Lipstick Cover-Up

Things are moving right along. My older two kids are away for the week with my sister Kathy and her kids, they are having fun, they call me twice a day and are just so sweet. They miss their little baby sister they said, so they send her kisses and hugs by phone, and ya know, she misses them too, we can tell.

Hubby and I miss them, we really do a lot together I've realized, the house is so quiet, I've read 2 books since they've been away and the house is clean! Can you believe that one! But I'll take my clutter and my kids every day over a spic and span clutterless quiet house.

Saw Mom's new house again yesterday, they finally moved in and renovations are complete, almost. The big stuff is done, their painter apparantely has some issues with the authorities and needed to spend 10 days in the big house, but he'll finish when he gets out she said, "drinking problem" she said in hushed tones... but the painting he's done looks quite good really. It was a fine visit, baby still cries when she looks at the AC, but what can ya do. We're trying here honestly. Mom cried some, she is overwhelmed I guess, moving is a big thing. New marriage, etc., she wants to be happy, she wants her kids to like her and to want to come and see her. She wants some acceptance. We're trying.

MRI is Tuesday, thinking good thougts and thanks again for all the well wishes, Loud Girl is doing pretty ok with all of it, taking it in stride.

Hope everyone else's weeks continue to move right along too in good directions!

Got the call just a bit ago, her CT scans are all clean and her lab work looks good. YEAH!!! Thanks again for all the prayers and good wishes you all have sent our way. We have Brain MRI week after next, Emily is going away for a week of fun in the sun with her cousins and brother b/c her mommy has to work, but she'll enjoy I'm sure.

Hopefully worst case scenario now is that it's just a flare up of her Opsoclonas Myoclonas (an antibody from her cancer that makes her have the shakes, stumbles, etc.) Chemo doesn't always kill the immune system enough to make it forget how to make this, it is just always there and kids get flare ups, etc. Emily has managed hers very well over the years with flare ups only when she gets sick for extended periods, but really done very well. In the case that it's that, we could do a few months of steriod and IVIG therapy. So let's pull for a nice clean brain MRI.

Thanks again all.

lots of love,
lil'sis

Emily had her scans today, nothing to report except that she got through them with only getting a little sick and a little scared. She was a trooper, we're off to Toys R Us tonight for the latest toy that suits her fancy under $25! Yipee, so much quality things to choose from really, ha! We should have results 24-48 hours but hopefully on the early side of that, the tech and our regular doc put in the request to have an "early read" done on the series, so we're keeping fingers crossed for positive results, I'm feeling good about it.

Write you all again soon and thank you all so very much for all the good thoughts, well wishes and prayers!

Scans next week and then 2 weeks after that, I just love waiting. Happy thoughts.

Thanks for all the well wishes, this morning while helping her get dressed, she says to me, "Hey Momma, are the doctors gonna make me stop stumbling, is that what they're trying to do cause I'd really like to stop stumbling and being so clumsy ok"

Ok baby, we'll work on it.

I had a bad day yesterday, I've had worse to be sure, and there were some highlights but overall a downer.

My oldest, Loud Girl, as her auntie affectionately calls her hasn't been feeling well as of late. She is a cancer survivor as I've posted on before. Well over the past month or so she just hasn't been feeling great. Her headaches are back, her tummy aches, she's got a bit of her tremors back, and lots of clumsiness. Her eyes have been "dancing" as the doctors say, but just a little. All of it just a little, but her belly has been hurting more and more frequently and it has gotten a bit swollen I guess you'd say. At first I thought, well maybe too many snacks, and that still may be the case, we just don't know yet.

The doc thinks it's something, not sure what but something. Could be in her brain or in her belly, could be something all together different. Who knows. So we go in for more CT scans and an MRI over the course of the next few weeks. We have labs run and we check things. Her chances of reoccurance are low, but as the doc said yesterday, "not zero", but low. The brain issue is a different animal all its own, a problem we found out about several years ago during one of her oncology scans, may or may not be an issue. We'll see I guess. Appointments take time, then results take time as I'm sure many of you know unfortunately, waiting for results is tiring, stressful, draining, angst ridden. Not much more to say about that.

HOWEVER, on to the topic of the front desk staff at the oncology center, they are filling in for the woman I usually work with, she's taken the summer off the good lady, lucky her I say, she does a damn fine job, she has a heart. Now the 2, yes that is correct, 2 lazy mean bitches who are filling in for this ONE woman stink! They are heinous, ugly, bad hair to boot! Heartless, selfish pigs. Trash to put it bluntly. I don't like them can you tell. They were only cordial to me when they found out that my mother was a nurse on that unit up until she retired 2 months ago, when they realized that I'm family friends with the 4 staff nurses on the unit, that I go to BBQ's at the docs house every summer. That's when they were nice, because they had to be. That just got me so MAD. I wanted to say to TRACY, "Dear, no one is here because they want to be, these aren't well visits we're scheduling, these people, these CHILDREN, are sick, their parents are scared, you owe it to them to be a bit nicer, I don't care about your bad day or your good for nothing man at home or the poor dental quality you possess, BE NICER"

I didn't, I glared at her, I did ask her to make her best efforts on scheduling my daughters scans, I thanked her even. Well, I won't be thanking her again. She is dumb, as a bag of hammers. She called me today and was an idiot, my name is not that hard to say, try phonetically pronouncing, people won't get upset if they know you're making an effort, well she botched the name horrible, FIRST and LAST, and when I said it to her, she says, "I need Loud Girls mother"...without too much here I'll just say she is not performing her job well. I know my opinion is colored right now by that of a nervous and scared Mommy, but it is what it is. Maybe someday I'll be the better person who will apologize for my less than polite discussion, but not today. Forgive me.

Not much else to report on it. My daughter is nervous, when she found out that she has to go for scans she was at first scared, then she was PISSED, " I don't want any sticks!!! This sucks!!!" Yes that from my 8 year old, sticks are what she calls needles and IV's, and this should be a lot of fun. If you've never had the horrible experience of having to hold your child down so a staff member can get the needle let me tell you it's not a good memory to make. Husband is close to being paralyzed with fear right now, he said he just can't talk about it right now. He's had some bad dreams about it and said he can't go down the road of possibilities right now I guess. He's called me a couple of times today to see how I am. Loud Girl is home today from her summer program, she had a headache when she got up, so he put her back to bed where she still is for now. I felt ok yesterday, really ok, we don't know anything either way, just have to wait and see....but this morning on the way to work, I was upset, mad, scared. I don't want this for her again, for our family again. She will remember so much more of it now, she was just a baby before, she remembers things, but not a lot of it. More than I thought but thankfully less than all of it. She'll remember all of this.

So if you're a praying person, or you talk to voices, or you have any kind of higher power in which you seek strength, faith, patience and wisdom, ask them to send some the way of Loud Girl and family.