Leila's Ohio trip

We have been in Columbus, Ohio for the past week. We are having a great time with family and friends. Leila has been doing very well, and has enjoyed playing with her cousins. She has had a lot of energy and handled the travel better than expected. She continues to take her necessary medication while we are away.

Leila had a great time yesterday; when she got to drive a golf cart at our friends house. She was laughing and smiling from ear to ear. She was also doing cartwheels with her cousin Sophia last night. It is so good to see her full of energy and life, and having such a good time. We will be updating the blog next week when we return home again.

4th of July week

We had a fun 4th of July celebration. Ziad's mom (Tata) came to visit us for a few days. Leila, Rami and Deena enjoyed the extra attention. Tata got to spend some quality time with all three kids. She spent time cooking for us and we had a great time. We spent the 4th with our neighbors and enjoyed the fireworks in our neighborhood. Ziad's brother Waleed and his wife Stefanie also came for a few days to visit with us and see the kids. They enjoyed swimming with Leila, Rami and Deena and playing the Wii. We spent an evening on the Las Vegas strip to show Stefanie, who had never been to Vegas. Leila did well and was fine with walking around to see the sites.

Leila has done incredibly well with her medication in this stage of treatment. She has only complained of her stomach hurting, but no sickness from it. She continues to have a lot of energy and she is eating well.

With Leila doing so well, we have decided to make the trip to Columbus that we had planned long ago. Mom and the kids will travel on Tuesday back to Ohio and stay for 10 days. We are looking forward to seeing the entire family.

The Make A Wish Foundation

There is one thing we forgot to mention last week that Leila was excited about. We had a visit from two women who are wish grantors with The Make A Wish Foundation. They spent an evening with our family to get to know us and especially Leila. They were here to gather information from Leila on what type of WISH she may want. Previous to this visit, Leila had been talking about wanting her bedroom changed. She has been wanting a Hannah Montana room, because her friend Emily has a HM bedroom. She expressed that to the wish grantors and they were so excited to try and make her wish a reality. Her second wish was for a trip to DisneyWorld, but at this time we are not sure about traveling. In the next few weeks, we will find out the details of Leila's WISH. It gives her something fun to look forward to.

The start of a new stage

On Monday, Leila began yet another new stage of the treatment process. This stage is called Interim Maintenance. She received a chemotherapy called Vincristine through her port IV, which she has had many times before. This is the chemo that makes her hair fall out the most. She also had her weekly blood counts. In addition to this, she is back on Dexamethasone (THE STEROID) for five days. She will continue taking the Mercaptopurine chemo pill throughout this stage also. We also added one more chemo pill which is called Methotrexate oral. It is only given to her once a week, but it is seven pills that have to be given all at once at night before bed. Leila has not mastered swallowing a pill yet, so mom continues to crush the pills and add them to jello.

Leila had to stay up late Monday in order to get all of the medicine down. She slept with mom and was very restless throughout the night. She made it through the night without any problems. Mom was worried about the new pill Methotrexate, because the side affects are known to be bad.