Siah – Page 4 – xangelle.com

Siah – May 2011

Since we got our iPhones, I’ve taken a million pictures on my phone, but I’ve definitely not taken as many photos with my actual camera.

I’m trying to be more conscious of taking photos with my camera because I want to be able to make another Photobook at the end of this year and while I try to take the iPhone photos in as high a quality as I can…..it’s just not the same.

And so yesterday I picked up my camera and took a few pictures of Josiah and then I gave the girls notice that sometime in the next week I’d like to get some photos of them as well…..they like to get their picture taken, but they dislike getting ready to get their picture taken. My Silly Girls!!!!

After Geli got home from school, I asked her to keep an eye on Judah; and Siah and I headed outside to our front door step. We had a bit of a quiet or down day yesterday…in fact, Siah is still in his pyjamas in these pictures. They are stripey footed pyjamas and OH. SO. SWEET! I love little boys in footed pyjamas. They look so little and babyish still. I find that kids grow up too fast and while I’m not trying to keep my kids from growing up, I find that too often we (as a society) move at such a fast pace; and we are constantly looking forward to the next stage in life. So much so, that we don’t take the time to just enjoy the stages that we are in. I know I’m generalizing and that not everybody does this, but it does happen.

It’s been difficult to get pictures of Siah recently. He doesn’t want to sit still long enough or to even look towards the camera for long enough for me to be able to catch any decent shots…It took quite some effort, creative thinking, silly stories, a lot of booger talk and about a million shots to be able to come up with these.

But I love looking back at seeing how much my little ones have grown. To be able to take some pictures and attempt to catch “that thing” that makes my kids who they are. To be able to catch shots that show off the sweet, cute, quiet, silly, wonderful, many varied sides of my kids……..I love that.

If you’re interested, you can check out the rest of his pictures here.

From the Mouths of Babes…

I had a conversation with Josiah our 3 year old the other day. It was pretty cute as most conversations with a 3 year old would be.

Do you like it when Geli goes to school

I don’t like her to be there for a long time?

What color are Daddy’s eyes

Grey or orange or pink or blue

What color are mommy’s eyes?

Blue

How many brother’s and sisters do you have?

Two (as he holds up two fingers and then he clarifies that by saying two sisters)

What is Mommy’s favorite thing to do?

Cleaning the Dishes!

What is Daddy’s favorite thing to do?

Doing the Computer!

What is your favorite Food?

McDonalds

What does Mommy do for a job?

I dunno

What does Daddy do for a job?

I dunno EITHER

What is your favorite color?

Red and pink and blue and green

How much money do you have?

I have 6 but I don’t know where they are!

Who is Papa?

He is with Nana Karen

What is special about Papa?

Nana washes his clothes and he doesn’t

What is special about Nana?

She is my present!

Who is Jesus?

He is God and he lives in the sky

What does he do up there?

He prays to us and he lives in the sky

What is his house like?

It’s like air (this is says with a tone that says “DUH!”

When are you gonna go to school?

Three. He counts on his fingers……

Where do you go when you die?

Up to Jesus and then He puts me down and then I come back to life…..We trade!

What do you want to do when you grow up?

I want to be an alien in a costume – that would be funny

What would you do with your alien costume?

I would buy it and put it on me, if it had one of those things on top…..Yah!

What do you want to do for a job when you get to be big like dad?

I could clean the floor!

……and at this point, the conversation ended because he dumped a cup of water on the couch beside me and soaked the bottom side of me and I had to go and get changed.

Little Moments

There are things that I don’t want to forget.

The little moments that you wish you could hold onto forever.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of OTHER moments in life and somehow you end up thinking about and focusing on those moments, when in reality they are so unimportant.

I want to remember how little, how precious, how cuddly, how amazing this little boy is. I don’t want to forget and so….I attempt to snap a picture to “hold onto” to remember the little moments.

Magical Creatures…

I am just trying to survive.

I am on day 3 with a cranky, not feeling 100% baby who wants to be held ALL. THE. TIME! And, that would be almost okay if he would nap, but so far today we’ve done 2 naps for a combined total of 19 minutes. YAH! Cranky, OVERTIRED, Not Feeling Well Baby, for the win!

The house is um…..sort of somewhat tidyish, ya now minus the rice crisps that the baby was eating off the floor that he managed to smoosh into 5 million tiny shards. I still need to sweep those up, and I really should be folding the 4 loads of laundry and washing Geli’s bedding before she comes home tonight and all of that is kinda difficult to do with a cranky baby hanging off your hip. Did I mention that the baby weighs 30 pounds? Yah, cause doing anything while carrying around 30 pounds is not the easiest thing in the world.

I finally packed the boys up and put the baby in the stroller and we walked around our complex a few times and out and around the cul-de-sac just to get a bit for fresh air. Honestly, I had hoped that maybe this tired baby would crash, but no luck so far.

BUT…..he is playing on the floor in front of me, while I sit on the couch typing up this post, so that’s positive right.

I did manage to get a roast into the crock pot this morning and so at the very least dinner is taken care of.

Did ya catch that reference up there a few paragraphs back? Jon and Geli are coming home tonight.

As of 7pm tonight, the 48 hour time line for her blood to culture any bacteria is up and she gets to come home. It’s pretty much determined that it was just a virus and they don’t want her there any more than we do, and so we’ve asked to come home as soon as the 48 hr wait is up.

Her white count is actually coming up and her neutrophils were above .5 this morning and that’s a good thing. Bad thing was that even though she received red blood yesterday it only raised her levels by 15 points and that’s not enough to help her feel better. She was at a 71 yesterday for her hemoglobin and while some kids can tolerate being down as low as 60 or 50 something, Geli starts to feel pretty rough at 80 something….. She feels short of breath, and has headaches, and feels like her heart is pounding and is major dizzy and light headed. The chemo that she is getting hits it high point of effectiveness (the nadir) tomorrow and so some of her counts are still coming down. So the 85 that she hit as of this morning will probably end up back in the 70’s or lower as of tomorrow and so in order to deal with that, Geli is getting another “strawberry shake” today. Her platelets were also at a 20 and while that’s not the end of the world, we don’t want to have to be on pins and needles around her in case of cuts or bruises and so she is also getting platelets today. But after she gets filled full of red blood and platelets, she is good to come home! Hooray!

I spent a quiet day at home with my boys. We sat outside for a while and it was so nice to just be outside in the sun. I love the sun. It makes me feel so happy. I’m so ready for spring and summer to be here. I love the snow in the winter, but the rain…..well, I’ve had enough rain this year.

It Strikes

Josiah woke up at 2am last night and barfed.

Jon got him cleaned up and changed his bed and then Judah woke up. These two little boys can play a masterful game of parental sleep deprivation. It’s been just over a week of brutal sleeping habits and this is just the icing on the cake.

Both boys were sleeping somewhat soundly at just after 3am and the next barfing episode didn’t happen until just after 6am, and fortunately for us, that’s when Judah decided to wake up as well.

As we were getting ready this morning, Jon was musing about how he felt better this morning than he has for the past week.

I casually remarked that we were so blessed. We got 3 straight hours of sleep and that’s why we feel so amazing.

Yes……we are that sad. 3 hours of sleep is like heaven. We are giddy over here and it’s all because of 3 measly hours of sleep. Wow, that’s is just so sad!

After the 6am barfing session, Josiah managed to completely clean out his stomach at 7am onto my bed…..

Here is the stripped bed and his bowl and a surprisingly chipper little guy.

Right now he is laying on the couch next to me watching Max and Ruby……and can I just say, Ruby has the MOST annoying voice.

We are desperately praying for this bug to skip Angelica (and the rest of us)….Siah has a bit of a fever and a fever is an automatic trip to the hospital for Geli and so we are really, Really, REALLY not wanting her to get sick right now.

15 out of 56

Well, we are 15 days (2+ weeks) into Delayed Intensification 2 which is 56 days long (8 weeks). This is the second to last stage before Maintenance. So far, Geli has had a Lumbar Puncture, one dose of Intrathecal Methotrexate (into her spinal fluid), one dose of Peg L-asparaginase divided into two shots (one in each thigh). She has had two doses of Vincristine and 2 doses of Methotrexate (both of those into her port in her chest).

She has been doing pretty well. There have been some down times, some barfy feeling moments, and a lot of great moments. Some times the chemo makes food and water taste “off” and that sucks. Sometimes, it’s difficult to sleep and yet regardless of how much sleep Geli does get, she feels overly tired most of the time.

Her body is working overtime to heal and process the poison injected into it and she’s fighting so hard and most definitely winning this race.

Geli has been at school all last week, except for Thursday when she had to go in for her last chemo dose. She has no chemo this week and we are planning for another great week at school.

As her parents, we are thrilled to see her attending school, hanging out with her friends, just being as normal as is possible in this crazy situation.

She is working hard on her grade 8 school work and while she’s not done as much work as is required from her school mates, she’s done really well on keeping up to date with the essential assignments that her teachers have given to her.

Angelica and a friend scored a perfect mark on an oral presentation that they have been working on over the past month or so. That was definitely a bright spot over this last week.

We’ve been out walking most days and the exercise and fresh air are wonderful. You don’t realize how much you take your health for granted until you spend a huge portion of a year not feeling well and laying on a couch and then you realize that even a simple walk requires almost more effort than you have to give. BUT….summer’s coming and swimming is important enough that we are trying to build up strength so that we will be able to swim without needing a life jacket or having to rest after 5 mins.

We are really, REALLY looking forward to summer. Angelica will be on Maintenance and we will be defining a new normal and this summer will be a most welcome break from this past year. I think that we are all looking forward to a bit of a relaxing summer.

I’ve been trying desperately to stay on top of the house and have been running at warp speed from morning till night and unfortunately most of the night too (thank you very much children). I’ve had almost no down time and I’m desperate for summer with no homework, a bit more of a relaxed schedule, once a month visits into the hospital, no deadlines……I can’t wait.

We have managed to turn our house up side down and I think its a good thing, BUT…..it’s not without it’s challenges. We did move our bedroom down to the basement along with the two little boys. Geli and Xani are up in what was the master bedroom. Jeremy is still is his room and we’ve moved the “TV/Rec Room” up to the big room that used to be Siah’s. I will try to get pictures soon, but so far this particular room arrangement is working well.

Xani is still struggling pretty hard and it’s difficult to watch her struggle and hurt.

Jeremy is rocking his Lego Root Camp and just being Jeremy. Recently, we tweaked the meds that he’s taking and it’s made a great difference.

Josiah is 3 years old and while the whiny voice and testing of behavior is not the most fun….he’s doing really well. I believe that he’s settled greatly from the initial chaos and while there are still things that we can and will work on with him….he’s doing SO much better. We’ve been trying to color a bit and he’s loves to spend one on one time with anyone. He stresses a bit about not knowing “how” to color and wants to have one of us color “with” him by putting our hand over his, but we keep practicing and he’s getting a bit more confident that he “can” color all by himself.

Judah is getting so big and I can hardly believe that 8 months have past us by. While I’m still not eating wheat (he seemed to have some gluten issues), soy or dairy….the intestinal issues that Judah was dealing with seem to have settled and he is doing much better. I have never really had a baby who has eating issues and yet, Judah is giving me a run for my money.

He will eat rice puffs or rice cakes or potato puffs any time any where, but try to give him some thing that might actually have taste or nutritional value in it and he clamps his lips and crosses his arms in front of his face and uses his arms in a windshield wiping motion to knock the spoon out of your hand.

I’ve tried to see if he will feed himself and it’s very hit and miss and so I’m not stressing about it too much because I don’t want to “create” a HUGE issue. He’ll eat when he eats and seriously…..it’s not like he’s wasting away, eh? He’s quite the chunk!

He has the sweetest personality and is so happy and squish-able and lovable and we are just so thrilled he is ours. (I just wish he’d sleep a little more consistently – he can….it’s just very hit and miss and I think that more sleep would make this whole situation just a little easier to handle.)

All said, we are doing okay! I wouldn’t say that things are the MOST AMAZING EVER, but we are surviving. One day at a time, we are making it through this…….A lot of that is due to you and your prayers, encouragement, love and support……we are so thankful to you all.

Here and There (continued)

Well, I managed to update once yesterday and then it was time for the kids to come home from school and things just went downhill from there.

I forgot to give Jeremy his medicine yesterday and I can’t fathom why his teacher didn’t have him call home. If his behaviour after school was consistent with his behaviour during the day…..all I can say is, “WOW!”

2:59pm Xandra came home from school. My dad dropped her off but Jeremy stayed behind for “Robotics Camp”. Judah was SO excited to see her. He is always so glad to see the kids when they come home.

3:03pm We took this picture to send to Jon, just for Xandra to say, “I love you, Dad!”

3:45pm I find it so hard to believe that we generate THIS MUCH GARBAGE…..I sweep on average, 2-3 times a day and always manage to sweep up a decent mess. Man! Makes we feel like we’re pigs or something……

3:47pm Xandra worked on her homework! She is trying to catch up on a bunch of stuff that she fell behind on over Christmas and in January. She has one more project to hand in and then she’s done…..and then we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief. I’m sick of ragging on her to do her homework!

4:08pm I left Xandra and the computer to babysit and ran up to the school to pick Jeremy up from Robot Camp…..Josiah has watched more movies in the past 7 months than he has in his entire life. At this point, I’m just trying to survive….

4:12pm I had exactly 2 minutes of complete silence before I went in to pick up Jeremy!

4:16pm My Sweet Boy – He LOVES the Robotics Camp and we are so glad that he has found a hobby that he excels at.

4:24pm I managed to throw through a couple of loads of laundry today. Didn’t get them put away, but washed, dried and folded is at least 3/4 of the way through the process…

4:27pm On the other side of the world……here is the wall that is directly across from Geli’s bed…It’s all of us who can’t be with her….cheering her on, if only in picture! You’re never alone, Geli! Never alone!

4:28pm An amazing guy we know dropped off this mini fridge so that Jon and Geli could put decent food in it. The main fridge in the kitchen is always crowded and overflowing and so this is a HUGE blessing! Thanks, Reg! You Rock!

4:48pm Jon sent this picture through of Geli’s room all decorated for Valentines Day! I believe that she and her cousins made these???? Pretty, eh?

5:14pm What is it with 5 o’clock, anyway??? This was the start of many, MANY meltdowns in our family last night.

5:18pm Meanwhile, Jon and geli decided to go for a walk. They went to the Safeway just down the block from BC Children’s Hospital and also to the Dollar Store where they found this sweet pink hat with flames and the name “Angel” on it. They also picked up some socks! You never seen to have enough of something when you are at the hospital…sometimes its underwear, sometimes socks or shirts….something always gets missed in the packing. Unfortunately, we live too far away to just pop over to drop something off and usually they have to determine whether they can wait until we come in next or just go ahead and pick something up.

5:31pm We had soup for dinner, AGAIN! I’m trying to figure out how I can convince the kids to have it one more night. Maybe we’ll do cereal to shake things up a little. We’re living large over here, I tell ya….LIVING LARGE!

5:48pm While we finished up dinner, Jon and Geli walked “home” in the beautiful Vancouver dusk.

6:05pm We had some ice cream for dessert. These are little gluten free Oatmeal cookies with Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream in the middle for a delicious Ice Cream Sandwich!

6:15pm And I’m counting down the minutes until I can put the kids to bed. Don’t want it to be too early because then they get up too early and so I need something to waste some time…..

6:43pm A bath usually takes up a good chunk of time and it’s hard to be miserable when you’re in the bath.

6:44pm Siah’s faces are priceless!

6:56pm Jon and Geli made spaghetti dinner and said it was delicious…they even had seconds!

At this point, I was trying to get boys into bed and things were a little intense. By 8 o’clock, Siah was asleep, Jeremy had woken up Judah, Judah was crying, Jeremy was crying and then I started crying. Between Judah feeling sick with this plague that has swept through our family and cutting teeth, I’ve had less then 4 hours of sleep a night for the last week and those 4 hours……have been in less than 1 hour chunks. Apparently, I can sort of hold myself together for a week with next to no sleep and then…….and then I cannot hold myself together any more.

The house was a complete mess, the cleaners were coming the next day and nothing was picked up for them, the baby was still awake, Jeremy was crying himself to sleep and I was crying and messaging with Jon on my phone.

8:13pm It was a pretty sad moment. I sat on the edge of my bed and rocked and rocked and rocked this little one while messaging with Jon and my momma.

8:27pm And then he slept and then I crawled into bed and began what was to be another LOOOOOOONNGGGG night!

I have an appointment tomorrow morning with our family doctor to get Judah checked out. Xandra, Josiah, and my Momma are starting to do better after a week of whatever this plague is and I’m pretty sure that Judah will be okay as well, but he is wheezing quite a bit and while that’s probably just because his airways are so much smaller, I want to have him checked out before the weekend.

Here and There

Well, while my family is split up for the next little bit, we decided to send each other pictures of what we are doing so we feel a little less separated and a little more involved.

Here’s what Geli and Jon are doing at 9:46am. They made Eggs & Toast and are eating them in the Kitchen on 2B….We are so thankful that they are on 2B (the 2nd floor of the oncology ward) with access to a kitchen so that they can eat good food and not be stuck with the hospital food. While the hospital food is not “HORRIBLE”, it’s not “DELICIOUS” either.

Here at home, we had sent the kids off to school and were thinking about putting the baby down for a nap. But instead, we took a picture on the stairs.

This was my view at 11:41am…..I’m working on this post, Siah’s watching a movie and Judah’s just chillin’ and eating some steamed taro root cubes.

11:49am and Jon& Geli are up on 3B (the main Oncology ward) and are playing a little air hockey. Jon is WHOOPING Geli’s butt!

They’ve discontinued one of Geli’s Antibiotics. She was on two different ones and now she is only on the broad spectrum one. The cultures that they’ve been doing have all been negative since the 4th day in. Now we are just waiting out this round of antibiotics before she can come home. Aside from feeling a bit “off” first thing in the morning, she’s feeling fabulous. Her counts are still really low. For example, the number that indicates the amount of infection fighting “soldiers” needs to be over .5 for her to even consider going to school….as of this morning, that number was at a .08….so she really has almost no ability to fight anything off right now. We are praying for her numbers to come up quickly. She can’t even start her next round of chemo until that number is at a .75…..we got a ways to go before she hits that.

12:50pm Sometimes, this whole toilet training business is harder than it seems…. He called me to help him and this is how I found him…

1:13pm Judah’s playing with the Shadows on the floor. It’s so nice to see the sun out.

1:18pm Aunty Chelle and the Cousins visit. It’s so nice that they can visit when we can’t…..

1:47pm Geli and Brianna playing a game……

2:17pm This is what over tired, a sore throat and teething looks like….

2:31pm Sleep…..Sweet Sleep!

2:47pm Playing Air Hockey with Baby Zach (with a little help from Aunty Chelle)

I’ll be updating this post with the rest of today’s pics as they happen……

Oh, and if you haven’t yet, would you go here and help me out? Huge thanks to all those who’ve already left your suggestions, I love hearing what you all have to say!

Sunday Night Ramblings brought to you by our iPhone(s)

Well, it’s Sunday night at 7:45pm and I’m looking at a ton of random photos from both mine and Jon’s phone…… These pictures sort of highlight the past few days of our family, both here at home and at the hospital.

Seeing as I’ve managed to get the 3 kids that I have at home down, I thought I might try to throw them up into a post along with some of my random “brain thingys……”

This was Jon’s chair bed……..and then he got upgraded to a cot, but it was horrid…all lumpy and wires and bars sticking up and out and totally uncomfortable…..

This is actually the lumpy nasty bed………..

He then took a few test rides on some of the cots in the empty rooms on the floor that Geli is on and ended up with a deluxe bed…….that pretty much looks exactly the same as the picture above. In fact, you’d never be able to tell the difference. And this is where you all start with the “Princess and the Pea” jokes for him right about now…….Ha Ha HA!

It’s amazing how the dynamic in the house changes when you add or subtract people and right now, we are 3 people short over here and Xandra and Jeremy actually “played nicely” on Saturday morning. Here is the Lego maze that they created. It was supposed to be a game board…..Not sure if they actually played a game or not?

We went for a walk on Saturday afternoon. Like I mentioned earlier, Siah’s been staying at my mom’s because he’s been a coughing, snotting, germy mess…..He’s missing us and I’m missing him dearly and so my mom suggested that we go for a walk and hopefully with all the fresh air, we wouldn’t pass the germs around.

What??????? Don’t you take your Lego robots for walks with you?

While we were playing and walking and doing a bunch of other boring stuff, Jon and Angelica slept in FOREVER and then they had some DELICIOUS hospital breakfast…….

Later, they got in a little exercise……you can see that she’s really going fast…look at the blur that should be her legs…

After a little clean up (cause riding a bike can be sweaty, sweaty work) they headed down to the kitchen to play some Monopoly. Geli must not be feeling a hundred percent because Jon KICKED HER BUTT! Like really, REALLY badly, and she ALWAYS wins! So Weird!

Meanwhile, we walked and walked and walked and walked…..you know, the whole theory that if you tire the kids out, then maybe they’ll sleep really good….ya doesn’t always work for my kids. SUCKS! Along the way, my strange kids were kinda creeped out by these Alien Pods – but I have no idea where they got that idea from….none at all!

But, we finally made it to the park….

The kids played and climbed and went on the swings and up and down the slides and onto the monkey bars and we only had to yell at them to avoid all the other children a half a dozen times…..by that point, the parents were just high tailin’ it outta there anyway…… (okay, all of that was totally made up…..There were ONLY 4 other pre-teen boys “hanging out” there and they only had the rescue Siah “once” from climbing up the tallest part of the tallest play structure…That child is seriously part goat and the other part is monkey….he’s amazing!)

We managed to deal with Little Master Siah McSnotterson. This way, you only have to deal with the snot once as opposed to blowing his nose a million times, and it totally saves the jacket from needing a wash too. Come on! You parents know what I’m talking about….if there isn’t a kleenex around the slug slime goes from one wrist up to the shoulder on both sides. BLECH! I’m shuddering just thinking about it.

Judah had fallen asleep while we were there, and it was so nice to just sit on the park bench and to not have to “do” anything. After we had been there a while, I loving asked Josiah, in the softest most gentle voice that I own to not do something that he was doing…..and Judah woke up. You’d think that it would take something more like a yell or scream to wake that kid up……you might be right? At least he wakes up happy, eh?

As we walked home, the kids all needed to express their inner Jackie Chan by doing “maneuvers” on the fence…This is Jeremy’s best shot of the “Despicably Crouching Tiger” Amazing, isn’t it? Such skill and finesse!

Xandra dropped a mean “Flowering Stork” on us…..

I tried to ask Siah which maneuver he was pulling off and the best I can gather from what he was mumbling behind those trailing kleenex’s was that he was really working on the “Dangling Walrus”. It’s a two person move as you can tell by the picture and my mom very graciously offered to stand in for him.

These pictures are really just bonus pictures just because I love them and they make me smile……..

This is a picture from before Geli and Jon went into the hospital, but I’m putting on here anyway. I love that its blurry cause he’s moving so fast, but you can see his two little front teeth sticking out and the nerdly glasses combined with the swooshy hair….this picture is priceless to me!

This picture CRACKS me up. The look on Geli’s face is amazing. You can almost hear her saying, “Huuuuuh?”

And in this one it looks like Judah’s trying to figure out who is ‘in” the phone.

Well, I ate a million gluten free oatmeal cookies with a cup of almond milk and called it dinner….I figure it’s exactly the same as porridge, right? Well if that’s the case, why do I feel SO GROSS! Yuck! Time for a millions cups of water and possibly an early-ish bedtime…..if I’m smart!

And with that…..I’m off! Hope you’re weekend was a good one! Care to share what the highlight of your weekend was?

There is Too Much

Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up….
Inigo Montoya
The Princess Bride (1987)

Alright, so I’m gonna do my best to try to explain and update.

First, we don’t have a lot of new news……and that sucks.

We do know that Angelica’s blood cultures grew some gram-negative bacteria…….and this is bad, like very bad!

If you click on that link above and scroll down, it lists off some of the nasty bacteria that are gram negative….things like e-coli and salmonella, shigella, and legionella……nasty, nasty, NASTY!

To inject a little bit of humor, into this horrid situation, earlier this morning, we had a doctor wish for her to have e-coli!

Not that he wants her to have e-coli, but it’s possible that if it is, in fact, e-coli then it would only be a 10 day run on antibiotics as opposed to a 14 run on antibiotics. While those extra 4 days don’t seem like they should be a big deal, when you are parenting 4 stressed out, overly emotional children from ages 12-7 months, and trying to “do it all” every “second” counts….forget talking about days!

My sister and Jack, drove Judah and myself into the hospital today to pick up the van, so that the kids and I would have a vehicle for the next couple of weeks. This was such a blessing as I wasn’t sure how we were going to get it.

It was hard to go in and see Jon and Geli and know that I needed to leave in less than an hour to be home to pick up the big kids after school and yet it is so wonderful to see her not feeling so sick. When we showed up, Angelica and Jon were in the kitchen making baked potatoes for lunch and setting up for a rockin’ game of Monopoly.

She is looking and feeling a lot better. That part is equally frustrating and wonderful. On one side of things, she did not get seriously ill and so she’s not holed up in her bed, crying and not eating and barfing, but on the other side, she feels pretty well and is just killing time in the hospital “waiting” until she can come home again. The fact that she’s not REALLY sick is great, but she still has to be in there and that REALLY sucks!

I’m…….well, I’m doing okay! Honestly, I’m upset. I’m really upset. This is a very difficult thing to go through. Having your child diagnosed with cancer is hard. Helplessly watching your child go through chemotherapy is hard. Watching your child get sick and having to go to the hospital, away from you, to get better and knowing that she doesn’t want to be there, away from you, and the rest of the family and her own familiar house, is hard. Dealing with your own emotions about it all is hard. Feeling unable to help the siblings work through their own emotional upheaval is hard. Solo parenting is hard. Being without your spouse, for weeks, is hard. This is all just hard!

On top of it all, Josiah is sick. He started to look and act sick on Wednesday afternoon and on Wednesday evening, after Jon and Geli went to the hospital, my mom took Siah to her house. He’s had a fever, and a cough and a runny nose and was vomiting last night. I don’t know what to do because I’m his mom and I want to be with him, comforting him and yet……to have all of my kids sick over the next few weeks…..well, the thought of having to deal with 4 sick kids and not getting to go in and see either Jon or Geli is overwhelming. The thought of being up with him in the night and then up with Judah in the night, on top of how tired I already feel….. Just the thought of all of that, is enough to bring me to tears. And so right now, he’s with my momma…..how I love her!

And having said all of that, I’m doing okay! I am doing okay and I am not doing okay! It’s all wrapped up together, much like life.

I had a bit of a cry yesterday when we got the news of the infection and after they got home from school, I told Xandra and Jeremy. Last night, they each took turns having their own melt down. It was not a happy day in our house last night. I wish I could play you all the message that Jeremy left hysterically sobbing and screaming into Jon’s voicemail as he was trying to get a hold of him before going to bed. Its so SO sad and upsetting and yet so theatrically dramatic that if it weren’t for real, it would have been funny!

It was so nice to have had a sort of “calm period” over December/January, but dealing with this I can see just how fragile we all are over here. There is some strength that we have in reserve, but it feels more like we found a way to strategically hold all the cracked pieces of our egg shell (life, emotions, etc) all together. This most recent blow…..this time that our family is separated, yet again because of this stupid, STUPID cancer, has left us with a pile of broken egg shells that we are staring at and needing to once again piece together. It might be “easier” because we’ve done it before, but it’s not EASY!

None of this is easy and yet, we carry on because we must.

Angelica will be okay. Jon and I will be okay. The kids will be okay. We will be okay, but this is hard!

I can’t wait for this to be over!

ps. I called yesterday and made my appointment to give blood. Have you considered giving?