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November 28, 2007

By Margot | November 28, 2007

Ack!  I’m a whole holiday behind.  How did that happen?  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Grandma Joan and Uncle Tommy and Cousin Abby and Uncle Matt were out and the boys got to go to SeaWorld, the Zoo and Legoland all in one week.  We did the same kickball game on Thanksgiving morning with the Bonebrakes and the Garveys and all the other families that came last year.  It really brought home to me how lucky we are.  The difference in watching Sam play this year versus last year was enormous.  Last year he was so thin, bald and tired looking – he bounced back into the hospital Thanksgiving night and that morning he looked lackluster.  He played, because that’s what he does but we could all tell he was struggling.  This year, in contrast, he had it going on.  He played kickball two hours running the bases and kicking the ball.  Then he came home and all of the kids played with the Monaco boys and cousin Abby nonstop all day.  It’s a good thing we don’t have a girl in this family because the boys loved to torment cousin Abby.   She’s Andrew’s age and she and Andrew had some differences of opinion.  A good example would be Andrew’s opinion of the late birthday present we got her, Island Princess Barbie, “Gross!  That is a girl toy and I am not touching it.”  
Charlie is so adorable these days.  He turning into quite a ham and loves to make people laugh.  He walks around with a blanket over his head until someone says “Where’s Charlie?” and then he whips it off and laughs.  He continually runs around with some bruise or another on his forehead.  I was such the hover mother with Sam, and poor third child Charlie ends up doing things well beyond his years.  Andrew pushed him in his little red car this morning around the block and ran at top speed -Charlie held on with both hands with a huge grin on his face.   He gets so excited when he sees a garbage truck or construction truck when we are driving in the car.  He gets all his limbs going to point at it and makes a loud Vrmm vrmm noise. 
We had Andrew’s parent teacher conference last night and his teacher said he’s doing very well. They are working on volume control in the classroom – a side effect of having a brother who is hard of hearing and trying to talk over a family of five- and his propensity to be the class clown.
We have had two weeks off from the hospital but have a blood check today.  Sam has been feeling fine.  His ankles are still bothering him but much less so than before.  We got a great doctor’s check from Meredith’s dad who gave us some exercises to do  and Neil took Sam in to see Pete Egoscue, a physical therapist guy who has written a couple of books.  It all seems to be helping -unlike the ortho visit we had at Children’s hospital.  We waited for three hours to see the guy who barely looked at Sam’s feet and gave me a perscription for ankle braces that were $1800 and helped prevent ankle turns.  Sam’s pain is in the front and back of his ankles and has nothing to do with ankle turns.  Needless to say, we did not order the braces.  Thank goodness for Mr. Pace who actually addressed the actual  problem.  It’s Sam’s week off of oral chemo and I can see the difference in his demeanor.  He’s been very silly and funny lately and laughs all time at his little brothers.  The other day in the kitchen all three boys and I were laughing so hard we couldn’t stop, even Charlie was laughing.  It’s moments like those when I just want to freeze time.  There are other moments when I want to fast forward to five years from now so that I know Sam is well and is five years out from relapse.  Really though, I don’t know if we’ll ever stop worrying so I take back the fast forward part.  I really wouldn’t want to miss a minute of these boys growing up (all right all right, maybe the minutes when they are beating on each other and I am screaming like a lunatic).   Sam is doing a timeline in school for homework and he has to put down a major even for every year of his life born, walked, brother was born etc.  I struggled with helping with 2005 because it was the year he was diagnosed that is what dominates my thinking of that year. I didn’t want Sam to know that though. I didn’t want him to have to put something like “six hour surgery to remove tumor’ as his major event. We ended up putting that he started kindergarten – though he didn’t actually start until 2006, he doesn’t know which year he started.   His major event for last year was Charlie and his major event for 2007 was catching his first fish with Grandpa.
More soon.  I’ll put the Christmas card pics up soon too.  Though I might actually get some out this year,  I figure if I put the pics up early, I can trump our highly organized friends who get cards out the week after Thanksgiving and never have to send Christmas cards that end up being Valentine’s Day cards 😉
Margot

Very unhappy Charlie -only lasted five minutes in any costume ended up going as himself

Hulk and Drac getting ready to Trick or Treat

Topics: Progress Reports | Comments Off on November 28, 2007

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