Thanks so much!! I'm so excited to find this forum to get advice and meet other families!! I'm still trying to figure everything out!! I need to post some pictures of my babies next!! I just have to figure out how!!!
I guess I need to start out by introducing you all to my family and to a very special little 5 yr old boy named Griff! My name is Marie and I'm married to my wonderful husband, Stephan, and we have 3 beautiful children, Griff, Addison, and Ansley. I am blessed to be able to stay at home with my babies, and my husband is an electrical engineer. It's tough being a one-income family, but we try our best to make it work!! We are Christian and live in the South!! A year ago today we got the news that Griff had Leukemia - ALL. For weeks before he was diagnosed, Griff had frequent fever and infections. He would get fever then we would take him to the doctor. He would usually have strep throat, and we would get antibiotics and he would seem to get better. Then in a few days, or maybe a week, the fever would come back. At first, it didn't seem like anything unusual was going on - this was all taking place during the winter of 2009-2010, and there were lots of illnesses going around. But, by March of 2010, we started getting the feeling that something more serious was going on. It was at our baby girl, Ansley's first birthday party when it really started to dawn on us. Griff had just finished up his antibiotic for strep throat, and seemed to be feeling great. Everyone was having fun at the party, and Griff was enjoying running around and playing with his friends and cousins. Then, I noticed him sitting down looking like he didn't feel good. I went over to him and asked him what was wrong. He looked up at me and said "my fever's going up again". I said "surely not, baby, you are better now, you just finished your medicine, everything's ok". I felt of his head and sure enough he felt hot, but I was hoping it was just from running around playing. I got a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was very wrong, but I ignored it and tried to explain it away. After the party, we went out to dinner, and stopped at a drugstore on the way. We got a thermometer and some tylenol. We checked his temp and sure enough he had fever again. I almost couldn't eat supper, because I knew something was going on. The following Monday we took him to his pediatrician and asked him to do a blood test, because we knew something was up and wanted answers. The blood test showed abnormalites in his counts, so we were rushed to the children's hospital. Once there, they did many tests, and none of them showed any signs of cancer. We were waiting and hoping for the mono test to come back positive. Then, on March 25, 2010, they did a bone marrow aspiration and found that Griff did have Leukemia - ALL, precursor B. We were devastated, but not without hope! God was with us and we knew we could get through it with Him! The next day Griff had a port placement, another BMA, and his first round of chemo. We were finally able to leave the hospital a couple of weeks later, and then went once a week for treatment. In October, 2010, Griff went into the Maintenance phase and we now go once a month for treatment. He is doing great and has had few complications other than low counts, fever, and one very scary seizure. He is a very vibrant, sweet, caring, playful, curious, imaginative, smart, tender-hearted little 5 yr old who loves Spiderman, Batman, and all superheroes, toys (esp action figures), playing nintendo ds, gi joe, star wars, baseball, football, hunting, and just being a typical little southern boy!!
Also, there are threads in the dining section of the DIS where people post cancelled reservations so you can snag them. 
