One Year Anniversary

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.