Karlee's Beaded Journey

Wednesday Karlee had a good day.  She had lots of energy and was in a good mood most of the day.  It was a pretty easy day as far as treatment went as she only had her steroids and some of the other meds that help keep her healthy.  She gets one more chemotherapy injection in her leg either Thursday or Friday, then she is done with chemo until next Tuesday.


Ryley is going to be going to Camp Kindle from Monday until next Saturday.  It is all put on by the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta and is out by Water Valley.  He is very excited about going to camp and getting to do all the fun stuff out there.  He leaves on the bus Monday morning and we can go an pick him up Saturday morning.


One of the most exciting things about Wednesday was starting "Karlee's Beaded Journey".  This is something else the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta does for cancer patients.  They are given a length of string and beads with their names on them, then they get beads for various events in their journey.


This is from the book she received:

The Beaded Journey is a way to honour and tell the story of your treatment path through beads placed on a rope.  Beads of different shapes and colours stand for the many important points, both medical and non-medical, along your treatment path.  It is a chance for you to keep track of your time with us.

The journal is a way for you to record some of the special and meaningful stories that the beads stand for so that you can share those stories with others.

Karlee has 14 poke beads, 6 tests & scans beads, 2 chemo beads, 3 emergency room trip beads, but more importantly 19 visit beads (excluding Dad and Ryley).  She loves picking out the beads and putting them on the string.  Everyone will have to ask her to see her bead journey when they come to visit.  They also provided Ryley with a start of his, but we have to supply his beads.  After a quick trip to Beads and Plenty More yesterday he now has his bead journey and journal started as he is going to go through this journey with Karlee.

Wednesday Ryley went on a road trip with Uncle Randy, Aunt Catherine, Everett and Oliver to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller.  Ryley is having a pretty good summer I think since he is getting to do lots of cool things.  The Kids Cancer Care Foundation and the Calgary Stampeders have gotten him and Dad special tickets to the Stamps game against Edmonton on Sunday night.


Thursday Ryley had a play date with one of his friends so Dad didn't get up to the hospital until a little later in the day.  Karlee was a little cranky after her nap, but in the morning she was dancing around singing "I'm So Happy!"  The steroids can change her behavior, so we might be seeing the start of this.