I love the Olympics. Love, love, love. I love the cheesy emotional pre-stories, focused on hardships real and imagined in the athletes’ lives. I love the over-the-top attention on America’s sweethearts, like the women’s gymnastics team, or on America’s heroes, like Micheal Phelps. I can still remember the feeling I had in the winter of […]
This is what I have felt for all of you since Austin’s first diagnosis with cancer, five years ago yesterday: On July 30, 2007, our near-perfect world was flipped on its head with the discovery of five tumors on the kidneys of our ten-month-old Austin. There are so many analogies we’ve used to describe our […]
There were many times over the past five years when I was struck by the incredibly kind — and often completely random — outpouring of support we received from our community. Moms I’d never been introduced to would offer me tearful hugs in the hallways of the preschool. People I hadn’t seen in years would […]
Mark said that it took him about ten days before the bad news about Austin really sunk in and he could fully grasp the possibility of what lay ahead. Now it’s taken him another ten days for the good news about Austin to truly sink in so he can fully grasp the possibilities that lie […]
Well, I made it to June. Not quite sure how, but I did. Funny, when I wrote that May Madness post on April 30, I had no idea the degree of madness that would ensue. But, here we are, on a cold and rainy June 1. Aaaaaahhhhhhh. The Young Authors Conference at Fairfax went very […]
Friday was Austin’s last day of preschool. Ever. So, of course, here’s the obligatory playground photo, along with his previous two Last Day photos: It’s bittersweet to leave St. Paul’s since it’s been such a major part of our lives for the past six years. Braedan’s first official day of preschool (after a good two […]
That’s what it was. ^^ Not actually “nothing.” To be exact, “Apparent hypoechoic area described on previous ultrasonography study is likely due to echo spin shadowing from surgical clip along the left psoas muscle.” Or, in our own language, that thing we saw in the ultrasound was caused by ultrasound waves bouncing off the titanium […]
It’s nothing. A smudge on the ultrasound. Possibly the shadow of the titanium clip they placed there years ago to mark the exact spot where a tumor was removed. A mistake. A fluke. Whatever you call it, don’t call it cancer. Because it’s not. It’s nothing. Oh my god. I am so exhausted. I will […]
Here we go again. There’s something about having a procedure postponed that takes away a bit of the nervousness surrounding it and replaces it with a feeling of let’s do this already. It happened to us back in September/October of 2007 when Austin went in for a major surgery to remove tumors off his left […]
Austin has fully embraced our fill-every-moment attitude. The other day when we were bouncing on the trampoline, he shouted from mid-air, “Let’s have the most fun ever!” And then proceeded to berate me if I wasn’t laughing loud enough. “Let’s laugh, Mom… you too, Braedan! You’re not laughing enough,” like the drill seargent of joy. […]