1 Year already

Once again, sorry we haven't had news lately. Even if the news are less regular, I know you are all following Florian's journey. It's a huge boost for the family and Florian to that he has so many people that care about what he is going through.

First thing I would like to mention: the 3rd of May it had been exactly 1 year that he was diagnosed with leukemia. It would be useless to say that it is getting to be long, but he is holding on through the good and rough times.

Other important thing about Florian, he just turned 22. Last year he didn't really have the occasion to celebrate his 21st birthday (very important birthday here in the states) since he was already really sick. He barely took 2 sips of veer (Belgian obviously) that he bought on his 21st birthday. This time he managed to celebrate his birthday with his friends in North Carolina it's much cooler than to come with his parents even if they went to the Caribbeans.

He went to a concert outside in the rain and of course came back with a stuffy nose and a strong cough which wasn't the best for his chemo. His doctors completely understood that he would rather take a few days off before he got started again.

Regarding his chemo Florian has started his last cycle of intense chemo in the beginning of April. It's another combination of chemo but the results are still the same: nausea, his digestive system isn't the best, and he is tired.

His doctor gave him 10 days to go visit his friend in North Carolina, right after he got back he would have had his chemo but because the wasn't feeling great with his runny nose they decided to postpone it by a week. Even if his calendar was established a while back, we learned that it is hard to plan this type of stuff months in advance, even a week can be tough. He just had an infusion today and it seems that everything is normal. His sessions during this series are spread out each 1 days and should continue until mid June if everything goes according to play, which isn't sure.

About a month ago, he had moments that were a bit hard. His moral wasn't at the highest it's been. He seemed to be recuperating for now, his energy and humor are coming back pretty quickly.

This week was pretty intense for him, he is going back to a social life which is normal for a kid his age and how he normally acts. He started working at Corning and is passing his math exam that he couldn't take last year at this exact same time. He started studying again about 3 weeks ago and it was going great for him. He thinks he did well, we will see the grades later. Next week he should be going through a physical.

For his job at Corning we really had to fight. In order to have him get work and to get him to think about other things to make sure his moral was up, Jacques has tried since the beginning of the year to get Florian an internship. He should have started one last summer but of course had to decline the offer. The people with whom he would have worked are well aware of his case and would be happy to see him come. I don't want to get into details but there were multiple steps and conditions that had to be fulfilled. Apparently we are almost there, he was able to start but we are waiting on one more confirmation. We are hoping for the best because so far Florian has enjoyed it a lot even if he has only be there for 2 days.

In August he is going back to buffalo for his last year studying engineering. He has already made plans with his friend who are renting a house in Buffalo for 5 people.

In order to pass the time, Florian and Amaury started taking possession of the basement to reconstitute the Lord of the Rings environment with Warhammer like figurines. They spend hours making paper mache, towers, catapults,... They are also saying they are only starting, there are 7 castles to build. The back and forth to the shop are quite frequent.

These are the main news, it is starting to be nice again after our rough winter. We can see a few blooming flowers and trees. There is hope, spring will finally come.

Once again thank you for all your support for what has already been a year. The road is long, not yet finished, but we are almost there.