Who'd have thought

Here are some pictures from our trip. I love waterfalls, but Aaron had told me to lower my expectations when online it appeared there would be a waterfall where we were going as we are in Texas, but a short hike through some sprinkling rain besides dying cactus we ended up at quite a pretty site and I admit, I was impressed and my expectations were far exceeded. Not sure if the pictures do justice to it.

You can sorta tell how wet it was. A real nice state park though, along a river


What a wonderful weekend to get away (despite the rain). I am on hematology/oncology right now which I am really enjoying, but sometimes the sadness gets to me, so it was nice to have 2 days off to relax and not think about sad kids for a bit. Unfortunately, lots of the ones we see in the hospital have a pretty poor prognosis. Leukemia (the most common cancer in kids) has a 95% cure rate and most do really well, but we end up seeing more of the ones coming in for relapses or worse kinds of tumors with much worse prognoses. It is strange, because day to day you don't think about. You manage the acute issues like their fevers or getting them to eat better and feel privileged to take care of such cute kids, but every once in a while a mention of the future hits you....will these kids even have a future? One of my patients I sent home last week came back today with relapse of her leukemia. Overall because of various things she probably didn't have a great prognosis anyway, but now it is even worse. These parents amaze me though. Most of them (and most of the kids as well) have such a strength. I guess they like me, probably just live day to day managing the acute issues and trying not to think about the long term too much. Haven't had a patient I know well die yet, but it is bound to happen and I am sure there will be a blog about it. Sorry for an ending downer to a beginning of exceeded Texas expectations.

Ok....not letting me upload more pictures, so i'll try to put them in another post.