Jensen Strong - Crushing Leukemia

09/08/2026

Jensen and I wore our blue for Addy's Fight With Leukemia to clinic today! Praying for a successful transplant and a quick recovery! Yall please pray for Addy today.

09/06/2026

Only a few more days of bucket baths… my dude is ready to make a splash in the tub again! I’m so blessed to get to do this for him. There’s something so nurturing about giving your baby a bath 🧡

09/03/2026

Edit to add a pic w/ his second favorite meal, red beans and rice! He gave mama’s beans a big thumbs up! 👍

This little spaghetti loving kid had a great time with his new Nanny from NOLA Nannies LLC! Peep the pic she sent of him pretending to be a walrus? 😂
Day one; and he was already hugging and kissing her good bye! He calls her Icee, which I think is adorable since he LOVES Icees. Also…… My tire was fixed 🙏🏻 so big thanks to those who helped make it happen or tried to make it happen. Kind people are always coming through for us. I got home, heard the air pouring from the tire and I just took a walk down the driveway while talking to God. I didn’t panic or get overwhelmed. I stayed calm because things could be worse… we’ve gone through worse… God has provided everything we’ve needed so far, and I knew He wasn’t going to stop now. So Jensen and I will be heading back to New Orleans for his next bag change and labs tomorrow. Pray his labs look good please. After this we will have one more bag change and we will kiss Blina goodbye next Friday! ✌🏻
Then there’s just one more phase before he can finally start his long term maintenance. It’s excited to see this finally slow down, but also nerve wrecking! To know that he still has this genetic mutation and they will be backing up off of his chemotherapy…. Just increases my fear of relapse. Our team is going to be reaching out to CHOP and speaking with a doctor that studies his specific mutation. There isn’t a lot out there about children with this mutation, but to put my mind at ease over backing off of chemo and relapse and all, they are going to ask that doctor’s opinion on our team’s current plan for Jensen. Mannings has taken such good care of him so far and I never expected anything less. I trust their plans and that they will make the best choices for him, no matter what that doctor says or thinks. They love Jensen so much. I know they’d never take any risks with him.
Pray for safe travels there and back tomorrow and that the rest of his Blina is smooth sailing. Pray we’re able to make it through the rest of this next phase also. It’s been tough trying to juggle the kids being back in school, me going back to work, and Jensen still being in the thick of this all.

09/02/2026

08/31/2026

I know it’s been a little bit since I’ve given any updates. As usual things are mostly quiet during the Blina therapy. (No complaints about quiet) between that and juggling being back at work, I don’t have much free time to make posts. Jensen is doing well with Blina. He had a malfunction with his pump last week and had to spend a night in the hospital for monitoring. A 12 hour observation is required after the pump has been off for 4 hours or more. His counts are dropping too so they may check his levels again tomorrow. Normally they only do labs on Fridays.

On another exciting note, The When Dragonflies Appear Foundation has set us up with NOLA Nannies LLC and starting Wednesday, Jensen’s new best friend Isis will come to our house to care for Jensen and play all the HotWheels his little heart desires! These foundations have supported us through everything and show up every time I think I’m at the end of my rope or out of options. Bradlee at Nola Nannies stopped at nothing to find us the perfect nanny at the last minute and provide this mama with a lot of piece of mind. Crying on the phone with my insurance’s nurse paid off big because she recommended I reach out to our social worker about my child care concerns, and of course our social worker always comes in clutch!

Anyway… less than two weeks of Blina and then we’re looking at one more phase before we can FINALLY enter into long term maintenance. 😮‍💨

08/21/2026

Our little Hot Wheel loving hero! 🧡🎗️🫶🏻🏎️

08/16/2026

Six 🫲🏻 seven 🫱🏻… just don’t laugh though. 🤭

08/16/2026

Well it’s been an eventful weekend.

Jensen met counts on Thursday… great! He was taken down to the OR for his spinal tap. After he was brought up, his results started rolling in. It was a “traumatic tap” meaning blood contaminated the sample. Along with blood, there were nucleated cells present and a pretty high protein count. This could be from the contamination or a sign of an infection in the spinal fluid, or leukemia cells inviting the central nervous system. They have a calculation to determine if the nucleated cells are a worry and the calculation made them believe there was no reason to worry but they planned to repeat the spinal tap on Monday. The next day the cytotechnologist took a look at the sample and determined a repeat was not necessary and that the numbers were caused by the bloody sample, not leukemia or infection. 😮‍💨
On top of this all Jensen was complaining of the puncture site hurting. They saw some bruising but decided to keep an eye on it and give him some Tylenol. After a while he started complaining of leg pain and not wanting to walk so they ordered an ultrasound on the lumbar puncture site. It looked good. Then he started to run a high fever (despite having Tylenol), elevated heart rate, and low blood pressure. Because Blina is running though his port, they had to start an IV in his hand. They took cultures and started the whole septic work up, even though a reaction to Blina could be the cause they still have to proceed with caution. The X-ray showed a small amount of inflammation in his airways (could still be an immune system response to Blina) and his respiratory panel was completely negative. Early the next morning, he ran fever again and he acted like it hurt to be moved so they went ahead and did a cat scan to verify the ultrasound findings and there were no concerned findings. Great news because I was starting to worry that the infection could be in the spinal fluid after all. They also changed his antibiotics to a broader one. Last night he started to fever again, a lower grade one, and they drew cultures again to make sure this isn’t a new unknown infection. Again, just being extra cautious. When they started running his antibiotics, he started crying in pain about his IV site. It was determined to be no good and removed. They had a flight medic come in and start a new IV in his other hand. So far no more fevers, but we’re still fighting some low blood pressures. The team just came in and said he’s on track to still leave Tuesday after they change his Blina bag as long as he has no more fevers and the cultures come back negative.

I guess I was a bit too confident after we had a great experience starting Blina last time and jinxed us this go round. I was thankful to be here with him through all of this and hate to leave him today, but Mama has to go back to work tomorrow so Nanny is coming to finish out his last couple of days here with no more issues hopefully! 🙏🏻 yall please just pray that nothing else goes wrong and these fevers are done and over with! 🧡🎗️

08/13/2026

Jensen met counts & is starting his second block of Blina today!! 🙌🏻

He’s currently down in the OR getting his spinal tap and intrathecal chemo. When he wakes up in recovery, they will bring him up to his room. We’re spending the weekend up here to monitor the start of his Blina and then he should be discharged Tuesday after his first bag change. Pray for no reactions and another smooth block of Blina. One more phase after this one then we are done with frontline treatments and FINALLY in his long term maintenance phase. We are beyond ready for less harsh treatments and appointments/hospitalizations. Thank you for praying & always asking or thinking about Jensen. Love to all of our prayer warriors 🫶🏻🎗️

08/12/2026

Thank you to all who contributed to Doodle’s Homeschool wishlist! We’re having a blast learning about the letter A! 🍎🐊✈️