Month: September 2012

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Hello Friends,

We are in the final countdown of the last days of Angelica’s Treatment.

It’s so exciting….not counting today, it’s 5 days left. YAHOO!

Some of you may have heard and I’m so sorry if you have not, but we are celebrating on Sunday September 30th from 2-4pm at the cafeteria at Walnut Grove Secondary School.

You can let us know if you need directions, but we’d love to have you join us as we celebrate the very last day of Geli’s Treatment and the first day of the rest of her life…..

What an amazing day. We are so looking forward to it.

We had a HUGE day at the hospital yesterday and I’m still recovering from it all. We left our house at 9am and didn’t walk back in the door until 5:30pm. It was all good news and we are so looking forward to wrapping this phase of our life up and starting to move forward in a life without daily chemo. We are looking forward to building strength and regaining that which was lost…..to just moving forward instead of feeling stuck.

We’d love to have you join us.

We’ll have coffee and cake available so if you can, stop by, we’d love to see all of you who have supported us and helped to carry us through these past 2.5 years…..it’s been quite the journey and we are so thankful that you’ve been there along the way helping us to keep moving forward.

Let me know if you need more details…..look forward to seeing you.

A Poem by Jeremy

It’s my birthday today and Jeremy wrote a poem that I wanted to share with you. It’s so totally and completely HIM!

The Autumn Leaves
by Jeremy Culley

The Fall leaves rustle in the Day Time Sky
Gloomy and Beautiful and Shimmering
The Leaves are crunching and Grinding
On Your Boots that is on your foot.
The Pumpkins are ripe for Picking
And the Pies are Getting Made
And the Corn is Perfect
For Thanksgiving. The Turkeys
Are Screaming in Terror. We
Are Getting the Guns Ready.
THE END!

DPA or otherwise known as “Keeping my Sanity”

The kids are supposed to have a period of Daily Physical Activity every day.

In our house….this is also known as my Sanity Time.

With three little boys all vying for my attention, things can get a bit crazy. Especially when it’s only just been half a week that we’ve been back at school. I am strongly trying to convince myself that it will get a whole lot better than it has been this week. Jeremy will remember and settle down into a schedule, rhythm, and routine and Josiah will better understand what is expected of him as a kindergartener and Judah, well, I’m trusting that he will soon realize that he doesn’t need to crawl inside myself in order to feel connected and “seen”.

Throw in a little “sensory overload” and well, there have been one too many meltdowns this last week. But, the ONE TIME that everyone seems to chill-the-heck-out is when we go far a walk and so, this year…..I’m thinking of insituting a strict DPA schedule and sticking to it, rain or shine….of course, it’s been gorgeous so far….ask me how it’s going when it’s nasty and wet!

There are so many opportunities to learn just in our every day lives…..yesterday while we were waiting for our dr office to open after lunch, we sat outside on the steps and found all the different shapes we could find…..circles on the top o the lamp posts. The Triangle at the top of the church which the cross was sitting on. The rectangle of the bricks…..I got Siah’s shapes lesson in for the day and he had no clue that he was “in school”…..I love that. No pressure….just fun!

Here are some of our pictures from our walk today……..

We started recess with a little cupcake snack….

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I figured this was as good a time as any for a little sugar rush.

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Nature’s Stained Glass

Nature's Stained Glass

Foraging…

Foraging

Judah’s upset cause he had to wait to eat the berries

Nature’s Monkey Bar’s and Climbing Apparatus

Nature's Monkey Bars

Imaginary Play

Imaginary Play

I wonder what he’s thinking in this picture…is he a wolf, a fox, Batman???

Wolf? Fox? Batman?

Vibrant Color

Vibrant

Judah enters the World of Make Believe

Lost in the world of Make Believe

The Art out here is crazy…..Nature’s Sculptures

Nature's Sculptures

I often wonder “Where His Path Will Lead”?

Where will his path lead?

What keeps you sane these days? Or centers you? Or helps you to de-stress?

24

So, it’s been a while since I’ve done an update on where Geli is at.

It’s been a GREAT summer and we are having a great kick off to the fall, too.

Angelica is officially finished cancer treatment as of September 30th. She wakes up on Sunday morning takes her last dose and BAM!!!!!! just like that…..no more chemo.

She still does have one more hospital visit that we fit in on Monday September the 24th. It should be a super quick “in and out” of the Oncology Dept, BUT…….she is supposed to see the physiotherapist BEFORE her 11:30am chemo appt and then she has an appt with the Orthopedic Surgeon just to assess where she’s at….which we are thinking is in a much better place than she’s been in over a year…….YAH!

This summer was great. Geli has gotten stronger and stronger. She was walking (not for very long) with quite a wobble in her gait and now there is almost no wobble. She still needs to work on some stiffness and shortness in some of her muscles but it is exciting to see HOW FAR SHE’S COME!

She was able to swim and swim and swim and swim, while we were up at the Lake and even went knee boarding a number of times with minimal muscular soreness the next day. She is walking around our community to visit friends, shop or buy junk food at the local convenience store. It is SO nice to see her “just being normal”.

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Last school year, there was quite a bit of talk about enrolling her to home school for Grade 10 as she was in so much pain and we were not sure where she was going to be at this year – physically, mentally and emotionally. We even signed her up at the same school that the two boys are at, but then she decided to stay at her local school and it’s been a great couple of days for her. People have been so complimentary regarding how she looks physically and there have even been a number of double takes as people recognize her and almost always there is a comment about how AMAZING she looks or how long her hair is….and honestly….she looks amazing.

At our next appointment, they will send off the request to have her VAD (the port that goes into her heart that she gets the chemo into) removed and then……and then….

Well, Angelica will still be going in monthly for check ups for the next year. Then it will space out to 3 months, and 6 months and then once a year. She will stay on the prophylactic antibiotic for the next three months and basically as of January….Angelica will be medicine free and after she gets the VAD out, if she gets a fever……I can just treat her like a normal kid and give her some Tylenol and send her to bed with some chicken noodle soup – as opposed to stressing and heading into the hospital.

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We have been throwing around the idea of having a get together, maybe at a local park or something, to celebrate the end of this season and the beginning of the rest of her life……

We will keep you posted if and when……and we’d love to have everyone who has prayed and supported us over this time join us, if we manage to pull something together.

Thanks again for all your support. We appreciate you more than you could ever imagine……

Another Beginning

So, I guess I took the summer off, eh?

Wasn’t planning on it, but it just turned out that way. Life has been so busy and it doesn’t really show signs of slowing down any time soon.

Today was our first day back at school for all 4 of the bigger kids. Geli’s in Grade 10. Xani’s in Grade 9. Jeremy started Grade 7 and Josiah started Kindergarten. Judah doesn’t want to get left out of anything and so….well, he just joined right in with us. (Forgot to get the girls pics….will have to do it when they get home today….oooops!)

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Siah wasn’t exactly thrilled to have his “first day of Kindergarten” picture taken. Just keeping it real, people. Just keeping it real!

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Once I let him go back inside and get his DSi…..which is what he wanted. I was able to grab this shot where at least, he is looking in the general direction of the camera and sort of smiling.

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As far as first day’s go…..I think today was a pretty good one.

Jeremy did a great job reviewing some of his last years stuff and we ploughed through a ton of stuff with Josiah. I can’t wait for a few months to be able to see how far he’s come. We’ve got a fairly hefty reward incentive thingy with stickers and a goody box and all that jazz going on……in an effort to convince him to “stay focused on the actual activity at hand”, and I’m really hoping that soon we will be able to phase that out or mostly out.

Not surprisingly, Jeremy is quite nervous about what he may or may not remember and so I’m planning on doing a bit of review this week to “prove to him” that he is actually as smart and competent as I say he is.

We did manage to get out for a “Recess” and took a walk along the trails by our house. We picked a(nother) full tray of blackberries to freeze. (Jeremy will eat frozen berries like they are candy and so I’m saving up as many as I can get my hands on.)

We made it to lunch time, made it through lunch and now that the baby is sleeping, we are about to start a section of Arts and Crafts…..I think we are gonna do some leaf rubbings. Jeremy picked some up on our walk……We’ll talk about seasons and the leaves changing colors and falling….and it will all tie into Josiah’s Science Lesson for the day.

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I am hoping that I’ll be able to carve out a little more time for myself now that we are back into a “routine”. I am really throwing that word around lightly here, but I’m confident that we will get there…..right? Positive thoughts! Positive thoughts!

How was YOUR summer? I’ll get to mine in the next few posts or so…

How has your September started off? Busy? Regular? Quiet? Slow?

How I wish mine was quiet and slow……how I wish!!!!