“My dangly thing”

It was a good thing we squeezed in those two normal days, sandwiched as they were between much longer hospital visits. Yesterday, he had clinic after radiation, which isn’t bad except that there is so much waiting involved. Waiting for lab work to return, waiting for doctors to be paged, waiting for decisions to be […]

Making Memories

We’ve had two very regular, average, normal days in a row. Radiation has gone smoothly (audible sigh) and Austin has even put in two appearances at school. Yesterday, he was all excited about it at the hospital, naming his classmates for the curious doctor and eagerly guessing what they’d do for an art project. Then, […]

Just Another Manic Monday

Today was the first Monday of the new year  … and boy, did it feel like it. I did manage to wake up on time (actually, I woke up every other hour to check the clock), but found many inches of snow burying my car. We made it to the hospital (unlike many doctors who […]

Normalcy

We returned home bright and early yesterday morning and things have been remarkably normal. So normal in fact, that I find myself wondering if it was really chemo that came in those double-wrapped “Danger” packages that have to be checked by two nurses against Austin’s hospital name band (which he’s never ever wearing and, if […]

Moving Marbles

Things continue to go well. Austin has been increasingly cranky as the days go by but it’s hard to tell if that’s because he feels lousy or because he’s just plain sick of being there. He has made several new friends, all “big boys” with whom he races remote control cars or goes bowling on […]

Hope

For some unknown reason, I was unable to get holiday cards into the mail this year, so here it is, our virtual greeting to all of you. 2009: what a year. It started with the Dietrich family vacation to Jamaica, where the boys enjoyed swimming in the ocean, swimming in the pool, and naked soccer […]

Smooth Sailing

There is certainly something to be said for expecting the worst. These past two days have been so much better than I was anticipating. So much better. Now, it’s only two days and many of the effects of chemo are cumulative and therefore get worse as time goes on, but so far, it hasn’t been […]

Climbing mountains and fording streams

I overslept. Can you believe it? I rolled over from a very deep sleep, groggily looked at my alarm clock (which I’d set for 6 am) and saw that it was 7:15. 7:15! And we were supposed to have arrived in the sedation unit at 7! Well, I dove out of bed and went rushing […]

After the Storm

Packing our bags again (you’d think by now I would just keep one ready and sitting by the door). Austin and I are due in the sedation unit tomorrow morning at 7 for his 8 o’clock time slot in radiation. He needs to be sedated every time he has radiation so he doesn’t move (telling […]

Merry Merry

Boy, I thought we had a lot of toys last week…. These kids have made out like bandits. And they are thoroughly enjoying it. A little proof for you: The above stash came from the family of a cancer survivor who provides presents to those kids who are in-patient at Christmas. We obviously weren’t but […]