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Filling You In And Start Spreading the News…
By Margot | June 4, 2009
We are finally officially switched over to a new host. I’ve lost at least five posts in the last two weeks. I was actually lazy for a week and then when I tried to post and pushed “save” “edit” or “publish” I was booted out to the home page and lost everything. I can’t write things in Word first because if I cut and paste it adds all sorts of HTML that screws up the page. Anyway, it turns out that Yahoo Small Business was broken and in order to fix the problems I had to upgrade to a newer version of WordPress which I did but then any images I tried to put up were all broken. I ended up switching from YahooSmall Business to a new host but it took a while to switch over. I actually wrote this post yesterday but when they made the final switch they overwrote the whole thing. I’ll do my best to reconstruct what I wrote yesterday and then I’m hoping my website troubles will finally be over, though the images are still broken. So I know no one cares about any of this but I wanted to let you know I have a good excuse for going a whole month.
What you’ve missed in much less detail than you would have had to endure had I been able to write about it when it actually happened:Â
 Sam and Andrew’s field trips. Sam’s to a glass bottomed boat with marine biologists. He said he had the best day ever. He got to help throw out a net from the boat, watch dolphins swim by the boat, hold a sponge and a starfish, SpongeBob and Patrick, according to Sam. Andy’s field trip was to the Aquarium and I drove five five year olds which was very funny.  The boys are in a tennis clinic two days after school and basketball clinic on Fridays. Sam is playing all sports one handed. His new cast is red and it comes off on June 15th or so. It doesn’t seem to hinder him at all aside from his serve in tennis clinic.  Charlie finished swimming lessons for a while – we are taking the summer off from lessons. He’s been playing a lot with his “best friend” Jett who comes over a couple of times a week. We are going to Jett’s birthday party today and Charlie picked out motorcycles for his present.   He helped me wrap them and said, “Jet is going to open this and say “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it! Motocyles! and then we’ll eat his cake.” It was funny. Sam cracked his head open on the brick planter thingy outside of our front door.  While playing soccer with Andrew he tripped and fell backwards and hit his head. I was inside and heard Andy yelling, “Mom Mom Mom! Sam Sam Sam!” Sam came in crying with his hand on the back of his head, I took it away and there was blood everywhere.  So that was another trip to the emergency room while trying to remain calm.  Sam had six staples put into the back of his head. We had them removed on Monday afternoon. The staple remover was defective and it got stuck while the pediatrician was trying to get out the first staple. It took the doctors twenty minutes to try and get it off. Sam was screaming in pain for at least ten minutes before they finally gave him a painful shot to numb the back of his head and wrenched the stupid thing off of the back of his head. By the time it was finished, I was shaking and poor Sam was wiped out. This was all after the pediatrician had said, “This shouldn’t hurt a bit.”  A word of advice that I’ve learned the hard way being a cancer mom, never tell your children “this won’t hurt a bit.”  The furtherst I’ll ever commit to if asked a direct questions is, “I don’t think so.” After we called in doctor Walls to look at the remover stuck sticking onto the back of Sam’s head he said, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Of all people to have it happen to. As usual Sam bounced back much more quickly than I did.
We went to a Padre game, the Wild Animal Park, and the zoo. My dad and Stephanie are in town for a week and the boys have been having a great time hanging out with them and playing the dogs they are babysitting. We’ve had some nice nights at the park and seen lots of new movies. We saw Up with Grandpa. All three boys liked it a lot.
On the medical front. You missed the drama of Sam’s LDH going way up and then going back down to normal. His VMA/HVA last week were 49 and 38. Ugh. The odd thing is that Sam does not have the pain, tiredness, or crankiness that usually accompanies those types of numbers.  So we should get this week’s numbers back today. Neil, Sam and I are leaving for New York on Sunday to do scans there and see if we qualify for the NK Antibody trial at MSKCC . Thank you so much to Paul Brunskow for the video of the beautiful Eden at the Ronald McDonald House. It looks so nice and it put my mind at ease. For some reason I have been envisioning the whole experience as dark and dreary and a New York resembling Gotham City in Batman. Paul’s video made me realize that I’ve been over-dreading it. I know, I know, all you New Yorkers can slap me up side the head now. Thank you Paul. Sam is excited to go. He’s always wanted to go to New York. He equates it with The New York Giants, his favorite football team aside from the Chargers. I figure we’ll bring his Manning jersey.  We debated bringing the whole family but figured this time around we’ll just take Sam. It was a hard decision. Andrew wanted to go but we figure we’ll be back and it might be better for all of the meetings and scans not to subject MSKCC to the full force of Hurricane Hutchison just yet. Also, it’s Andy’s last week of school so he’ll have some fun here. We will be there Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and fly back Wed. night.
The posts should be coming fast and furious now. I’ll post this week’s numbers when we get them back and will be posting from New York.
Thanks for checking in.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 3 Comments »
June 6th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
‘Glad you’re back posting-sorry about all your frustrations switching over. What a terrible thing with the stitches being taken out-poor Sam.
Good luck in NY-‘looking forward to seeing the pics!
June 7th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Hi Guys, best wishes in NY this week. I hope you get good news. Are you staying at Ronald? If so say hello to Joanne at the desk (days), from the Hansons. In between meetings check out Central Park and try a ride on the Staten Island Ferry! God Bless, Love, Ellen
http://www.caringbridge.org/ma/seanhanson
June 8th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Neil and Margot, Good luck in NYC. We just spent a year getting treatment at Sloan for Melina. It was an adjustment living in NYC compared to our quiet suburban life here outside of Buffalo but after a few days you get used to the compact/fast life. And all you have to do for entertainment is go for a walk to Central Park just a few blocks away. We spent a lot of time there. I will pray Sam’s scans go well.
Thinking of you all,
Lisa Riniolo
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/missmelina