When there's a burning in your heart

When there's a burning in your heart

An endless fury in your heart

Build it bigger than the sun

Let it grow

Let it grow

And there's a burning in your heart

Don't be alarmed

"You are a Tourist" 

Death Cab For Cutie

Aria is a dancer. Today, she danced. For the first time in over a month, she swayed and weaved and smiled and laughed and spun.

She slept through the night without crying out for pizza to fill her belly or needing hourly trips to the loo. 

She woke up after dawn. She didn't ask for mac n cheese first thing. Or second, or third, or ever. Eventually she asked for an English Muffin. 

She did hint that pizza for lunch might be a smart move for a parent seeking to gain favor.  

Lyric and Kevin built a living-room treehouse from cardboard scraps and duct tape. Aria asked to help them. And she did. 

She hasn't laid down on the sofa yet this morning. Instead, she's drawn boats and butterflies, cats and elephants, caterpillars and families, houses and rainbows. 

She finished the daily steroids regimen on Wednesday. I'm hoping they were the cause of most of her most unsettling side effects. She seemed to have every single one possible, in spades. 

On Wednesday, Aria begins chemo pills daily to kill any undetected leukemia cells in her marrow, along with continued weekly spinal chemo injections (under anesthesia) to kill any stealth baddies in her brain and central nervous system.

I just need her to keep dancing.