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December 4, 2007

By Margot | December 4, 2007

To Be Sung to the Tune of Jingle Bells:
I hate chemo, I hate chemo, I hate chemo all the way,
It’s no fun to give the pill,
that causes nausea every day!
I hate chemo, I hate chemo, I hate chemo all the way,
Sam’s tired and cranky, he feels like crap,
and his appetite’s gone away!
Dashing through the day,
in a silver mini-van,
it’s no fun to ride around,
when your stomach hurts, man oh man!
Repeat refrain
Sorry about that.  It’s the best I could do at 2:01 am.  We are back on chemo this week and right after I read the boys to sleep, Sam said “Mom,” and put his hand over his mouth like he was going to throw up.  I didn’t get what he was doing and asked if he wanted some water.  He laughed and said “No” and did it again and then I said, “Are you going to throw up?”  “Nah,” he says smiling, “but my stomach hurts.”  This wasn’t long after he had taken his chemo pill.  The dose that Sam is on is a low dose and a lot of kids can take it every day without much side effect.  It screws with Sam’s stomach something awful.  With as many pills as we give him, none of the others have any side effects to speak of but I hate giving him that chemo pill.  We give him a week off after two weeks to give his stomach a rest.  Anyway, I can’t sleep because I started worrying about whether or not he would eat breakfast tomorrow.  Mostly small in the world of cancer worries but big enough to keep me awake.
We had a nice rainy weekend.  It was the first weekend we didn’t have soccer so it was very relaxing.  So much so, that today, Monday, I was dreaming that it was still Sunday and I was going to get up and read the paper and make coffee.  I woke up at 7:40.  School starts at 7:45. Oops. 
I had a work meeting up in Temecula so Andrew went to school with Matthew Dykstra and Colleen picked Sam up from school. Tonight was parents night at Andrew’s school so Neil and I had a date with Andrew and Maureen came to stay with Sam and Charlie and watch the Patriots almost lose -they are weakening, Brunettes and Laceys 😉 – and make cookies.  Parents night was fun.  We got to make a clay crab with Andrew and build blocks and play with the toy animals.  He did a self portrait of himself and below it had all of his favorite things.  His friends he likes to play with: Beau, Grant, Matthew and Max,his favorite food: noodles, his favorite games, Ben 10 and Power Rangers and what he wants to be when he grows up: a basketball player.  He loves his school and was very excited to take us tonight.
Sam had a good day at school and was very excited to have Maureen over tonight as was Charlie.The boys love to get Charlie to say their names.  He says “Shome and Arrow.”  Sometimes they’ll ask him to say it and he shakes his little head no.  That just cracks Sam up.  He loves it when Charlie shake his head at people.  He hasn’t learned no yet but he sure uses the head shake a lot.
I’ve signed the boys up for basketball in January.  They both said they wanted to play in the Pee Wee league and “the draft” is this Friday.  The games are on Friday nights.  I’m hoping we can get Sam’s ankles in shape before then. Neil has been doing exercises with him every day and he goes back to Dr. Egoscue tomorrow.  He still seems to be limping after he runs a lot but it might be getting incrementally better. I’d actually like to give him a season off but they both really want to play. We’ll see how it goes.
We’re off to New Mexico for Christmas.  We’re leaving on Christmas Eve morning and should be in Pojoaque by noon if all goes well with the flights, etc.  The boys are very excited about going and Christmas in general.  They do their advent calendar every day.  I haven’t gotten out the Christmas decorations yet but it’s on my “to do” list along with all else Christmas. I’m trying not to weild “the Santa threat” too often. They take it very seriously and then I feel kind of guilty.  I think it’s only popped out once this season.  Nothing to make two boys stop dead in their tracks while fighting over who gets the biggest piece of raisin toast as saying, “Santa is watching you.”  Andrew actually looks around for Santa.
Hope everyone is having a Merry Holiday Season.
Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | Comments Off on December 4, 2007

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