Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

Since you're reading this we know that you are concerned about Keira and it truly means the world to us that we have so many people who care about our little princess.

On Monday Brendan took Keira to the Dr. for a rash that we thought was caused by a virus and nothing to be concerned about. Luckily, the on call Dr. at our practice ordered lab work immediately. Apparently it is very common for the symptoms of Leukemia to be completely overlooked or dismissed as a normal childhood illness.

The preliminary results of her labs showed that her hemoglobin, white blood cell and platelet levels were low so we were sent to St. Christopher's hospital. They repeated the tests for two consecutive days and when there was no improvement she had a bone marrow biopsy. That test revealed Leukemia and further tests determined the type to be acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This is good news because if you've got to have it, this is the one to have. The cure rates for ALL are very good somewhere between 80 and 90 percent depending on other factors.

On Wednesday we were transferred to the Oncology unit. Yesterday Keira began Chemo therapy and we learned that her cancer has not spread to her brain which is also very good news. We're only on day two of Chemo but so far Keira is responding well to the treatments.

Keira has been handling all of this unbelievably well so far. You always hear how resilient children are but it is awe inspiring to see it in person. We learned from the Dr. today that she is responding wonderfully to the Chemo, by this point in the therapy (day 4 ) the kids are usually in pretty bad shape but luckily that is not the case for her.

The staff at St. Chris are absolutely amazing! We've been here less than a week and I could give you so many examples of people going above and beyond to make these kids feel special, put their minds at ease and give them the highest quality care. They also go out of the way for the parents and give us all of the support we need. Keira and Brendan had a private concert on Tuesday night by Eric Bazilian of The Hooters. On Friday she was entertained by a clown and got to meet a puppy. Presents are filling up her room and she is in really great spirits considering everything that has happened in the past six days.

Over the past several days we've had the chance to see how wonderful our friends and family are. We've had so many offers of help especially to care for little Brendan and it means the world to us. Words of encouragement and keeping our baby in your thoughts and prayers really means more to us than we could ever put into words.

We have a long road ahead of us, Keira's full treatment will take about two and a half years but I have no doubt in my mind that Keira will get through this. As for the rest of us, we really are all doing just fine. Little Brendan seems to understand what is going on pretty well and has been taking it all in stride. We are doing the best we can to take care of Keira and each other.

We’ll use this blog to keep everyone posted on Kiki's progress and to share pictures and videos. I'm sorry that we can't reach out individually to update everyone who cares about us. There are just so many people in our corner!

Thank you for checking on Keira,
Sharon and Brendan