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 »
Working on Switching Over
By Margot | May 29, 2009
Just a quick post here. Our blog has been broken for the past two weeks and I’m working on switching hosts and servers. Lots of news to report so please bear with me. I promised the guys moving the blog I wouldn’t stay on it today so I’ll update as soon as we are all fixed up.
Topics: Progress Reports | Comments Off on Working on Switching Over
Not Slowing Down Much
By Margot | May 4, 2009
I was going to title this “Broken Arm Smoken Arm” but then I thought if we go in to get the permanent cast tomorrow and get in big trouble I might feel a wee bit silly. Sam lasted about two days without four square but swears he’s only using one arm. He did one handed basketball dribbling drills on Friday but didn’t run (we’re pushing aren’t we?). You can see he has a bright green cast so we’ll see if he gets a different color tomorrow. I took the boys for a hike up at Torrey Pines on Saturday afternoon to get them out of the house doing something non-sports related.  I told them we were going on an adventure and Charlie was all over it. After some initial skepticism from our two older boys, they ended up having a great time finding lizards and cacti and, after some prodding from their mother on what a beautiful spot they live in, appreciating the view.  As you can see from the picture sticks were involved and I had to prevent eye injuries at some points in the hike. We went out for Mexican food with Maureen on Saturday night and there were mariachis in the restaurant and all three boys and Mimi sang Feliz Navidad (requested by another table) at the top of their lungs.
Yesterday was the last soccer game of the season for both boys. Sam didn’t play but helped Neil coach and hand out trophies. He was in a pretty chipper mood considering he didn’t play. I was helping with the beginning of Andrew’s game so didn’t see Sam get his trophy but he said, “When Dad said, “I bet he’s going to need help opening his trophy because he only has one arm.” I knew it was me.” I thought that was kind of funny. Andrew’s team played really well and came the closest to winning that they have all season. Andrew scored twice and was all over the field. He made some good saves in goal and was exhausted after the game. At one point the parents of one of the little girls on his team who is more interested in the clouds- if you know what I mean- said to Neil, “Take her out, take her out, we’re so close. We just want to see Andy and CJ get to win one game.” The kids had fun though, the most fun they’ve had all season since they didn’t get crushed. Last night we had a picnic at the park with the Brunettes and Thomases and the Bonebrakes. The boys ran around until 8pm and I had to wonder from what well they were drawing their energy. A nice thing to wonder in Sam’s case.
Sam’s VMA last week was 23 and HVA was 18. Wohoo. These are the lowest numbers we’ve seen since last December so we hope they keep going in the right direction. His liver enzymes have been elevated lately and we are working to decipher the culprit. Today the secretary from the school called and said Sam was feeling woozy. When I went to pick him up she said Mrs. Abbuhl saw him sort of swoon and then his face got really red and he said he felt woozy. He’s home now eating like a horse and looking fine but he still says he feels woozy every once in a while. No idea the cause, we are hoping it’s not one cause in particular of course. But we would have seen that in the numbers you’d think. We are making summer plans, signing up for camps and summer basketball all the while knowing it could all go out the window depending on treatment plans. But for now, not slowing down.
Please keep the Brown family in your prayers. After a long battle with NB, the incredible Jack Brown became an angel last night. I’m posting a poem that his Dad wrote on his site that I love:
‘Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda’
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin’ in the sun,
Talkin’ ‘bout the things
They woulda-coulda-shoulda done…..
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little did…………………….from one little Jack.
Their site:Â http://www.jackbrownappeal.org/updatesonjack.asp
 Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 8 Comments »
Broken Arm
By Margot | April 29, 2009
Sam broke his arm last night at soccer practice.  The ball was kicked at very close range and snapped back his wrist extremely hard managing to break the radius. He came over to me crying and his arm looked crooked, he could move everything fine but after Neil and I looked at it some more we decided a trip to the emergency room was in order. He played really well in practice too, Darn It! Colleen took Andrew home, we called the oncologist on call who called the ER and Sam and Charlie and Neil and I went to Children’s.  We got there and it was slammed packed with people out the door- most of whom were wearing masks. The nurse later told me that everyone in San Diego who had a fever was in the ER because they were afraid of the Swine Flu. None of them had it of course. She said, “Do you know how many kids get fevers? Well they are all here.” Not the picture you want to see when you have a cancer child.  We lucked out and got a wonderful admitting nurse who had us stay in the car and came out to look at Sam’s arm, had us wait there and then come around the ambulance bay when there was a room ready. Sam in a lot of pain but was pretty chipper until we saw the x-ray and he heard it was really broken. Then the tears started to flow and his first questions was, “Will I be able to play four square?” He’s such a trooper. The ER nurses were so amazed at how good he is with getting his port accessed.  We stupidly fed him when we got there and then had to wait until 11pm for them to be able to knock him out so they could push his arm back in place and cast it. He picked a bright green cast. He woke up still nauseous from the knock med and threw up.  He perked up some last night when I told him that everyone would sign his cast and we started signing it this morning.   Luckily, it is his left hand and there is only one more soccer game in the season. The doctor said “no sports’ which stinks for Sam. The orthopedic doctor was a bit alarmed because the break looked like a piece of chalk breaking and most kid breaks look more like a green stick breaking.  After a call to his boss though, they figured out zometa was the culprit.  Zometa is a biophosphinate (sp) IV drug that a lot of NB kids get in conjunction with chemo. We haven’t had it for more than six months but there are lasting effects.  Lovely. Anyway, the ortho. doc, who was wonderful by the way, said he should heal fine with no complications and should have normal range of motion, etc. I left at about 10pm after Sam was accessed to relieve Vicki from watching Charlie and Andy and Neil stayed with Sam while they set it. They got home around 1 or so I think. I did think to myself last night while Sam was watching American Idol with me in the emergency room that usually in the emergency room he looks so frail and sick and last night he was lying there in his soccer outfit with his cleats on, color in his face and meat on his bones and looked the picture of health. I did the mentally unhealthy fantasy of “What if we were just here for a broken arm and that was it?” I try not to do that to myself because it is not reality but my point it that he looked so good that the fantasy was possible. He was great with the doctors and the nurses. He talked soccer and sports with them.
On the Andy and Charlie front: Charlie came with us to the emergency room before Neil took him home and he stayed with Vicki. He played well and Neil and I kept him entertaining by saying, “Paging Dr. Charlie, then he would come and check us out. He and Neil had sword fights with the tongue depressors. He had swimming this morning and Andy came to watch him. He was so happy to have Andy there he kept waving to him and saying “Hi Andy!” from the pool and he even stuck his little hand out of the water and waved while he had his head under and was supposed to be swimming.  Putting him to bed lately, he says the same thing every night. “Mom when the birds go tweet tweet can we wake up again?” I tell him yes and then he says, “And there are no monsters or ghosts in our house, just you and me and Dad and Sam and Andy.” Yes, I say no ghosts or monsters.  Then I say, “I love you Charlie and he says, “Me too.”  It’s the cutest. Since I seem to use this as our baby book I’m trying to document as much of what the kids say as possible.  Andy man is so funny. He’s been pretty moody lately so I need to get to the bottom of that. Maybe not enough sleep? We’ve been trying to give him some extra special attention but it seems he’s either a bright funny ray of sunshine or a dark storm cloud. We are both working on more special time with him. I’ll leave you with a laugh. This made me laugh so hard, I was still laughing when I woke up the next morning. As I was putting the boys to bed the other night, I was giving them the run down of Monday morning. I told Sam about the STAR testing (which he is missing today). He was a little nervous about it so I did my best to reassure him that it didn’t matter how he did, just to do his best. Then I told Andy that I’d already turned in his library book on Friday (I always forget Monday library day so I’ve been trying the book on Friday if we’ve finished it). I told he could check out whatever he wanted so he says nonchalantly -and I’m not making this up- “There’s this book at the library called “Don’t Play With Your Private Parts, Danny.”  “What?!!!” There is no way I’m making it straight faced through this one. Neil jumped up from the computer in the other room saying, “I’ve got to hear this one.”  Sam is laughing by now too. “So what is it about?” His answer:  “Well there’s this kid and his mom doesn’t want him playing with his armpit or his private parts so they make this rule. But he does it anyway, so they get in this big fight.  Yeah, I really wanted to get it but someone else got it.”  That last part killed me. They didn’t have library on Monday due to testing so he didn’t bring that one home. That can’t possibly be the actual title can it?  I’ll let you all know.
If you see Sammy please offer to sign his cast and cheer him up as much as possible. He’s rallying a little now but recess is going to be tough. His VMA/HVA and LDH was relatively stable last week. VMA was down a bit and HVA was up a bit but no big jumps either way. We are still working on different next options and are very glad to have the amazing Dr. Sholler weigh in. Neil’s tenacity on tracking things down is just phenomenal.
More soon.
Margot
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Topics: Progress Reports | 9 Comments »
Crazy Hair Day
By Margot | April 22, 2009
It was crazy hair day at school. Andy wanted a green mohawk and Sam didn’t want a wig but three green stripes down his head. Second pic. is of Charlie getting ready for a big throw by his swim teacher today.
Margot
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Topics: Progress Reports | 4 Comments »
Happy to Report Chaos as Usual
By Margot | April 21, 2009
Last night while I was cleaning up the dinner dishes, Charlie poked Andrew in the eye with the trident from the Little Devil halloween costume (last used two years ago and why that is still floating around our house I don’t know). As Andrew hollered bloody murder, I checked on him and then chased Charlie outside to take away the trident which then caused him to start hollering bloody murder. I think the neighbors think we are the crazy family. I thought maybe we should scooter around the block since it was still light out and a very hot night. The boys jumped on their scooters and I gave Sam and Andy the directive to stop at every corner and wait for Charlie and I because I need to see them at all times. Andy asked why and I said “So that no one swipes you.” (later I regretted that answer you’ll see why) They raced off and waiting for Charlie and I at the corners by doing cool guy jumps on their scooters.  Half way around the block Charlie asked if I would carry him and his scooter, he was all done. I had to yell up the block for the boys to wait and by the time I had caught up with them Sam had done something to torment Andrew so that he threw himself on the grass and told us all to “just leave him there,” he wasn’t coming any more. I was starting to feel a little on the edge when Sam noticed a little half wall in front of a house that he and Mimi used to use to play restaurant when he was little. “Hey Charlie, you want to play restaurant?” he said. Charlie loved that idea and Andrew stopped crying immediately and said he wanted to play restaurant too so I ordered fish tacos, a hamburger and three kids meals from my three waiter/chefs and then I did voices of my “pretend” children. “Oh,” I said, “Johnny doesn’t like his quesadilla, can you make him something else?” They didn’t get it at all and happily put together some more leaves and woodchips to represent a cheeseburger. They charged me $10 which made me laugh after twenty orders and then we all happily scootered home. Neil and I threw them all in the shower and five minutes later I hear from the bathroom, “Andrew, don’t do that, you are wasting it all.”  Andrew answered, “It’s ok Sam, see it works as soap too.” I look in to see Andrew covered head to toe in Neil’s shaving cream and figure he’s probably used up the whole can.  Two minutes later I hear, “Sam did you make it really cold so Charlie will get out?” Then I hear Charlie scream. Charlie’s got a good scream going these days.  After we get them out and in their pajamas, I read some of the latest DIARY OF A WIMPY KID to Sam and Andy and the three of us nearly cried laughing at a couple of parts in the book (I love when Sam and Andy laugh so hard they can’t breathe) and after closing the book and twenty minutes the boys fell alseep. I fell asleep while putting Charlie to sleep, and then woke up at 2am, as has been the case for the past several weeks, worrying about Sam and treatment and what the right thing to do is. I caught up on Sixty Minutes and some trash TV that I won’t admit to and finally fell asleep only to have Andy crawl in bed next to me ten minutes later saying he had a bad dream. He dreamed that somebody “swiped him.” Good one mom.
Sam’s VMA/HVA dropped last week VMA 25/HVA 20 Wohoo. He’s been feeling and acting fantastically well and I want to be lulled into complacency but as you can surmise from the sleepless nights neither Neil or I are easily lulled. I can say that for anyone looking for a good book, “City Of Thieves” is a great read. I’m becoming very well informed in all sorts of areas, useful and non-useful due to insomnia.
The Tuesday sports reports is as follows: Sunday soccer was hot probably eighty-five to ninety degrees. The boys were worn out but played well. Parents brought sprayers so the kids came out and got misted every once in a while. Both teams lost but played well and neither team got skunked. Sam played goalie for most of his game. Made some good saves and one mistake goal. They had a pretty big kid who was body checking quite a bit. Andrew’s teams lost by two and he was all over the field as usual. He cried afterwards and said, “We’re never going to win a game.” We started basketball clinic on Friday night. Sam and Andy both do it and had a good time. We met Neil ‘s college friend for dinner Friday night and it was good to get to know the Haas (not sure I spelled that right) family.
We are singing in the car every where we go now. Either Queen’s “We will Rock You,” “Eye of the Tiger,” or “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi. Even Charlie knows all the words which is very funny in itself. It is funny to see people on the street if our windows are open.Â
Please hope for good VMA/HVA again this week.Â
Margot
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Topics: Progress Reports | 7 Comments »
Post Spring Break/Easter Update
By Margot | April 13, 2009
We had a very nice Easter and a great trip to Palm Springs last week.  The boys swam and swam and swam and played golf in Palm Springs. And now thanks to a round on a very short course with Luke and Ron, there is a new sports obsession in our house. Since we’ve come back from Palm Springs we hear from Sam and Andy, “Can we go golfing?” repeated over and over. We went to a course down in Old Town on Friday afternoon with Mimi and Uncle Matt who was in town and they had a great time. They even watched most of the Masters (which Neil taped) last night. It was fun to have all of the kids to entertain each other on vacation. They had a wonderful time with each other, though all together they were quite a crew (eight kids, 8 and under). As we were waiting for dinner one night, Meredith said, “Isn’t there a China shop we can run through around here?” On the drive out Sam piped up from the back seat and said, “Hey Mom and Dad, that where I threw up on our last trip to Palm Springs, ” as he pointed to a spot on the side of the road where we had to pull off on the way back from our last trip. Other families may have different types of mile markers but we have throw up mile markers. It was very crowded in Palm Springs, lots of kids in the pool, hot tub and slide. It was quite an experience to hop into the hot tub crowded with kids with Sam. Every single kid eye went to his lack of hair and they stared at him as if he had a third arm. Once I started talking to all of them and introducing them to Sam and Andy, they seemed to lighten up and most were very nice. There was one kid in line for the slide though that kept saying, “Hey bald kid!” I said, “His name is Sam.” He looked at me and said, “Yeah, well he’s bald.”  I bit my tongue with what I really wanted to answer and repeated, “His name is Sam and this is his brother Andrew.” He answered, “yeah well you should get him some hair.”  I flat out didn’t have an answer for him because I was trying to stop myself from wringing his little neck. Neil ran into him later in line and he said, “Are you his Dad? You should get him some hair.” Neil grabbed him by the arm and said, “You should get yourself some manners.” He apologized profusely after that and we didn’t have any more run ins with him. There were a couple of teenagers there that were really nice to the boys and let them play volleyball with them and talked to Sam about skateboarding, he and Andy had brought their skateboards and skated around the perimeter of the pool. We came home Thursday night and read the sad news about Erin which hit like a body blow. She was so special – one of those kids that just grabbed hold of your heart.
The boys had lot of fun with Uncle Matt, who was in town for business for a night and a day Friday and Saturday. The boys colored Easter eggs with him and it was a messy endeavor. Andy kept spilling the bowls of colors all over the place and as you can see from the picture of him pointing yesterday, we are still trying to scrub the food coloring off of his hands, elbows and other body parts. Yesterday they woke up to their Easter Egg treasure hunt which is the cutest thing. They get so excited running from clue to clue and then finally getting to their baskets. The Easter Bunny set quite a precedent for herself the year she set that up because it is expected every year now. The boys were thrilled with their bakugans and snorkeling stuff for the pool and Charlie got some new Tonka buddies.  Charlie was quiet upstairs for a while yesterday morning and Neil and I came upstairs to find him sitting on the floor methodically take the foil off of each chocolate egg and shoving it in his mouth. The carpet was littered with foil and Charlie was concentrating on his task. The boys put on their own “handsome shirts for Easter dinner. I didn’t have the heart to be ridiculous mother and tell them that the striped shirts and plaid shorts didn’t actually match too well. We had a nice Easter dinner at Colleen’s house and then the boys came home and did some more Easter Egg hunts with Mimi. Then they watched the end of the Masters and fell into bed.
Sam and Andy are at school today and Charlie had swimming lessons (apparently he regressed in Palm Springs). It’s Sam’s first day with his new glasses at school so we’ll see how it goes. He picked the most expensive Nike frames but I figured he can get whatever he wants (at least this first time) since he now has glasses, hearing aids and no hair. The frames are very stylish – the kid has taste. His VMA/HVA was basically stable last week and, ta da, he finally hit 60 pounds. He was so excited because he officially does not need a booster seat anymore. We are mapping out all sorts of treatment options.
 More soon.
MargotÂ
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Topics: Progress Reports | 9 Comments »
Erin Buenger
By Margot | April 10, 2009
When we traveled to Houston almost 2 years ago for the Nestles Vaccine at Texas Childrens, we had a very memorable lunch with a beautiful little girl. Erin was a redhead, like Sam, and had the most infectious smile and sparkled. She was the kind of girl that causes a parent to make a mental note saying ‘yeah, it would be ok if my son married her’.
We got to know Erin through her mother’s wonderful blog. Erin was good friends with Congressman Chet Edwards and spoke of being President someday.
The world tonight is a little sadder and a bit less hopeful now that she is gone.
Please visit her website, leave a comment, and say a prayer. And hug your kids while you’re at it.
http://erinbuenger.blogspot.com/
Topics: Progress Reports | 7 Comments »
Spring Break
By Margot | April 6, 2009
The boys are off of school this week for Spring Break and we are going to Palm Springs tomorrow for a few days with the Brunettes and the Thomases. The boys are very excited. Charlie doesn’t really know to be excited but he knows that Jett is coming. He and Jett are good buddies and very funny together so they’ll have a good time. We are looking forward to getting away for a bit. I know I’ve been promising more pictures so I’ll be sure to get some posted of our mini-trip when we get back.
  The weather here is beautiful and we spent yesterday outside at the park and soccer games. Saturday Andy had a birthday party and Sam and Joe went to the skate park in the afternoon. Sam has been back into skateboarding lately and is becoming quite the skater. I had Sam’s IEP meeting on Friday and there were eight support people for him. Every time I come out of these meetings I think how lucky we are to have our little school. They are so supportive and want to help Sam at every turn. More importantly though, they all love him. His aides, his teachers, and everyone who supports him tells me what a great kid he is, how smart he is and how much he wants to do well in school. I know I sound like a bragging mother but I was just filled up leaving school on Friday.
On the soccer front. Sam’s team won so now officially has a winning record. Sam almost scored again but just missed. He played really well and was goalie in the second half and made a lot of saves. Andy’s team lost again but Andy scored! Hurray! He is not happy about being on a losing team but is having a great time playing and is all over the field. Wherever the ball is, Andy is right there. He had a good time at the birthday party, it was a mining party and the kids got to sift for jewels. Andy gave a couple of his stones to a little girl who arrived late and didn’t get to do it. Her mother thanked me. I was very proud of my kids this weekend – though they gave me the usual dose of fighting and not listening so my head didn’t get too big ;-).
Sam’s VMA/HVA were exactly the same this past week. No change at all. A good thing in that it didn’t go up but it would be nice to see it go down. We started another round of irrino/temodar today and we were late with the zofran so Sam’s breakfast came back up again. Otherwise though, he’s really been eating well. In the past couple of weeks he must have put on at least a couple of pounds. We’ll see when we weigh him today when we go in for his blood check. We are still pondering the next step and while we don’t want to ponder too long, it’s nice that Sam can keep going to school, vacation, etc. By the way, “ponder” is probably not the right word here. It implies to me leisurely thinking about something and what we are doing is hardly that. Â
My friend Nicole’s mom, Sharon, has been in town for the past couple of days for a conference and we went out to dinner with her on Saturday night. She just kept telling how wonderful Sam looks and how great it was to see him running around with his brothers and laughing and full of energy. It was great to see her and spend some time with her and nice to have an outsider who doesn’t see Sam every day tells how great he looks.
Several of our NB and leukemia friends are in need of kind thoughts and prayers today: Erin http://www.erinbuenger.blogspot.com/ Sydney Dudley http://www.carepages.com/carepages/Sydneymarie, Will (is in the hospital) http://www.willlacey.com/ and our San Diego friend Riley http://www.carepages.com/carepages/rileyS is still feeling awful as they try to get him comfortable and his tumor under control. His poor mother broke her foot on the way to the pharmacy when they were about to check out of the hospital yesterday. I would say it is pouring on the Spiering family.   Please keep all of these families in your thoughts and prayers.
Margot
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Topics: Progress Reports | 1 Comment »
Monday Morning Quarterback
By Margot | March 30, 2009
I’m starting to feel a little like Peter King who does the Monday Morning Quaterback article for Sports Illustrated. I seem to give the sports report every Monday. If I can keep doing the sports report every Monday forever, I’ll happily be Peter King, I’ll happily be a monkey’s uncle. Anyway, Sam scored again yesterday in soccer. He was on the far side of the goal and one of his teammates shot the ball, it bounced off of the goalie, Sam caught it on the rebound and kicked it in. He’s so proud of having two goals this season. He’s told everyone he sees that he scored his **second** goal yesterday. Tough soccer day for Andrew. His team got crushed. I think it was like ten to zero and Andrew cried afterwards. Poor guy was all over the field playing offense and defense and ran his heart out but the other team had a lot of weapons. The other coach came by and told Neil that Andrew had awesome ball skills and the he remembered Andrew from the PeeWee league because every time they played against him Andrew kept scoring. That was no solace to Andrew who was lamenting that his team is “never” going to win. Charlie cheered for his brothers and played with Maureen. He swam across the pool today in swimming and even got to do a “race” (his teacher helped him). Guess who he’s been listening to with this quote, “Grace (his little friend from swimming) and I are champions and the other girls are losers.”  Yes, we like to start ’em young in our household. Quick weekend summary, we saw “Monsters and Aliens” on Friday night. Big hit with the kids but it’s no “Incredibles,”  spent Saturday at the park and then biked around the Bay and met the Brunettes at Fanuel Park yesterday and then did soccer.  We were all tired and happy last night.Â
Sam has a blood check this afternoon. His VMA/HVA last week was stable. HVA was down actually to 22 I think but VMA is more important. We are still thinking/talking about several different options. I want to keep my head in the sand and not move to a different option. I was thinking yesterday as I biked behind Sam on the boardwalk that he’s doing so well and is so happy that it lulls me into thinking we don’t need to do anything different. My head in the sand is comfortable and warm and the sand tastes like sugar.  But this disease in insidious so we are working on options.
More soon. Thanks a million to Doug for putting up the new banner pictures and thanks a million to Deb for taking them.
Margot
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