much I have to catch up on. So it is now the middle of October and I am blogging about the start of August. Hopefully I can rattle off a few entries this week and we can get everything caught up and start blogging about current stuff.
August 2nd was Karlee’s clinic day. It was also the Tuesday after the long weekend so it was an extremely busy day. Their appointment was at 11am for a check-up and chemo. Even through it was supposed to be a quick visit Mom, Karlee and Ryley were all there until almost 4pm. Karlee and Ryley were both pretty well behaved for such a long day. Of course there is only so much to entertain them at the hospital so it takes a toll on everyone there.
On Thursday August 4th we packed all our camping gear and headed to Old MacDonald’s Resort on Buffalo Lake. Old MacDonald’s is just outside of Stettler – about 2 hours northeast of Calgary. 2 years ago we went there and had a wonderful camping trip with lots for the kids to do. Last year we were scheduled to go (and 1/2 packed), but were spending time in the hospital. The day after we would have arrived Karlee was diagnosed with leukemia.
We got out there in really good time and got ourselves setup fairly quickly. We were in the newest loop, but still had a nice site. One of the great upgrades that they did earlier this year was to put in new toilets and sinks with running water and electric lights. That was some excellent news for Karlee as she prefers real toilets. It was also nice to have running water to wash our hands regularly as camping is not the cleanest environment for Karlee.
There were 4 families out there (all from Church) so the kids had other kids to play with and we had other people to socialize with. Old MacDonald’s has 6 or 7 playgrounds, a beach, peddle carts, a petting zoo, mini-golf, carrousel ride and hiking and biking paths. We also picked this weekend as it is Christmas in August. Saturday they have Santa show up and all the people with power sites put up lights and it is normally a great time.
Friday was a fun day at the beach even though the beach was a little less than perfect this year. There was a lot of flooding so the beach was considerably smaller than previous years. The kids still had a great time swimming and playing in the sand. We probably pushed a few limits with Karlee having her playing in the water and the dirty water on the beach, but everything worked out fine and she had a wonderful time. The kids met up with a couple of other kids from a camp site just down the road and they had a great time playing together. We invited them to join us for our fire and everyone had a good night. Friday night we had a little rain storm once we were in bed. Karlee liked to snuggle up to the side of the tent which resulted in a wet sleeping bad and a wet little girl. Otherwise we survived the rain fairly well.
Saturday was the one year anniversary of Karlee being diagnosed. We did a special ceremony which I will write about in the next blog. Saturday night we went down for the wagon ride to see the lights. Very shortly after we got on the wagon the weather changed and the sky got dark in every direction. The wind picked up and we all knew we were in for a good storm. When we got down by the beach you could see the water blowing in and the beach pretty much being completely washed out. As soon as we got off the wagon everyone headed back, except me and a few kids. We walked around to see if we could see some of the lights. We did take a pretty direct route back once the weather started to get even worse. When we got back Jennifer and Raeleen had wrapped our tent in a tarp. Very shortly after that we had an incredible downpour that went on for most of the night. Our tent survived very well, again except Karlee’s side.
Sunday was a pretty nice day with a cart ride and a few other fun events including an evening tour of all the playgrounds followed by a pitch black hunt of all the playgrounds for Ryley’s hoodie. Monday we packed up and headed home and then spent all afternoon and evening cleaning up and washing everything. That was a long and hard clean-up from a camping trip.
August 6th was the one year of Karlee being diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Some days it seems like only yesterday, but other days it seems like we have been going through this experience forever. It has been long year of some pretty low lows and some pretty good highs with a bunch of different experiences thrown in.
So Saturday morning I drove into Stettler and found the Walmart. I bought a helium tank and a bunch of balloons. We spent a while blowing up and tying balloons. Thankfully Jon and Allison had their eating shelter set up so we didn’t have to worry about the balloons floating away. We ended up with about 50 balloons that we carried down to the beach. We had several families with us there… the Haskeys, the Hunters, the Perzans and the Suttons. We met the Suttons while camping this year and the kids had a great time playing with them.
We walked down to the beach and just before supper we handed out the balloons to everyone and let them go. It was a pretty powerful sight seeing everyone with the balloons and then seeing them floating away until they were no longer visible.
