Autumn had a playdate with her friend Rio today. Rio just turned 5 and was here with her sister the day (March 15th) that Autumn and I went to the ER to figure out what had gone wrong after she tripped and fell at the beauty school. It seems like that was a decade ago, so much has transpired since.

Tomorrow we will head into Sierra Vista for yet another blood draw to determine if she is well enough to begin another round of chemo. I believe she has accumulated over 50 beads from Robyn the social worker, for blood draws over the past 9 months and we aren’t even done yet. Remember being a kid and thinking that a “poke” was the worst thing on earth? A kid can agonize about that needle for days both before and after a doctor’s visit. To think that Autumn has to endure this on a weekly and sometimes a daily basis just seems brutal. What is even more remarkable is she really does it, with very little resistance. In the clinic, the nurses told us of one boy that is perhaps 8 years old who screams inconsolably and cries for a good long thirty minutes each time he has his blood drawn. It doesn’t sound shocking to me, that’s really what I would expect, having been a kid myself once long ago.