This is Holly.  She was born on December 9th, 1998 to Erin and Nate Haines.  She lives in Ketchikan, Alaska in the house that her mother grew up in.  She is the oldest of Erin and Nate’s 3 children.  She has a brother, Dean(7) and a sister, Lily(4).  In 2006, Holly’s parents divorced and in 2007, Holly’s mom married Matt Caskey.  Erin and Matt have a little boy, Sean (1).

Holly is in the 4th grade at school.  Mrs. Hewitt is her teacher.  Holly has a friend named, Neva that has been her friend since 1st grade.

Holly LOVES animals–any kind but ESPECIALLY DOGS!  She can look at a dog and tell you what breed it is!  She loves to draw, sing, take Spanish with her friend, Hurricane and play on the computer.

In August of 2008,  Holly started feeling tired, running fevers and her cheeks would get bright red.  Her mom took her to the doctor because she thought Holly had “mono”.  But after a trip to the doctor nothing was discovered.  School started and Holly was excited to get back to school Editand see her friends.  She ended up missing a lot of school because she kept getting fevers and being tired.  So in December, Holly’s mom took Holly back to the doctor.  This time Dr. Rosenfeld was in the office.  He had Holly do a bunch of blood work.  After they did the tests, Holly and her mom went out to lunch.  While they were having lunch, they got phone call from the doctor’s office asking them to come back to the office.  Evidently they didn’t come back quick enough because Dr.Rosenfeld, himself,  called Erin and told her that he wanted Holly to go South to Children’s Hospital in Seattle.  Erin, Nate and Holly went to the doctor’s office and they told them that they were concerned about Holly’s results.  She had an enlarged spleen and large lymph nodes.  They thought she had leukemia and wanted her to to have a bone marrow test.  So they made the plans to head out to Seattle on Sunday.

Well, Sunday we had a horrible snow storm and there weren’t any planes in or out of Ketchikan.  As it was it was a good thing because Holly didn’t feel well and they took her from the airport to the ER.  She ended up in the hospital in intensive care with pneumonia.  She got out just before Christmas.  She was able to spend Christmas with her family and the next day (Friday) they all headed out to Seattle. (that was a good thing as Sunday–the day they were scheduled to leave the airport was shut down and power was out in town for several hours!)  Monday, December 29th, Holly went in for a bone marrow test and a spinal tap.  They had the results back by that evening and everything was fine.  They decided to do a few more blood tests and some other test.  They were told that they could do a biopsy but didn’t feel that it was really necessary.  The doctor was a pediatric oncologist, who was married to an oncologist.  They both looked at the information she had on Holly and felt it wasn’t necessary.  Holly was feeling a little better so we just thought she had mono.  They called later in the week and said the tests didn’t show anything.  Said that Holly’s antibodies showed she’d had chicken pox(which Erin agreed too) but they also showed that she had had mono–which Erin didn’t know about.  They asked that Holly be followed up by the doctor here–to have her spleen checked and her lymph nodes

Holly was feeling a little better and even started back to school going only half days.  The next week she went to the doctor to have things checked out.  Her spleen and lymph nodes were a little better but not where they should have been so Erin decided to go ahead with the biopsy here.  They scheduled it for Monday, February 2nd at 730 am.  The doctor that did the biopsy said that they found the smallest lymph node on Holly’s leg and pulled what they needed from there.  Usually the lymph node is the size of your pinky nail–Holly’s smallest was the size of a dime.  Erin told me that they should have the results in 8 weeks.  They were going to do the cancer screen here and send the rest down to Children’s.  Wednesday afternoon(4th), Erin got a call from the doctor here asking her, Nate and Matt to come to the office at 330.  I(Jessica joined me) went and stayed with the kids; when they came back one look at Erin’s face and I knew it wasn’t good news.  They said that it was lymphoma and that Holly was going to have to go to Seattle to get treatment.  (the doctor that had seen her in Seattle didn’t believe it and ran down  to look at the slide herself) It was decided that Nate would take her down and Erin would stay here and get Dean and Lily situated and then she and Sean would come down on the weekend.  Dean was going to stay with Matt at night and Lily was going to stay with Jessica and I would pick her up for pre-school and get them both after school.  Then Erin decided to leave Sean here since there wasn’t much room for him at the hospital.  So I had Sean during the day.

Nate and Holly got into Seattle on Thursday and the hospital van picked them up.  They went to the hospital where Nate’s mom and sister were waiting for them.  Holly had another bone marrow test, spinal tap and Hickman port (for the chemo drip) put in.  The next day they meet and Erin was on the phone here in Ketchikan and talked about the results.  The doctors said  that Holly had “dissemented disease” lympblastic lymphoma(see: http://www.hollysjourney.com/lymphoblastic-lymphoma) and discussed her treatment.  Afterwards Erin asked Holly if she wanted to talk or say anything.  Holly was upset because she had made friends with another 10 year old little girl, Jade and they weren’t going to be able to be roommates anymore and she said “it sucks that I’m going to lose my hair, but what can I do about it?”  Nate  decided he wanted to wait for Erin  Erin got down to Seattle on Saturday.  Holly started her chemo on Sunday.  She had the pills (which she takes twice a day) then an IV and then the chemo drip(which she’ll have once a week)  This regime will go on for 35 days and then they’ll retest and see how her body is reacting.  Holly will undergo treatment for 8 months before she’ll be able to come home and finish up her treatment!  By Wednesday, Holly was doing so well that they removed the IV and told her if she kept herself hydrated they could  move to the Ronald McDonald house the next day!  Holly also started school at the hospital.  She goes from 10-12 and is encouraged to get work from her school here to keep up. She also got her own e-mail account and LOVES getting e-mails!

Thursday, Matt brought Sean down.  I guess when he saw his mom he was excited but almost flew out of his dad’s arms when he saw Holly!

Dean and Lily miss her a lot but Dean is excited that he can get on the computer and my cellphone to send her e-mails!

The people in Ketchikan have pulled through again–as usual with support and words of encouragement–as well as all of my e-mail friends and family–thank you SO MUCH you don’t know how much it means to us!

We can’t wait to get them home!

And so the journal has just begun and will continue on….