Thursday, August 25, 2011

REMISSION

i’m not sure why it’s taken so long to get this post together and put up…however, friday we found out that dad is in remission.

here it is, almost a week later and i’m still smiling.

25 Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you

Exodus 23:25

Saturday, August 20, 2011

st.louis

 

**warning picture overload**

we made it a long weekend and headed to st.louis. 

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we stayed at the hyatt downtown by the arch.  our views from our hotel room

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after we settled into the hotel, we headed to the City Museum.  Awesome…highly recommend it.  It had rained slightly so the outside features were closed, so hopefully next time we go to St. Louis, we can go back.

 

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classic…might be a contender for the 2011 Christmas card.081

Saturday…we headed to Forest Park…specifically the St. Louis zoo

we rode the metro link

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118 penguins might have been everyone’s favorite, but they were stinky

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Saturday night we saw a real MLB game   Cardinals vs Rockies

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you know before you head out on a vacation, i often have expectations and my expectations from this weekend were met or exceeded.  if you can’t tell, we didn’t rent a car once we go to St. Louis, so we walked or took public transportation everywhere we went.  not once did the boys complain.  we did things that we don’t do at home (hello, train, trolley and metro link) which made it interesting for the boys.  we did a lot but weren’t overhwhelmed with activity at the same time.  it was perfect-o.

Friday, August 19, 2011

so it begins

 

The 2011-2012 school year started for us on Wednesday.

Mac 6th grade…I’m a little melancholy that this is his last year at Elementary School. This is the last time that Charlie and him will ever be at the same location.

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He is starting to lighten up a little bit so even though he probably won’t be happy that these are on here…I just have to do it.

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Each year I have him hold the school year that he’s going into, but I think this might be the last year for him. Every year Mac has worn a polo type shirt to his first day. The first couple of years he had to because of his uniform requirements, but this year I let him choose. It’s the little things in life, right?

Charlie…heading to kindergarten.

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my heart aches for him a little.  praying daily that we made the right decision to ‘red shirt’ him.  :)

the obligatory brother pose.

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are they not the cutest?  oh my how i love these guys…

silliness

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one more with mom

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I told Charlie we needed to work on his lunch number.  He looked at me and said matter of factly, “mom it’s the second day of school.  they don’t expect me to know my number.”   alrighty then…

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

BIG 4-0

happy birthday babe!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

this week

 

i have been a single parent this week since tuesday.  i don’t want to admit it but i am exhausted and my kids are easy kids.

i love it when this boy wears that shirt. 

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i hate meal planning.  with all of my being.  i have sat down at least 5 times in the last 3 days and find ways to easily distract myself.  for example, writing a blog post.  that being said, my cabinets and fridge are pretty bare.  a part of me is wondering if it’s feasible to eat ramen noddles for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next 2 or 3 days.  then my cupboard would be bare.

i think i have to give up making treats in my house.  i made cupcakes the other day, and charlie single handedly and sneakily ate 5 of them in one day.

mac won camper of the year for his age group.  he also did a dance with his camp mates at parent night.  oh how i wish i would have gotten that on video.  as well as charlie hysterically laughing.

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we have been an unplugged house for most of the week.  unplugged meaning no TV, no computer, no XBOX, no DS.  i can not tell you how heavenly it has been, but i’m thinking i’m going to have a hard time convincing my family to sign up for my desire to extend the state of unplugged past this week.

the three of us did P90X ab ripper x video one night.  that was hi-lar-i-us

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charlie started swim lessons this week.  it is astonishing how far he has come.  at the beginning of the summer he still would not go underwater.  now he is jumping in, doing crazy cannonballs and LOVES swimming.

charlie has gotten interested in wheels.  he tried skateboarding and i took off his training wheels.  yeow!

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mac finished PT on thursday.  we have a followup with his ortho doctor on Tuesday.  keeping my fingers crossed that he’s good to go. 

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yesterday was one of my favorite days…back to school shopping.  i love new school supplies.

school starts in a week and half…CRAZY!!!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

update on dad

I haven’t written much about my Dad lately and how he is doing with his battle against cancer. I can’t believe that we have passed the 6 month mark as to when we found out.

As I write this it’s important to note that these are my thoughts and feelings and while I’m part of Dad’s support system, I’m not the one who is physically fighting the beast that starts with a ‘C.’

Dad has completed his first round of treatment. His first round included radiation treatment as well as chemotherapy. At roughly the 2/3 mark of his treatment, he took a break from the treatment and had a repeat CAT scan (CAT #2.) End result was that that tumor was shrinking and there was strong evidence that the BIG C was responding to the treatments. He completed his radiation treatments (about 10 more after the first break) and chemo (3 more after break) and took another break and a CAT scan was
repeated. The second scan showed some additional reduction, specifically in the lymph nodes but not much change in the tumor from the last scan. Are you with me so far? Dad will have a PET scan on 8/8 which will tell the DRs how much of the tumor is active cancer. At this point, Dad has exhausted his radiation options. In terms of next steps, from an oncology perspective we are waiting on that PET scan.

I feel positive about the progress that dad has made in the last 6 months. I have to be honest though, after the last appointments (after the 3rd cat scan) we were hoping to have more information and left feeling slightly discouraged.  His oncologist believes he is in a partial remission, but couldn’t commit to that until we see the results of
the pet scan.

Every day my dad truly amazes me. He is still the primary caregiver for my niece and nephew. He continues to take care of his household doing the grocery shopping, bill paying and he was released to go back to work part time. I’ve never seen him complain or be negative. 

So we anxiously and prayerfully wait…his next dr appt is 8/16 when we will get the results of the PET scan.  Hopefully I get the best birthday present ever…