New Years Eve Update

Judah wanted to wish you all a Happy New Years Eve Day…..

This year has been so full of both good and bad: and while we are SO ready to move beyond the bad….we are so thankful for the good. And, really, that’s life, isn’t it? You must take the good with the bad and move forward. Having said that, we are really looking forward to a New Year. And we are expecting GOOD THINGS, in this New Year. We are looking forward to what 2011 has in store for us as a family and as individuals. Are you?

I thought we could end the year with an update on how Geli and the family are doing and then I will start the New Year on a whole different note.

This is a picture of Angelica on December 23rd. She is just trying to finish up one aspect of her sibling/cousin presents that she left until last minute, but I’m just excited that she was able to make her own gifts this year. Can you see her hair? At this point, she had some hair that was about 2-3 inches long. That was the hair that didn’t fall out at the beginning of the treatment. It was pretty sparse, but it was fairly long (for her) and it’s been growing since the head shaving party in July. The really exciting part was that under that sparse layer of hair there is a WHOLE TON of hair about 1 inch long that is coming in under all the long sparse stuff. It seemed like overnight she went from really thin hair to POOF….this whole “under” layer of hair that filled in all the holes. It was pretty cool. The not cool part…..she just went through a round of Chemo that is expected to make the hair fall out again.

We figured that seeing as her hair was expected to fall out within the next little bit, we might as well have some fun with it while it lasted.

She chose a color that she’s used before. It’s a very cool Dark Blue/Black color. To look straight at her, it looks black; but when the light hits her the right way, it’s VERY blue.

You can see some of the blue-ish color in this next photo.

It was kinda fun to do something that was out of the ordinary and something that we would have done before she was diagnosed. She had very funky hair for Christmas. Right after Christmas, like on Boxing Day, we noticed that her hair was starting to fall out. There was TONS of blue/black hair in her bed, on her clothes, on the couch, on the baby, on me…pretty much everywhere.

I will probably be shaving my hair in the next few days. I waffle between wishing I wasn’t going to and not really caring because it’s just hair and being thankful because my hair’s at an awkward length right now where I have to do it everyday or else I look like a massive Q-Tip….it’s cute (or not). And, I realize that all of those thoughts to some degree of less must go through her head as well, and that’s part of the reason why I would join her in this way.

This is a picture of Geli from this morning. I’m not sure if you can tell, but her hair has thinned out quite a bit. At this point, it looks like all of the “original” hair has fallen out and some of the new hair seems to be falling out as well. We’re not sure exactly how much will stay, but really….it’s just hair. And, it’ll grow again and then when she repeats this phase again…she’ll lose it again and then…..then it can really start coming back.

Geli’s been spending a lot of time laying on our couch over the past week. We’ve managed to avoid the hospital and we are SO excited about that. I’m a bit worn out by stress because on Boxing Day, Angelica woke up barfing and barfing and barfing and barfing and we really weren’t sure what was going on. Apparently either a bit of food poisoning or some wicked virus hit a few of my family, because my mom, both sisters, a sister-in-law, Geli and myself (to a very small degree) had some serious gastro-intestinal issues. Geli had a few nasty days and I wasn’t really sure what was going on. She had no fever, but was really not doing well. We weren’t sure what her counts were doing and were unsure if she’d be strong enough to fight off whatever was attacking her. Unfortunately, all of this also coincided with her finishing up the fist half of the current phase of Chemo that she is on. One of the side effects of the steroid that she was taking is wicked joint and bone pain. She has really been in pain over the past 2 days, in fact, she was in tears yesterday and needed some codeine to take the edge off.

She is really dealing with all of this as well as can possibly be expected, but all of this is not easy.

She has a break, and doesn’t start the second half of this phase until January 11th. We are hoping and praying that she really gets to enjoy this next week and a half; and that her counts recover as they are quite low….not decimated, but quite low.

We are going to be missing attending our annual Family New Years Party because her counts are too low to justify throwing her into the middle of 50+ people in one house. So, we are all feeling pretty bummed about that but I think it’s hardest for the kids because as adults, we can comprehend that it’s only one year and that it’s for a really good reason, but the kids…well, they just see it at one more thing that we are missing out on. We are trying to come up with something fun, exciting and yet low key to be able to do with the kids to celebrate.

We may just celebrate by actually staying up until midnight and banging pots and pans….yesterday, Angelica actually asked what the deal with New Years was about. See, typically we’ve just put out kids to bed and then gone to bed ourselves, well before midnight and then celebrated New Years with our extended family on New Years Day. So, they have no idea about New Years Eve celebrations…..maybe that just might be what we’ll do this year…..if I can make it up until midnight. Or maybe not……we’ll see.

How are are planning on celebrating the New Year?