First Day of School

We remember vividly the day that school started for every other child and seeing all of the happy posts of kids dressed up in their first day of school clothes, holding their cute signs, starting an exciting year fresh off of a warm and happy break. That same day we were on our way to the hospital for Cooper to get his mid induction blood test which would tell us how much leukemia was left in his peripheral blood, and several rounds of chemo. This was a big day for us too, but not for the reasons we thought. The day we thought would be filled with tears of job watching our first child step onto the school bus to start school, instead was filled with an operating room, needles, chemo, tears, and anxiety. This was such a big day in retrospect, as this day would determine whether the induction course of treatment was on track to show no leukemia in his marrow by day 29. This determines the entire course of treatment and whether he is responding to standard of care. HUGE, but certainly not the big day we thought we would be having. 

9 months later, our brave little dude marched onto the bus by himself, with not hat and only a few hairs on his head and went to school. This day was everything. It was a snapshot of how far we have come, a snapshot of what normal looks like, because neither he nor us remember what that is like, it was exciting beyond words, and utterly terrifying. We turned our cancer patient over to the care of someone else for the first time ever. We sent him into a room full of germs, after 9 months of quarantine. We sent him off into the world to be a kid, to do what he missed, with about 30 bottles of hand sanitizer, and we couldn’t be more proud.

We worked really hard to keep a great deal of structure in his life throughout treatment, which was difficult beyond words. We didn’t let him sit in front of a screen for days upon end and let him eat and do whatever he wanted. Because at the end of the day you don ‘t want to create a monster from your situation. We were also told that sometimes for kids, returning to “normal” can be more difficult than the treatment itself. We attempted to combat this as a unit from the start so we didn’t have another hurdle to overcome…we’ve had plenty and didn’t need one that we created. I know there are things we could have done differently, and could have changed, but we do believe that this helped him immensely when it came to returning to a world with structure, expectations of school, and making new friends, and in retrospect, we are glad we kept the structure as hard as it was to do that being confined within our walls for 9 months. 

Cooper loves his school, his teacher has been amazing and has made him a part of the class since day one, and for that we are thankful. Because of that she created an environment for Cooper to come into that was empathetic, understanding, and germ conscious, but most of all he was welcomed and the kids had anticipated his arrival for quite some time, which made our little dude feel special.