the short links in the twitter feed should now work… for those of you that follow xangelle in twitter.
And Just Like That
Jon and Geli went into the hospital yesterday and I honestly believed that it would be a super quick in and out.
By super quick, I mean approximately 1 hour……that’s about how long it takes to have her blood drawn and then to get the results back. The 1 dose of IV Chemo takes about 10-15 mins and can be given while they are waiting on the results.
We had wondered about her needing a red blood transfusion because she was quite pale and very tired.
I wasn’t expecting that all her counts would be quite as low as they are. Her counts had seemed to be heading up but right now they are looooooooow. Which means no more school this week! Seriously, what’s up with that?
And so she scored herself 2 bags of red blood cells and a bag of platelets…….and the quick 1 hour appointment turned into and ALL DAY AFFAIR.
My mom had come over just after they left and took Siah with her over to visit my sister. So, I had the day with just Judah and myself. I wish I weren’t quite so exhausted. I was left feeling like I HAD to clean while I had the opportunity and no one else was there and also like I just wanted to sit on the couch and do nothing…..the end result was that I did neither very well and ended up feeling guilty about it all. How’s that for wrecking your day…..
I coulda……
I could have done this or that or the other thing, and all I accomplished was eating junk food(this belongs in a whole ‘nuther post itself about emotional eating), 3 loads of laundry, disinfecting the floors, a blog post and dinner for the family.
So we will be fed and clothed an hopefully free(er) from germs, but not much more than that. I’m thankful that I managed to sanitize the bathrooms early this morning.
Depending on how her counts rise, starting the next stage may be stalled a week. We are hoping that her counts rebound this week and that things move forward as planned BUT….we just have to see how it goes and carry on from there.
First Day of High School
Angelica went to her first day of High School yesterday.
I have NEVER been as worried or nervous or consumed in regards to first days with ANY of my kids, as I was yesterday.
It was brutal.
We weren’t sure just how Geli would be feeling and how much of the day she’d be able to do. She had a vocal class first, then English 8, followed by a double block of Science 8 taught in French and then her actual French Language class.
We decided to start with the double block of Science. That gave her a start time of 10:40am. So her day looked like this, she had the first half of Science, lunch break, second half of Science and her French class.
She did really well. Met up with some of her friends and class mates from Alex Hope and all in all she had a really great day. She was even up for a little grocery shopping with me after school. We needed to pick up some lunch snack food. The activity of the day did take it’s toll, and she was in bed and sleeping by 8pm.
We are still working out the process of having her “in” school on the days that she can be and also having her be apart of the Homebound Education Program. Apparently it’s not typical in this school district to do both schooling and homebound….they like you to choose one or the other. We want her in both so that she gets the help and support while she cannot be at school, but also want her to be able to go to school “normally” when she can.
Geli and Jon went into BC Children’s today for the last dose of IV Chemo for this second stage. Depending on certain counts, she may or may not score a transfusion today as well. Well just have to wait and see.
If all goes as planned, she should be able to attend the rest of this week at school.
It is taking a great amount of effort to send her off to school knowing that there are sick kids, and germs and that we are not in control of her situation and choices….this is where faith and trust are so important. This is the first time that we or (my mom) have not been with her since we found out in June……..and,this is just another leg of this journey that we are walking…….we will get through it. One step at a time.
Love
I’ve been sitting here writing and deleting this first sentence over and over and over unsure of which words to write.
I don’t have the words…….
I LOVE words. I love to use words to paint pictures, to express myself, to help bring clarity out of chaos, to communicate, to share to love…..I love words and right now the combo of exhaustion, and feeling overwhelmed and completely unworthy have left me without the use of my words.
She shaved her head for me, for us….for my daughter, for my family, and I can’t find the words to express my appreciation, my love, my amazement at her strength, caring, compassion, drive…….. She is amazing.
We’ve been friends for almost our whole entire lives. We’ve been through ups and downs. We’ve been through good times and bad times. We’ve lived near and far and through it all we have loved. I honestly don’t ever remember being mad at her. I’m sure that as kids growing up, we must have had the odd squabble now and then, but I don’t remember ever being upset or angry or disappointed with her. She is my forever friend and I love her dearly.
The cheese and bake shop that she manages, heard about Angelica and decided to donate their tips to our family. Hearing this, my friend announced that when the total of donations reached $2,000 – she would shave her head.
This is not something that we asked for and to be honest, I’m not sure that I really wanted her to shave her head. It’s not an easy thing to do and I just didn’t want her to feel pressured into doing it. At the same time, there are so many things that I have learned from shaving my head, and I wouldn’t want to stop her from her own journey in life……
I really wasn’t sure that they would end up reaching the goal anyway, so I stopped thinking about it.
At the end of August, the goal was reached (and in fact it has been surpassed) and my friend set the date for the big head shave for this past Saturday September 11.
We weren’t able to be at the actual shaving, but we participated in the event through Skype.
There were tears and laughter and the emotions ran high.
We were so touched to have someone sacrifice of their time and energy and their hair in support of us. We were so touched by all who donated and took part in supporting us in any way big and small.
I’m fumbling for words and the more I try to type, the less able I seem to be able to say what I really want to say.
My friend, you are beautiful. You are amazing. You are such a support and encouragement. In your own times of trial and stress, you give and give and give and LOVE. We feel so blessed to have you in our lives.
I love you more than my words can adequately express.
For all you’ve done and given and sacrificed and loved………Thank You!
2 Stitches
As if we didn’t have enough drama in our lives right now, Siah decided to shake things up a little last night.
Jon, Jeremy and Siah were down in the basement playing a video game. Siah was sitting on the arm rest of our futon and he unbalanced himself and fell forward hitting his head on the corner of a wooden toy box.
Mom, the girls, Judah and I were up in the kitchen and heard the thunk. It was that loud. Then we heard Jon yell and then we heard Siah crying and it was “one of those cries.”
I raced downstairs and met Jon at the bottom of the stairs. He handed Siah off to me and there was blood everywhere. I could see that his head was split open in between his eyes. We came up stairs and got a rag to try to stop the blood. It was apparent that he’s need stitches.
We hoped that we could make it to the local clinic that did Jeremy’s stitches as we’ve talked with them about our challenges of dealing with germs and sickness due to Angelica’s suppressed immune system, BUT….it was 7:30pm and they were closed at 8pm and they were already over booked for the day and were not even answering their phone.
And so Jon headed to the ER.
The plan was for Jon to wear a mask into the ER and explain the situation and see how they could work with us to get Siah the care that he needed while attempting to keep us as germ free as possible.
The staff at Langley Hospital were amazing.
They didn’t have any open rooms at the time, but they planned to get a room emptied and clean out and to bring Jon and Siah in and straight back to the closed room as soon as possible. They gave Jon a small mask for Siah to wear in and out and in the waiting time, they stayed in the van to minimize the possibility of picking anything up from other ill people.
They waited in the van and the triage nurse came out to the van to assess Siah and yup….he needed stitches.
It took a few hours, and in the mean time, Siah fell asleep.
When the room was finally ready, Jon carried the sleeping Siah in. He said that they got quite a few looks, as he’d been in and out with his mask on and now they were carrying a limp child in with a mask on….can you imagine that others in the waiting room must have been wondering what was wrong with this child that they had to wear masks????
Jon tried to wake Siah up to explain what was about to happen, but he had tired himself out so badly with his initial screaming when it happened that he was NOT waking up. He was in that drowsy state where you’re not really awake but not really asleep. They finally wrapped him like a burrito to keep him from being able to move his arms and the Dr checked to see that Jon was okay with what was going to happen and once he was sure that Jon wasn’t going to flip out….they started.
They had already put on a fast acting numbing cream and they started injecting the freezing and that’s when Siah woke up for real. So in his mind, probably, he went to sleep and was woken up to some dude poking his head with a needle. AWESOME! Jon said he screamed until he wasn’t breathing. Brutal! The Doctor only put in two stitches because he figured that was about all that Siah could handle and even though he was being quick, it was still pretty traumatic.
He told Jon that the cut was extremely straight and that it should heal amazingly because it was such a precise cut.
They masked up again and came home. Siah settled down pretty quickly once Jon was able to hold him and was almost asleep by the time they reached the van.
They got home before 11pm….not bad considering the waits in ER’s now a days.
He went to bed right away and slept through until 6am when he crawled into bed with us.
This morning he seems to be doing okay and so we are just gonna take it easy today. Geli’s doing pretty good this morning too. We were attempting to adjust her meds schedule around so that we were not having to wake up at 3am to give her a dose, but that meant that she might be a little barfy this morning. She did feel a bit off and dry heaved for about 45 minutes off and on until the meds finally kicked in. Her and Siah are back downstairs in the basement this morning. She is teaching Josiah how to play the original NES Nintendo Super Mario Brother’s game. He’s thrilled and she’s distracted and it’s good.
This is now the 4th of our 5 kids that have gotten stitches in their head…..when she was about 8 years old, Geli wacked her head open on a floor heater and needed 3 stitches. When Xani was about 10, her cousin went all vmapire on her and tried to take a bite out her head while they were jumping on a trampoline and she needed 3 stitches. A few weeks ago, Jeremy got 3 stitches in his chin and now Josiah has had 2 stitches in between his eyes…..GAH!
I’m really hoping and praying that Judah stays safe and protected.
Do you have any cool stories about “that time you got stitches” or your kids……Please share!
Barfing Sucks
Geli had her appointment on Tuesday for this week’s dose of chemotherapy.
Not surprising her counts were low enough to score her a free bag of platelets. In fact, she was actually too low to receive the intra-muscular injections BUT………there seems to be WAY TOO MANY BUTS recently……..they were out of platelets and had to have some brought in from an outside source.
They did end up giving her the injection anyway and had her hold bags of ice on her thighs to help her blood clot. (Platelets help your blood to clot and when they are low you are more susceptible to nose bleeds and other uncontrolled bleeding from cuts or bad bruising.) After the injections, they have to observe Angelica for 3 hours to make certain that she doesn’t have a serious allergic reaction and so if they had waited for a couple of hours until the platelets came in and then gave the platelets over an hours time period and then gave the intra-muscular injections and then watched her for the 3 hours…..well, they wouldn’t have been able to leave the hospital until after 7:30pm. This way, they were able to leave and get home by 6pm. So, it cut a few hours off the day, which was nice.
Angelica felt pretty good on Tuesday during the day, but started to feel a bit off by the time they got home…..She ate about half of her dinner and then started to really struggle with nausea. She tried valiantly to not barf but about 10:30pm she just couldn’t fight anymore. It was not pretty and it was the start of a very long, very nasty night.
We were up ALL night with her barfing and barfing and barfing and nothing was helping.
Finally she fell asleep around 5am and slept until the next “episode” at 7am. She managed to eat a tiny bit of breakfast, took her meds and around 10:30am was having a hard time keeping her eyes open or being able to sit up and so I sent her off to bed. She slept hard, only waking for me to give her some more anti-nausea meds at 11am and then slept until 2pm.
When she woke up, she ate some soup and crackers and seemed to look and act a little perkier than she had been. She seemed to be acting like she might be on the mend in the afternoon. Although, she was still pretty tired; she tried to eat some dinner and then when the other kids went to bed around 8pm….she did too.
I had planned on going to an exercise class with my sister and so I dragged myself off to the class and although it wasn’t my best class, for having next to no sleep, it wasn’t too bad.
I wondered how the night would go for us, but aside from our two littlest men tag teaming each other and managing to wake us every other hour, it was a pretty quiet night.
This morning, I was so tired, I couldn’t get up and so Jon got the kids up and off to school and I was surprised to hear that Geli had been up and at ’em like nothing was wrong…..AWESOME!
Her and Jon headed off to a BC BioMedical Lab to get her blood work done to see if she’d need another transfusion tomorrow and then they came home.
I asked Geli if she’d like to make some buns or bread with me and she was quite excited by the idea. If Geli was excited…..Siah was ECSTATIC! He LOVES to cook and bake. I’m not usually so excited as he makes quite a mess and making buns is already quite a messy endeavor, but I figured we could try to make it work.
Here is Siah, excited by his little bit of dough. (We were at “waiting for it to rise” stage)
In this next picture you can the “mess” a bit clearer…..Siah really “gets into” his baking.
I told Geli that this could be a “Home Ec.” class and that part of the Home Ec. mark always included the clean up.
We waited for the dough to rise and then punched it down, then it rose again and we punched it down again and then broke the dough up to make Cinnamon Buns, Coconut Buns, Cheese Buns and Plain Buns. The Coconut Buns are baking, but here are the rest of the buns still rising.
Angelica and Jon have gone to the High School to meet with her teachers. Based on her number today, she will be able to attend school on Monday. (They are trending upward, and should be okay for Monday.) She has more chemo on Tuesday, but should be good to go for Wednesday through the following Monday. Then she starts the Third Round of her treatment on Tuesday September 21st and that stage requires her to be admitted for 3-4 days every 2 weeks.
We are praying that Angelica would remain healthy and be able to attend school over this next week and a bit and that she would totally enjoy her school time and be able to feel integrated in with all her other class mates. Also that our other kids would remain healthy and not pick up any illness from the other kids in their school.
First Days
I’m blown away that we’ve made it to the first day of school. That means that we’re in September and wasn’t it only like yesterday on June 16th that our world was rocked….
The whole summer has managed to slip right passed us and here we are staring fall in the face as it comes barreling towards us at full speed.
Xandra and Jeremy are headed to school for…….are you ready for it……..an hour. I was tempted to just keep them home as the excitement of getting up and getting ready is completely chaotic and them to only have them home and “bored” in a hour…..well, that’s hardly even enough time to get a cup of coffee, sit down and enjoy it….throw in a couple of trips to the toilet for Siah, a feeding for Judah and well……so much for an hour of quiet time, eh?
Oh well….there is always Wednesday and let me tell you, I’m looking forward to Wednesday.
Jon and Geli are headed into an appointment at Children’s Hospital. They need to be there for 10:15am and once there, they need to find out Geli’s counts (which at last report were brutal, almost non-existent low and are expected to be even lower), then she has two intra-muscular injections (one in each thigh) of a chemo med, and one IV chemo med and then…….they come home. We are hoping, hoping, HOPING that the rest of this week is SO boring and that we have absolutely no medical updates on how Geli is doing because there is absolutely NOTHING to report on…..that would be the most awesome week ever.
(This is the most recent picture I have of Geli. She is growing up to be such a beautiful young lady.)
She is doing well. She is still a bit nauseous and gags and dry heaves from time to time. This is particularly frustrating as she is on 2 types of drugs to kill the nausea 24/7 and a third one if things are still bad. I hate that she’s on that much medicine all the time but if the alternative is barfing, well….that’s worse and we’ll do what we have to not deal with that. She has pretty much gained back most of the weight that she lost in her two to three week barfing stint.
We finally got a referral to a podiatrist regarding her toes and he was able to help some. He’s been able to alleviate some of the swelling and irritation which helps with the pain, but the biggest concern is with the infection in the tissue surrounding the toenails. With her White Blood Counts too low to be able to fight any infection, she must be on an antibiotic. What we’d really like to see is a miracle with her toenails growing out quickly and all infection gone.
She is annoyed and frustrated with the sheer number of pills she needs to swallow multiple times in a day. Its hard to “have” to be always responsible and take all your meds and drink 2+ Litres of water and eat at all the right times. She is doing well, but we can tell that it wears on her sometimes. There is so much for a 13 year old to be dealing with and really, no child should be dealing with all of this.
School will be interesting this year. Geli is excited about starting Grade 8 and I think that having something to do will be so good for her. She has definitely perked up since we started talking about school and school work and routines and supplies. We bought her an Agenda and she’s even started filling it out already with the dates of her Chemo appts and other dates that she knows in regards to school. She is enrolled in the local High School and will attend when her counts are good enough, but will also do a fair amount of work at home or in the hospital. There is a meeting at the school scheduled for this Thursday and we should have more info after that meeting.
We are in the final stretch of this second stage of the chemotherapy treatment, and the third stage is scheduled to start on Tuesday September 21 as long as her counts are good.
We just keep moving one step forward day by day and hoping and praying for the best. This is not an easy road and I can’t help but think of others who have been through this or similar roads and I feel sick that I didn’t understand or know or realize the extent of what they were going through, I’m so entirely grateful to everyone who is walking along side of us. There are times when Jon and I feel so overwhelmed and burdened and yet we know that we are not alone, and even in our darkest moments of pain and fatigue or when we “feel” alone we know that there are so many (YOU) standing with us and supporting us with your love and prayers and thoughts. It helps us to keep on fighting, and so once again – We thank you!
The Many Faces of
Judah is just over 2 months old and growing bigger and cuter ever day (at least we think so).
He weighs over 19 pounds now and that is evidenced in the size of these amazing thighs.
He LOVES to smile and there is something special that happens when he smiles. His eyes have so much life and joy in them, you can’t help but feel happy.
He has so many cute expressions and different faces.
He LOVES to interact with people. If you get anywhere within his line of sight – it doesn’t matter if you’re looking at him, he starts to smile in anticipation of you interacting with him.
He’s still an amazing sleeper, but often times, he wants to stay awake until we go to sleep which doesn’t allow for much down time in the evening, but again…it’s really hard to get upset when he’s smiling so HUGE at you. It’s not that he’s cranky and awake….just awake and wanting to talk.
This little boy has such a sweet, sweet disposition and we love him so SO much!
You can go here to see all the pictures in this set.
So Much More…
Things have been quiet around this here blog, not because of a lack of things happening, but exactly the opposite…
To make a looooooong story short(er), Angelica’s counts are low….like really REALLY LOW! This is good and bad.
It’s good because the meds are working the way they should, and Geil’s body is responding to the meds and it’s bad because she is at a much greater risk for infection right now.
The infection in her feet is still present and right now it’s bothering her. There is infection in the tissue surrounding the toenails but it’s not in the blood which is a good thing. Her feet are hurting and she does not really have enough “infection fighting cells” to get rid of the infection. This means that we need to go back onto antibiotics to try and back the infection down so that it stays in check.
We’d love prayer that her toenails would grow out quickly and not be ingrown anymore. That the infection in the tissue would be completely gone and that the new antibiotic that she’s on would not affect her stomach. We believe that it was the original antibiotic that caused the massive stomach pain, nausea, vomiting and the subsequent weight loss…..
I’m feeling quite nervous about putting her back onto oral antibiotics but the alternative is hospitalization and no one wants that for her….especially over toes.
We really need the whole issue with the toes to be resolved and the Dr believes it could be 2-3 months before her toenails grow out sufficiently to make this a non factor…..that’s not cool.
Aside from that, we are feeling a bit discouraged and feeling like we’ve been hit one too many times recently. We’ve had to fix our van, our washing machine is showing signs that it’s gonna bite the dust shortly, Jon lost his phone a few weeks ago, and on Sunday morning he put his computer on the roof of the van while he got something else ready, and then somehow managed to drive away with it still on the roof. Our minds have just been too full and overloaded with too many things. It stayed for the ride until the highway and then crashed at a 100 kilometers per hour. Needless to say, it did not survive the crash and he lost a HUGE project he was working on for his Programming Business.
He had some of the stuff on his laptop backed up but not everything and while nothing is irreplaceable….it’s gonna take time and energy, both of which are on short supply at this point. It also makes you feel a bit frustrated and stupid when you make mistakes or cause accidents like this….ones that could have been avoided or that you wouldn’t normally make but because you are trying to juggle so many different things……..
There is just so much more to deal with, to talk about to share, to go through, to do…..there is just so much more, and so we ask for your prayers for us all.
Feeling Ordinary
I had titled this post “Just Being Normal” and I changed it. I don’t feel normal. None of this feels normal and to be completely honest, I’ve never ever really felt “normal” in my whole life. Growing up, my family was fun, exciting, LARGE, unique, weird……anything BUT normal. I don’t even really like the word, and as you’ll see further on down this post….we’re still not “normal”.
My sister’s invited me to go and spend Tuesday with them, shopping. They were thinking about going to the stores out in White Rock, specifically the Children’s Place and H&M. I really needed to pick up some pants for Jeremy and Josiah. Those two have out grown and worn out every pant that they own. And yet, I really wasn’t sure if I had the energy to go.
I feel very similar to how I felt after Nathaniel died and then when we kept losing the babies. I felt like I’d been blasted with a shock wave and it affected me mentally – I couldn’t think properly; it affected me physically – I was so tired and even thinking about doing anything beside just getting through the day, exhausted me; and it affected me emotionally – I had very little emotional energy to spare on anyone or anything and on good days, even just breathing was hard. Then we’d go through the mental, physical and emotional roller coaster of getting pregnant only to be pounded again with another shock blast when the babies died. Each time we were “struck”, I felt weaker and weaker and less able to handle myself and to deal with my children and those around me.
Somehow I managed to scrape the energy and courage to try again and again, (The desire to have a baby was greater than the fear of getting hurt again.) but I was only surviving at that point. When we got pregnant with Siah, I felt so tense and on edge for the entire 9 months because I was just waiting for the next shock wave to come and rip through me. It took about 4 months after he was born for me to feel like I could breathe again, and even then, I was still nervous and on edge hoping that there wouldn’t be another shock wave.
Gradually, as time went by, I felt stronger and stronger. I could physically handle doing more things. Mentally I had more energy available and was able to process life at a faster, more “normal” rate. Emotionally, I felt stronger too. I didn’t feel 100% but I definitely felt WAY better than before where I was only barely existing from one moment to the next, and only barely doing the absolute minimum required to get us through the days…..mind you just about anything was an improvement from that.
Right now……I feel so much like I did back then and I hate it. I do believe that based on previous experience, that I will not feel like this forever, but this….the way I feel right now is brutal. I do feel like I’ve been blasted with a huge HUGE shock wave. I hate feeling like I have NOTHING in reserve – mentally, physically or emotionally. I feel like I start my day with 3 tokens worth of mental, physical and emotional energy and by 10:30am those tokens are gone. Between things like disinfecting the bathrooms or the railings, handles or light switches, or dealing with squabbling children or emotional children or watching my baby barfing up her entire breakfast that we just spent 2.5 hours coaxing and nagging her into eating because we are worried about the 15lbs that shes lost in the last 2-3 weeks, or trying to put together a plan for dinner let alone attempt to come up with a weeks worth of meals and then to be able to come up with a shopping list AND then to go shopping. That’s not even mentioning trying to “connect” with my husband or my kids, individually. I am either running on a deficit or things just don’t get done.
So when my sister’s asked me to go out shopping with them….all I could think about was that I had no energy to even pack to go for a day of shopping, let alone trying to “shop”, and be able to nurse the baby and walk all over the place…..it just seemed like a HUGE amount of effort and I wasn’t really sure if the effort required would be worth what I might get out of it….
I’d get to spend some time with my sisters and their babies. I’d get to hopefully score some pants for the boys and possibly on sale. I’d get to be away from my house and the cleaning and the children. I’d get to get away from the “cancer” for a moment. I’d get to step away from everything and just be a person with a baby, shopping for sales with her sisters. I’d get to be “normal”…..sort of.
It’s hard to walk away from something that is a part of you and weighs you down like you are wearing a lead jacket.
To be completely honest, the biggest draw for me was being able to get away from the house, the cleaning, the cooking and the children for a few hours….that might sound horrible, but aside from going to 4 exercise classes, I’ve not been away from “all of this” since June 16th…and I felt like I needed the break even at the expense of the physical, mental and emotional energy that I’d spend.
It was a great time with my sisters. I managed to pick up some clothes for the boys and I got a bit of a break from everything.
It was a bit of a crazy day.
This was how it started…..
Yah, that’s my son in the middle screaming. He kept that up most of the way from Langley to Coquitlam and then to White Rock. There are funny story about that but for another time….
You’d never guess from this picture, but Zach spent a good part of the trip screaming his head off.
This was a brief moment of peace and quiet.
This little darling was the best behaved out of the three boys, but then, Jack’s also the oldest of the three boys, so what would you expect…
There were moments on the van ride that Judah was quiet…..Here is one of those moments…it only lasted about as long as it took to take this picture. He doesn’t like his car seat and really, he just LOVES to be held.
We hit the stores and while we got no pictures of us shopping for clothes for the kids, we did manage to snag a few pictures of us at the Indigo Bookstore.
I tried to get a picture of myself, and the bathroom mirror seemed as good a place as any. I put Judah in my Moby Wrap because it keeps him snuggled and close but give me some hands free.
As we were leaving the store there was a huge mirror and we were trying to get a picture of the 6 of us….
Someone offered to take a picture for us….
We continued on outside and we wanted to get a few more shots in case those ones didn’t turn out..
This is what happens when you try to take a group shot….by yourselves!
Hmmmm! Head cut off and crazy eyes….nice!
Aaaaaaargh! If only Jack were looking….
Zach figured it might help if he held his mommy’s face in the direction of the camera….
Apparently I needed a little help from Zach, too!
The boys were mesmerized by the toy that we were shaking to try and capture their attention.
At this point, Judah woke up and started screaming……..this is the last photo we took.
All in all, it was a good day. I imagined that the three of us sisters with shaved heads must have looked odd and we did have someone come up to us and ask if we were Buddhists. I thought that was pretty funny. My hope is that maybe if I stretch myself that I’ll be able to get my energy back sooner as opposed to later.
Regardless, I got a break and got some shopping out of the way. At least that’s a step in the right direction….