My mom was in town for the 4th of July holiday and we all went strawberry picking today. 🙂

Rachel’s hemoglobin was pretty low with today’s blood test. She was feeling pretty tired and had a headache, so the doctor’s office had us bring her in for a transfusion, rather than waiting to recheck next week. We were happy to not go the whole weekend with her feeling exhausted and likely getting worse over the next few days.

Rachel finished up her last radiation treatment today (until after surgery) and got to “ring the bell” at the doctor’s office, signifying the end of her radiation treatments. Her radiation doctors and nurses as well as her nurse from the oncologist’s office came to watch her ring the bell. She also got a gift from the radiation oncology team (a red panda T-shirt, of course.)

The folks at Christopher’s Haven were already having a get together tonight, so they added on a little “bell ringing” theme for Rachel, complete with a cookie cake and some flowers for Rachel.

Caitlyn had come down to Boston with me on Saturday, but Rachel has felt too weak and nauseous from last week’s chemo to do much of anything, so we’ve just been relaxing at the apartment (with the nice central air conditioning.)

Rachel’s back is looking really burned and painful, though Rachel says it mostly just itches and all the medical personnel say that it doesn’t look that bad, so I guess it could be worse. I’m glad she has a break of a few months before the final couple of weeks.

Rachel’s blood counts were finally okay this morning so they’re giving her a 3-day round of ifosfamide and etoposide (it’s usually 5 days.)

Surgery is scheduled for September 6, which is a little frustrating. We were under the impression that it would be in late July or early August. She will have 2-3 weeks of radiation in late November or early December, after she’s recovered from surgery – which will mean this treatment ordeal will last longer than a year.

Rachel will still have 2 more days of radiation next week – to make up for Memorial Day when the proton center was closed for the holiday and June 12, when it was closed for maintenance.

It’s finally here – graduation day! We are all so proud of Rachel for all that she’s been able to accomplish this year and are so happy that she was able to fully participate in her graduation ceremony today. 🙂

We found out yesterday that Caitlyn has strep, so we’re really hoping that Rachel doesn’t catch it, given her compromised immune system.

Rachel’s platelets were back up this morning but her ANC wasn’t, so no chemo this week. Considering graduation is Sunday, this is probably good news; Rachel should feel pretty good for the ceremony.

Radiation is continuing to go smoothly, though her back is starting to look like a sunburn.

Rachel finished her English paper last week – woo! That was the last thing that she needed to finish in order to graduate – and it was causing her much stress. There have been so few days that she’s felt well enough to even work on homework in the past 7 months. Not to mention the methotrexate that messes with her short-term memory, which made homework pretty much impossible those weeks (and there were a lot of those weeks.) I don’t think I ever followed up with what science class she ended up keeping; they weren’t able to work out online labs for a/p chemistry so she dropped that and kept physics. After a couple months it became clear that she wasn’t going to be able to handle 4 classes, so she dropped that class as well, since she didn’t need it to graduate.

I picked up her cap and gown on Friday. So exciting! 😀 We’re so happy and relieved that she has been able to get through this school year and graduate with her class.

Rachel’s platelets and ANC were both too low for chemo this morning. They will try again on Wednesday to see if they can squeeze in a 3-day round.

Rachel’s platelets were too low again this morning, so no chemo this week either. This is probably good news for Rachel, since she still has an English paper that she needs to finish in order to graduate.

Radiation treatments went fine the rest of the week. On Friday, Rachel’s dad brought Caitlyn down for the long Memorial Day weekend. Since she didn’t have chemo, Rachel felt pretty good for the weekend. On Saturday we visited the Franklin Park Zoo so that Rachel could see the red pandas – her obsession. On Sunday we visited the aquarium. We also made a stop at the rooftop garden at Mass General.

We’re back in Boston today for the start of week 2 (of 5) of radiation. They checked Rachel’s blood counts at the oncologist’s office this morning to see if they were okay for chemo this week, but her platelets were too low; she got a platelet transfusion today instead of chemo. Since they do these chemo treatments on an outpatient basis here, they are waiting until next week to try again. They were able to give her the platelets over 2 hours instead of 4 by giving her a steroid and some Tylenol and lots of Benadryl. She still got a couple hives at the very end.

Radiation treatment went fine this afternoon.