Health – Page 8 – xangelle.com

Delayed Intensification 1

So yesterday was the start of Delayed Intensification 1. This is the 4th out of 7 stages of Chemotherapy for Angelica. And….this is the stage where we finally hit the half way mark of this first intensive (almost) year of chemotherapy. That should happen in about 2 weeks-ish.

She had a fairly good day of treatment yesterday. She got some chemo injected into her spinal fluid (lumbar puncture), then 2 different chemo meds intravenously, they hung around for an hour after the LP (its required), they picked up the steroids that shes on during this stage and then they headed home. One of these meds can make her feel a little sick (and it did) and so we drugged her up and she basically hung out on the couch for the rest of the day and then went to bed early.

This round shouldn’t be a horrific round and yet there are a few side effects that are possibilities and that we are really hoping that she doesn’t get. The steroids are the worst offenders in this round and can cause problems with her sugar levels which might send her back into a diabetic state. They can cause severe joint and bone pain which can be bad enough to require hospitalization with morphine. They can cause her to have insomnia. They can cause severe mood swings. Really, it’s not pretty or fun.

The first half of this round is actually a shortened version of the very first round that Geli was on. It’s 3 weeks of treatment as opposed to the 4 weeks that she did. One difference is that the steroid is a stronger steroid BUT…she takes it one week off, one week on, and then one week off again.

Some of the effects are cumulative, which mean that IF she ends up with those side effects that she could be feeling the worst of it at Christmas. This would suck, and so we are asking for prayer that Angelica would remain strong and healthy and that the nasty side effects would not bother her.

We want….
NO sugar issues
NO joint pain
NO sleep issues
NO mood swings
NO nausea
NO illness or sickness

and for the chemo to do it’s job and nothing more.

Thanks so much for all your support and prayers. We appreciate you so much.

MMMmmmmmm

Things have been busy over here in so many different areas.

I keep thinking that I’ll have a moment to update what going on and instead I’ve ended up with a backlog of things to write about and new things just keep on happening. That’s life isn’t it? It just keeps moving forward at a steady, predictable rate; even if you desperately want it to slow down and especially if you want it to speed up.

In case things weren’t already crazy enough, I’ve recently needed to remove gluten from my diet. I mentioned a while ago that Judah was having some gastro-intestinal issues. Removing dairy seemed to help a little and yet it really didn’t help like I thought it would. When I went to the doctor, it seems that his issues are dairy, gluten and yeast related and we are trying to figure out if this is a short term deal or a much more serious situation.

It’s been just over a week since I removed the gluten and while things are not great, they do seem to be a little bit better. Judah seems to be in less pain and that’s a huge deal for me.

I found this recipe for gluten-free Oreo cookies and figured that I’d attempt to alter it to make it dairy-free and egg-free. I baked up a batch tonight and it’s amazing.

Jon figures that they are good enough that you’d never know that they were dairy, egg and gluten-free. They are sooooo yummy and I know the kids are going to flip when they wake up in the morning.

Angelica is starting the 4th stage of the chemotherapy tomorrow morning. She went and got blood work done this morning and when her counts came back this afternoon….they were FABULOUS!

We were hoping that they would be high for the start of this round and they are, especially compared to how low they were last week. They are low for normal, but high for Geli.

Xani has been quite sick over the past week. It was almost like the flu but with no barfing or fever…….she’s had a headache, sore muscles, an all over achy feeling, runny nose, cough, and I think that she’s finally, slowly, on the mend.

Jeremy turned 10 years old yesterday and I’ve got a bunch of stuff to update on him.

Siah has not been sleeping very well and as a result, he’s been a bit of a goofball during the day. Lots of tears and whining and fussing and moaning and screaming….it’s a bit wearing. And I’d love to say that I have some great ideas and plans of what to do with him to work through this rough patch, but….ya…..nope! Nothing! I’m not sure if I’m too tired to come up with something or maybe I need to be just a little bit tired before “it” comes to me. I dunno, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out or maybe he’ll grow out of it all before I have to come up with something.

Christmas is coming and I’ve been baking (gluten-free, of course) and we’re trying to get things ready so that things will be peaceful and calm. I can at least hope for peace and calm, right?

I’m hoping to find a few moments to be able to get a few things caught up on here (and in real life). Should we take bets on whether it will actually happen or not????

Ah well. Life keeps moving along and I keep on moving with it, whether I like it or not.

It’s all about the Chocolate, Baby!

Living with food allergies can be difficult at times but it’s not the end of the world. Yes, there are definite challenges, but we manage work within the limitations and still live and eat amazingly.

Any effort that we have to go through is SO worth the vibrant health that we get to experience….ya know, minus that whole cancer thing….ummmmm, yah moving on….

Siah has an egg and dairy allergy and to look at him, you would never know that he has allergies. He doesn’t have dark circles and bags under his eyes or eczema on his skin. He is almost never sick and never seems to have “bowel issues”…trying to be subtle here. He is one healthy little boy.

In this picture, if you look, you can see all the little scratch marks on his face. He would claw himself all day and all night because his skin was bothering him so bad….I had already eliminated dairy from my diet at this point

In this picture, you can see some of the eczema on his face. I remember when I saw this picture I was so excited, because he looked SO AMAZING. He was starting to heal at this point. At it’s worst, he was an oozing mess all over the top of his head, down his forehead, into his eyes and all over his cheeks and chin. It was horrible.

The rest of us, don’t eat dairy because it does not agree with us. It’s not an allergy like Siah, but more of an intolerance. When he eats dairy, he gets sick with vomiting and diarrhea and has eczema and it’s nasty. The rest of us might get bloated, or have tummy aches, headaches, or might just feel “off” or “icky” and most of the time, it’s just not worth it, especially when there are so many amazing tasting substitutes.

One thing that I’ve tried to do ever since we found out about Siah’s allergies is to make life as normal as possible. We eat ice cream, and pizza and have chocolate and pretty much anything that we want to eat…..we eat. I’ve just found dairy and egg free substitutes.

Special days like Valentines and Easter and Christmas can be difficult, but I’ve tried very hard to not have my kids feel like they’ve been denied “normal” while keeping things safe for everyone.

With the Christmas season comes Chocolate Advent Calendar’s and in past years, I’ve done many different things, from creating envelopes with different “things” to do or eat. I’ve put Jelly Beans into an Advent Calendar and that’s worked, but the best thing that I’ve done is to just “alter” the advent calendar’s so that they are dairy free.

First thing to do…..Get your Calendar and slice open the flap at the back, trying not to destroy the flap because you’ll want to seal it up again when you’re all done.

You’ll need to open it carefully and pull out that tray that’s inside. It might be glued to the cardboard and so you’ll have to carefully pull it apart and away from the box in order to get it out.

Then you’ll need to dump out all the original chocolates, and dispose of the original’s….I had 2 big girls that were willing to deal with a bit of an upset tummy to be able to eat the chocolates.

Then you need to get yourself a dairy-free chocolate bar. This particular one is from Super store. You can find dark chocolate that has no dairy in it if you search and read a million labels. This one is great because it doesn’t taste too dark and bitter and *the bonus in my eyes* it has almonds in it. YUM!

Break it into hunks and melt it down. I used about half the bar and melted it in the microwave for about a minute and a half.

I used a spoon to drop the melted chocolate into the plastic try.

You take your completed tray and pop it in the freezer to set the chocolate. It only takes a few minutes to set it enough to continue on with this whole ordeal.

While you are waiting, you could clean up the dishes that you’ve used, or just use the time to finish up any of the leftover chocolate…..MMMMMMM Chocolate!

After a few minutes, the chocolate is set enough to carry on. I pulled out my glue gun and heated it up and glued a few strips on the tray…..this will help the tray to stick to the box and then all the chocolates won’t fall out or slide all over the place.

You have to work quite quickly here because you want to get the tray back into the box before the glue cools and hardens….so slide it back into the box and you’ve got to make sure that it’s facing the right direction….one way it lines up with all the little doors and the other way it doesn’t….I’ve learned the hard way. Not fun!

You can just press on it gently to make sure that the glue is stuck to the box…

This picture has nothing to do with anything….I just think he’s very cute and he was sitting watching me with this “What the heck are you doing?” look……

Flip the box over and run a strip of glue along the back flap

and then seal that sucker up…..My 2 big girl helpers managed to shred the top of this flap and so it required a little extra lovin’ to get it sealed up properly.

Here are the calendar’s waiting for the kids to open them.

Opening the special Dairy-Free Christmas Calendar that is totally safe for him……

Everybody is excited about chocolate….

These two have almost the same hair-do…

I think he approves….

These pictures would be so much cuter if he didn’t have that giant booger in his nostril…Oh Well…just keeping it real. I wonder if I coulda photo-shopped that sucker outta there….yah probably, oh well…..

Definately a happy boy with his “daiwy-fwee chawclut”…….

Even the older ones still get excited about their chocolate calendar’s….

I love having my kids be able to participate safely in some of the treats and special things in life, and any extra effort that it might take to make this happen is SO worth it, to me.

Falling Short

Creating Saturday’s

Geli actually cleared her Methotrexate from her system by the 48 hour blood draw but had to stay until hour 56 to get the last “rescue” medicine….

This means that she cleared the chemo from her system (down to below the acceptable level) within 24 hours. AMAZING!

Technically, she was allowed to leave the hospital after the last dose of her rescue med…..which needed to be given at 11:00pm on Sunday night. There was a lot of excitement about possibly being able to go home and sleep in their own beds, and some concern that it might be too late at night and might just cause more upset and stress (on Geli) to try and rush and leave in the middle of the night. In the end, the call of their own beds won out and they chose to leave at 11:30pm.

Jon’s parents – ever so wonderfully – picked Jon and Geli up from the hospital at 11:30pm and drove them home. It was so nice to have them home, even if it was just a few hours earlier than planned, and even nicer to not have to drive into town. Especially with that 8-10 car pile up on HWY 1 this morning. YIKES!

Kicking the Fall Leaves

Jon and I and the kids got up a little late and were quite slow this morning. Geli slept in. Xani and Jer were already to go to school….breakfast eaten, clothes on, back packs packed, lunches in backpacks, even shoes on….and then Xani melted down. I’m not sure what the exact problem is/was…whether she was overtired. No one seems to sleep well when Geli’s in the hospital. Or if she just really missed Jon and Geli…well, to be honest, I have no idea what the real problem is/was and at this point I’m not really interested in delving too deeply.

I was a bit surprised that she was upset and crying, even though I shouldn’t have been.

Jon took Jeremy to school. I sent Xani upstairs to sleep, and when I went up 10 minutes later – she was snoring loudly. Obviously needing some extra sleep. Within an hour, Jeremy was calling from school crying about not feeling well and needing to come home and so Jon went to get him.

By this point, I just figured that we were going to have the “Saturday” that we didn’t get to have. We’d do what we needed to. Hang out. Have a slow, down day TOGETHER and then get the kids off to bed at an early time and start fresh on Tuesday. We’d just skip Monday, cause who really likes Mondays anyway, eh?

Just before Jon got home with Jeremy – who was fine….just needing some family time – Geli woke up and was feeling really REALLY good, comparatively.

We had a great day and even were able to think through some of the kids Christmas presents to each other and to their cousins. Our goal is to get everything done by the first week of December and then to be able to relax…….

HA HA HA HA HA HA! Relax! Okay, maybe I’ll just say…….. to be able to cross one thing (Christmas presents) off my list.

By now, it should come to no surprise to me that right now, in this tage of our lives, our family really needs to be with each other after a weekend away. I, in my adult thinking, know that they are only gone for just a few days and that Angelica’s not going in to the hospital “sick” and even with my knowledge and maturity *snort*….. I know how much “I” look forward to them being home and having some time “together”. And yet I’ve kind of just expected the kids to just keep trooping on as if everything is status quo.

I still think that anything that we can do “as normal” is a good thing, but that I need to be more prepared for when the kids indicate (through words, actions, or emotions) that they need a “family” day. It wasn’t a problem to keep them home and I think that it was right to send Jeremy until he asked to come home…..I just hadn’t thought through the possibility of them needing us to be together. “Together” was exactly what we needed.

Fortunately, this is her last “scheduled” hospital stay and for that, we breathe a sigh of relief and thankfulness.

It was a nice day. One that could have been better had I just thought through the different possibilities a little more……

This “whole thinking things through clearly” is really frustrating me right now…..but hey, today was an awesome Saturday!

Another Beginning….one step closer to the end.

I dropped off Geli and Jon at BC Children’s Hospital this morning for her final dose of High Dose Methotrexate.

Here she is decorating her room for her 3/4 day stay…..

you can click on the picture to see a bigger view

The way this whole 3-4 day thing works is that she shows up around 10am-ish on day 1 (today – Friday) and then gets hooked up to an IV and starts pre-hydrating. She has to hydrate for 6 hours and then the Chemo will start (at approx 4pm) and 5 liters of the medicine will flow into her over the next 24 hours. At 4 pm (approx) on Day 2 (Saturday) they will finish the Methotrexate and then take a blood test to determine the level of the drug in her body and they’ll start to administer the antidote. Based on how she’s done the last 3 times, she should clear the Methotrexate from her system by Day 3 (Sunday night) just before midnight and I’ll head into to pick her and Jon up on Day 4 (Monday) around noon-ish.

So, the kids and I are headed into our last “planned” weekend apart for the duration of her treatment. I’m hoping it passes by very quickly.

We had a GREAT talk with Tim, Geli’s Oncologist, today. He answered a bunch of questions and while we are not yet even at the half way point in this first intense stage of the treatment – we can definitely see that there is an end to this whole journey.

We have 3 stages left before Maintenance. Each stage is 8 weeks long. The first of these stages is basically a mini version of Induction (the very first Chemo treatment) and Consolidation (the second set of Chemo). The second stage is another set of Methotrexate, but instead of getting a dose of 5,000mg of Methotrexate – she gets 50mgs the first week, 100mgs the third week, 150mgs the 5th week and 200mgs the 7th week……that seems so insignificant compared to 5,000 milligrams – doesn’t it? The third stage is another mini repeat of Induction and Consolidation, with the added bonus of Cranial Radiation thrown in.

That should take us up to May-ish 2011 and at that point we start Maintenance…….which we continue on with until September 30th, 2012 or there abouts.

So we are still quite a long ways off, but as horrible as it is, there is a familiarity to these treatments (minus the radiation) and we are expecting Geli to respond quite well. Her counts are expected to be quite low still and there are still a number of appointments that will take us in and out – so we are not quite into the party stage of things just yet.

Despite, the length of time and treatment yet to go, its just so nice to walk away from a meeting feeling positive & hopeful and not stressed & discouraged.

Geli is doing well, and her spirits are up. Her Homebound teacher has mentioned that Geli is doing extremely well and is handling the whole “school & home learning” really well. She is staying on top of her schoolwork and really enjoying participating in class, as she feels up to it.

Her toes, that had caused her so much trouble, have been doing SO. MUCH. BETTER! The ingrown nails had pretty much grown out and the infection was pretty much gone and then two weeks ago she stubbed her big toe and chipped a GIANT chunk out of her big toe nail and now we have been attempting damage control to hopefully prevent any ingrown toenail and subsequent infection.

It’s quite possible that her hair might fall out again in this next round. One of the drugs that she took in the first round is the main culprit for the hair falling out last time and she’s up against it again and so we shall see what this next stage brings. We’re expecting her to have a better time around this second run through this treatment because instead of her bone marrow being full of leukemia cells she had (at last count a few weeks ago) just over 25% of normal cells.

So basically, her marrow was full of leukemia cells….they killed all of those off and now the good healthy strong cells are taking back ground. This is a very good thing.

It looks like we’ll have the week between Christmas and New Years off of treatment and we’re looking forward to that.

Thanks for all your prayers, love and support. Once again, we are so grateful and thankful for you all.

I’m Tired

I have a few things that I’d love to post about.

Pictures to share and stories to write about, and honestly….I’m just too tired.

Geli and her cousin, Jack

Things are going relatively well. We’re gearing up for Angelica’s last round of the High Dose Methotrexate which will be happening this Friday though Monday.

Hopefully, I’ll have more energy and time to post soon.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

We’ve received a few letters and cards and e-mails and every time, it feels like a hug….so THANK YOU!

It means so much. It might seem like to so little, but to us it’s HUGE!

We appreciate everyone of you so much! Thanks for standing with us, and supporting us.

Third Time’s The Charm

Well, I finally got the baby down…..after the third try.

It’s a little frustrating. Just when you think he’s asleep, he twitches and wakes himself up and WHAM…he’s not planning on going back to sleep anytime soon.

Or, you’re CERTAIN he’s asleep and you ever so carefully place him in his crib only to have him blink his eyes WIDE OPEN, the instant his skin comes in contact with his sheet.

OR…..you’ve basically crawled into the crib with him, to fake him into thinking that you’re still holding him, and you stay in that weird hunched over position so long that you’re entire back cramps up and your legs start to go numb, and you think that he’s relaxed into a deep sleep….you ever so slowly released the weight and pressure that you’ve put on him and BAM! Eyes. Open. Again!

and just when you’ve given up all hope of getting to have any free time in the evening, and you’ve basically slung him over your arm and are just ignoring him….you realize that he’s dead weight and has fallen completely soundly asleep. Based on prior track records, you have absolutely no belief that he will stay asleep, in fact you completely believe with every fiber in your body that the “INSTANT” you even make a move towards the crib, that his “sensors” will go off and he’ll wake up.

You kinda roughly plop him into his crib, kinda shove his blanket on top of him and run out of the room hoping that you can, at the very least, hit the toilet before he starts screaming and wakes up the toddler……

After about 15 minutes, you wonder what’s going on….you go in and check…all’s good, still breathing…Hmmmm weird.

Well, might as well attempt to get that snack you had been thinking about 2 hours ago…….can’t hurt to try, cause FOR SURE, he’ll be up any second.

At some point you realize that he’s actually out for the night and you’ve not accomplished what you had wanted to initially because you were basically waiting with bated breath for the little darling to wake up………and he never did. MAN!

Okay, so that’s not really what happened tonight, but it or some variation happens often enough around here for it to not be entirely funny and yet, 5th time around (I have 5 kids, just in case that reference made no sense to you) – I can appreciate it for what it is….just another season. He’ll be a better sleeper soon enough and until then, I’ll try to relax and not get too frustrated when I don’t accomplish as much as I’d like.

Jon and Geli left for the Hospital this morning just after 7:30am. She had a lumbar puncture scheduled for first thing, and was receiving chemo into her spinal fluid then; after that, she gets one dose of chemo; and then 6 hours of hydration before the THIRD DOSE of the Methotrexate.

She should be coming home on Sunday….which we are all looking forward to.

We were the best prepared and the least prepared for this third round of chemo.

We kind of know what to expect and what to prepare for. Geli was able to pack her clothes, her school stuff and her favorite foods with speed and ease. Jon packed all of his stuff up and I was left with the chaos of the other 4 kids and the house.

Xani had a bit of a “moment” last night. She couldn’t sleep. Didn’t want Jon to go away. Was Stressing. Not fun!

My big accomplishment today was to go shopping for Almond Milk, Soy Milk and Coffee Grounds. Yee Haw!

I fed the children super healthy, fresh-right-outta-the-box Chicken Noodle Soup. * snort * I win the Mother of the Year award tonight.

I think we’ll have fish and potatoes and veggies, tomorrow night, to try and make up for tonight’s amazing-ness.

I folded 2 loads of laundry today….there’s that, right?

Judah’s been having some similar issues to Josiah (when he was an infant) and I’ve gone absolute hardcore on cutting out all dairy from my diet. (There’s been some blood in his poop – in case you don’t know what I’m talking about.) It’s not fun and it’s just one more stress. I know that it’s dairy related and even just the 2 days of not eating any dairy has already made a HUGE difference. Judah’s not had any of the ezcema that Siah had, so that’s a bonus. He just tends to barf a lot, get a wicked diaper rash (I’m assuming because his “movements” are a little more acidic that they should be because he’s body is working overtime to breakdown any dairy proteins), and has had some blood tinged poop. I’m not FREAKING. We’ve had this happen before and way WAY worse. Josiah, at a health level with 0 being perfect and 10 being really bad, was at like a 14. I’d give Judah a 2….prespective….it’s all in the perspective.

But, my biggest issue and I’ve complained about it before….I LOVE CHEESE. I can find delicious dairy free chocolate. I can bake dairy free. I can cook dairy free, but…….I LOVE Old Sharp Cheese. I don’t mind some goat cheese, but if it’s too “goaty” ick! And that is the toughest thing for me about going dairy free. It’s really rough. You should all feel terribly sorry for me – I know……wah, wah, WAH!!!!!!

Ah well, I’ve gotta go and plan out my day tomorrow.

There will be a list with like 15 things that I want to accomplish….and then there will be the “List of Reality”….with the 1 or 2 things that I absolutely MUST DO!

Fun! Not!

Out for Tonight! Ciao!

Fighting To Win

I’ve been asked this question or a variation of it a few times….and so I thought that I’d answer it here, as I’m sure that someone else has wondered about this too.

Angelica’s immune system is currently suppressed. Normally, (like for you or I) we have a certain number of blood cells in our body that have specific jobs. Think of the different blood cells as soldiers. Some help to fight off viruses and bacteria, some remember which bacteria and viruses you have come up against in the past and what the best strategy was to defeat them…..and there are a bunch more.

You and I have tons of big strong healthy good soldiers and new, strong healthy soldiers are always joining and learning from the older, wiser, more mature soldiers. Normally when something bad tries to get inside of you, the good guys identify it as a bad guy and then they work to destroy it and they win and all is well inside the world that is you. But sometimes, a zombie gets in with the healthy guys and these zombies….they are sneaky. They can manage to sneak past all the fighter soldiers and then when you’re not looking…..BAM….they bite you, and now your one zombie is now two zombies and then they multiply rapidly from there….

This is what happened with Geli and by the time they diagnosed her, her bone marrow was filled with 85-90% cancer cells. The cancer cells (zombies) had destroyed most of her good cells. Without treatment, the prognosis is death….it progresses quite rapidly once the concentration reaches that stage.

BUT…..right now, they have killed all the cancer zombies that they could find and at the last Bone Marrow Biopsy, Angelica’s bone marrow had about 25% good healthy cells. Not bad considering that they basically dropped an Atomic Bomb (of Chemotherapy) on her and nuked everything good and bad.

This is the extremely condensed and much simplified version.

So because she is continually on Chemotherapy (and will be on the Intense Side of Chemo treatment for the next 27 weeks or so and then she’ll be on Maintenance which is a lower dose treatment until October 2012) she doesn’t have a lot of soldiers. Some times she has more and some times she has less, but to put it into perspective…..Angelica is allowed to go to school when she has a minimum of 500 soldiers. The low end of normal is 4600 soldiers and the high end of normal is 10,800.

As you can see there is quite a difference between having 500 soldiers or having 5,000 soldiers….now add into that that lots of the time, the “soldiers” that are working for Geli are young, immature or weak soldiers and it just all gets messy doesn’t it?

This is why we are trying to be careful with her and who she comes into contact with.

It basically comes down to calculated risks.

It’s important to us that she be allowed to do “typical” things that will help her spirits to feel positive and uplifted. Depression is a horrible thing that no one wants to have to deal with. To have to fight through depression on top of fighting off cancer….really, really REALLY SUPER NOT COOL! And so, we let her go to school. We encourage her to connect with her friends. We let her try to be a “normal” teenager doing “normal” teenage things when the reality can be so far from normal. We pray that she doesn’t get sick. We tell her to avoid sick people as much as she can. We give her “Purell” to wash her hands lots and we tell her to take any and all precautions that she can and that she remembers to……while trying to be as normal as possible…..while bald….and tired……and out of breath……and add on top of that that she’s not “really” attending school. Some days, it’s just one class and even when she goes, she’s basically allowed to audit the classes and she can receive material from the teachers, but every things has to be handed in to her “homebound teacher” who she meets with one a week (hopefully) at home! It’s not normal, but if she can go to school, be with her friends and forget about not feeling well, or being tired, or having to go into the hospital….if she can forget about the chemo and the cancer, and how hard it is sometimes…..even for just a moment, then it makes it all worth it. All the stress and worry and concern that we might feel about “exposing” her to “all the crap out there” is nothing compared her forgetting about it all and “just being normal.”

Most of the rest of the time, we avoid crowds and crowded areas. Everyone in our family does, as much as possible. We spend most of our time, at home or outside away from people. To do things like shopping or even going out for a meal, we attempt to go at “down” times. For example, I try to shop early in the morning so that the stores have relatively few people and even at that….if someone is coming towards me down an aisle and they are coughing and hacking and look like death warmed over – I will actually leave that aisle and come back to it later. It’s not worth it for me to risk that I or Judah or Siah might get sick and bring it home to Geli.

It’s not always easy or the most convenient, but aside from school, we are doing what we can to avoid illness over here.

For whatever reason, her counts this round have been pretty good and she’s stayed up over the 500 mark, so far. This is amazing and we are so thankful for it. The next round is a mini repeat of the very first round that she went through and that one decimated her “soldiers” down so low that they could no longer count them….below 50 they can’t count them and it’s basically considered at that point that she has pretty much “no” protection.

So, we continue to pray that she remains healthy and we carry on.

So, in answer to some of the questions out there, no, we are not participating in “normal” activities aside from Geli being allowed to go to school sometimes. Xandra and Jeremy do go to school and their classes have been talked to about being extra super careful with colds and coughs. Sometimes, rarely, the older two kids have gone to church, but we’re not taking Geli or the youngest boys….and even with all of our being careful, Josiah has managed to pick up two colds over the past 2 months. There are no Mom’s Groups or preschool or library events, no public pool swimming, no fun play places, and no group activities.

We have done two family events but polled the family to see if anyone was sick and fortunately…..everyone was healthy or else we would not have been able to go.

This is a season…not a fun season and sometimes it’s a lonely season. It’s most definitely a tired and emotional season, but it’s a season, none the less and…….SEASONS CHANGE!

Yes, this is a pretty long season, but in the grand scheme of life, it’s one year (or 2.5 years in total) out of 100! (That’s a post for another day, but I plan to live to 100 years old, at least!) It is staring us in the face right now, and sometimes it even feels like we’re being screamed at, but one day we’ll look back and this will just be a blip on the radar of our lives.

Until then, we make the very best decisions that we can. We hold onto hope. We look for joy. We pray for health and strength and peace. We live. This is the year that we fight, with everything in us, for life, for Angelica’s life…

…and WE WILL WIN!

Siah Safe

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love to cook and bake. Often it’s a challenge to work with Siah’s Allergies and “the way we eat” and come up with food that looks and tastes as delicious as “regular, normal” food. It’s regular and normal for us, but I’d like to be able to serve it to you and have you not notice the difference. I also don’t want to always have to give Siah something different from the rest of us. It’s important to me that he understands that he needs to be careful when he goes out, but that here in our home, he never has to worry or feel “different” or “strange”. It’s a challenge that I’m usually up to, but in the past few months, I’ve not done a ton of baking and I’ve mostly stuck to our regular go-to meals.

But recently, I’ve been thinking about Chicken Lasagna.

My Aunty Lori makes an amazing Chicken Lasagna. Although I’ve never had “her” Chicken Lasagna, my dad had “her” lasagna (when visiting them in the Great White North – they live in the boonies.) and loved it so much that he asked her for the recipe. He’s made it a few times and MMMMmmmmmm – YUMMY! It’s a Tomatoe based Lasagna.

I asked for the recipe a bit ago and my mom even printed it off for me, but the paper got wet and then Siah destroyed it…so I still need to get it, because it’s one of Geli’s favorites and apparently, I “wreck” my lasagnas because I put too many veggies into them.

I’ve also tried a few times to make a White Cheese Sauce based Chicken Lasagna, but according to my kids…..I’ve had some “interesting” but not horrible results and yet nothing that was FABULOUS – until yesterday…….

I made a lasagna yesterday “based” on this recipe….with substitutions and additions, of course.

With the dietary restrictions and lifestyle choices that we have/have made, I pretty much “always” alter recipes and mostly, I have pretty great results. In this recipe, I use brown rice lasagna noodles, vegan Becel for the butter, Spelt Flour, Soy Milk, Goat Mozzarella, a hard Sheep Cheese for the Parmesan, Cheuvre for the Ricotta, and just because I know my kids preferences, I used carrots and zucchini instead of spinach. It was sooo YUMMY!

I love it when I find a “traditional meal” that I can alter to fit in with the allergies and intolerances within our family. In fact, It was yummy enough that I bet I could have fed it to you and you’d have never known it was “different” or “altered”.

You can’t very well have a delicious meal like that without dessert, can you?

Well, we don’t hardly EVER have dessert, but we do like snacks. This past week, a wonderful lady brought us a meal and included with the meal were the most amazing double Chocolate Chip Cookies. ~~Like a pig, I devoured~~ We finished what was brought, and then ~~they were so delicious that I~~ we wanted more.

I’m not sure if the cookies we were given were dairy and egg free, BUT…..no worries because ~~they never lasted long enough for Siah to know that they were even in the house~~ I found a recipe and made some unbelievably delicious Double Chocolate Chip Cookies that even Siah can eat.

Again, with the substitutes….I used Spelt Flour, Vegan Becel, Ener-G Egg Replacer, and President’s Choice Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chipits (these chipits have no dairy. MMMmmm). These are AMAZING!

There is no way that these could be considered “healthy”, but at the very least, they won’t upset our tummies, and Siah can eat them without us worrying about his allergies.

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