Too close to home

On Emily's last day of school last week, she came home with a letter from a mom at the elementary school she attends, introducing us to her daughter's best friend, a Kindergartener named Molly, who has recently been diagnosed with Monosomy 7, along with Myleodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), and Refractory Anemia. The plan at the time the letter came home was for Molly to enter the hospital the day after school got out, where she would immediately begin with "tests, scans, x-rays and exams every day from 8am-5pm. On July 3 there will be a final consultation with the Dr. and the team nurse. They will go over every aspect of treatment and sign final consent forms. If all goes well with Molly and the donor(s), transplant will take place July 15th. Between July 3 and July 15 Molly will get total body irradiation and chemo. They will also put a central line in her chest." (quote from Molly's grandmother on the website). Molly will be getting a bone marrow transplant, to hopefully stop her from getting full-blown Leukemia (I couldn't find much information on what she has, but none of it sounds very good). The prediction right now is that Molly will spend most of next year in isolation and/or recovery and will be unable to attend school. My heart just hurts for what this family is going through right now, and for this sweet little girl who will have had so much of her innocence and freedom taken from her. What makes it even harder is that this little girl is the same age as my own daughter, and Emily has come home several times talking about how she played with Molly from Mrs. ____'s class today. This hits very close to home, and I wanted to share what I know of Molly's story so you can all keep her in your thoughts. They gave out information to a website where they will post updates for friends and family, but it does give out her last name and location, so I will not be sharing that here (in the interest of protecting her, as well as my own family as we're obviously in the same location!), but it will allow me to get updates from time to time, which I will share with you. They've asked Molly's classmates to log on and leave messages for her, which Emily and I did earlier today and hope to do at least once a week.