Chemo free and cancer free

And it's finally sinking in; our little miracle is cancer free!

We haven't had a single appointment this week. Not one! It's been a very long time since I could say that.

It's so wonderful not to have to view everyone around us as a potential threat to our little miracle's health.

We've even we've been to IKEA his week to get that high chair finally! Time to put away the bumbo seat!

That's actually something that's way overdue, but it has been impossible to go to places like that while little Peeper still received chemotherapy and, it's been just as impossible to get B to go pick out a high chair on his own.





It feel's a bit strange to have the freedom to go where ever I want to go, when ever I want to go again. Well, within limits of course, but at least we're now limited by ordinary things such as the assets in the bank, which as usual spells the word disaster around here, but when you're at the bottom you can only work your way up and, we might as well get use to the idea that we're not going to have much as long as we have to keep going to the hospital in Stockholm every month.

Next time we'll be going to the eye hospital instead of the cancer ward. I've been looking forward to that, but it's still a bit of a double edge sword, since it's also kind of nice to be in a place where we know our way around and, of course where there are people who care enough to take the time to come to our room and welcome us back.

Alex was still at the camp for siblings of siblings with cancer, so it's actually even better now that we've gotten the chance to prove to the ones who have been making ignorant comments about Alex taking care of his blind parents, that we can manage just fine without him.

One of the nurses who worked at the pediatric infection ward at the hospital here in our city has gotten a job at the oncology ward, so she was there to welcome us as well. She told me about that last time we had to stay in the hospital with little Peeper, but I had forgotten all about it. I'm not so sure she likes it over there, but it could of course just be that it takes a while to fit in. She's a nice person and I hope things will work out for her.

I almost wanna go back there just to see how she and Peeper's favorite nurse are doing. It feels kind of strange to hope that we'll never see them again.. At least not in that place.

On the other hand I've been dreading to come back every time and, the only reason I wasn't freaking out this time was because we were fairly certain that there wouldn't be any chemo this time. As certain that one can be in this world of constant apprehension and uncertainty that we entered the day the suspicion of cancer was raised.

It's not very likely that there would be new tumors while he still had the effects from the last chemotherapy treatment in his system. I know that it happens, but it's not something I want to think about and, though I also have days where I sit and look up facts about trilateral retinoblastoma and, the odds of getting other forms of cancer due to the gene mutation that caused the cancer in the first place, that sort of thing easily becomes a fear of the future that's threatening to swamp me.

Education is a curse sometimes and, so are worthless genes. People like me should never have children and, if I had known I wouldn't have had any. At least not the regular way.

For the most part however, I try to maintain a positive attitude. The fact that he has responded so well to the treatment thus far was, and is, a good sign and, right now I'm gonna let the fact that there's still no new tumors reinforce that there's hope... There is always hope...

The pediatric oncology ward is still a difficult place to be. There's no way to shield one's heart when there's so many suffering children everywhere and, I'm sure the eye hospital will be a less stressful environment for all of us. More over, we'll only have to be gone over a 24 hour period, so Alex won't have to miss school to come with us every time.

On another note I must say that the doctors sometimes don't seem very concerned with privacy. The eye doctor always communicates his last discoveries with us in the waiting room. That may of course be because he's only had positive news for us thus far, but on the other hand one of the oncologists was standing around in the corridor outside our room, discussing with a devastated couple that a bone marrow transplant would be the only option for their child now.

I went straight to the website and got an application to get on the donors list and, quite frankly, so should you. These children's lives depend on that people are willing to help, so please, please, take the time to consider becoming a bone marrow donor.

Find an international donor center in your country(Germany, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, US(
Or if your country is not mentioned above:
Send an email to "questions@ndmp.org to find out how to become a bone marrow donor in your country.

Also, please remember that it's world retinoblastoma awareness week, so I would greatly appreciate if you could take a few minutes to read and share my post on the subject. Thank you for taking the time.