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December 11, 2006

By Margot | December 11, 2006

Happy four month birthday to Charlie! He had a big day yesterday. He rolled over while watching the NFL countdown yesterday with Neil and had his first dinner of rice cereal which he liked very much. He continues to be happy smiley baby. Neil took him to his four month appointment last week with Doctor James while Sammy and I were doing chemo. Dr. James has been our pediatrician since Sammy was born and we love her. I’d written Neil a note will all of the information on Charlie’s sleeping, eating, etc. On the sleep section, I wrote: “sleeping up to six hours per night, still two to three times per night, just nod understandingly when Dr. James tells you to let him cry it out.” Neil totally outed me and read Dr. James the whole note. He said she and the nurses thought it was very funny.
Sammy is in school today. He did not go on Friday. I got him as far as the door but he was too scared to go in. It’s tough on him when he’s been out all week. I think it’s better to start him on Mondays when he’s had a couple of days off from chemo and been able to hang out with his friends some instead of jumping straight from the hospital back into school. I was a complete freak about it early in the morning when I was trying to get him to go and he wouldn’t get dressed or cooperate at all, I was ranting and raving about how important it was for him to go when he could go and blah blah blah. Then when I finally badgered him into going, I saw how terrified he was at the door and realized I was being ridiculous. I rallied though and decided that the Hutchison Homeschool was going on a field trip so I took Sam and Andy to the natural history museum for the day and we saw the moving dinosaurs (which Andy just loves) and built the monkeys and seals upstairs and did all the fun interactive stuff. It turned out to be a great day.
Sammy’s nausea hasn’t been bad at all this round. Car rides are tough on him, he almost didn’t make it to the museum but otherwise as long as we keep the zofran coming, he’s been doing great. I think he only threw up a couple of times last week and once was on the way to the hospital (car ride again). I had to pull over at a gas station and it was the same gas station I pulled over on the way home the day before so Andy could pee in the bushes outside- it was a close not even enough time to make it to the bathroom. Anyway, after I pulled out of the parking lot after Sammy had thrown up I was laughing to myself thinking the guys in the gas station are going to recognize our car and think, “Uh oh, here comes the silver mini-van again, what kind bodily fluid is going into our bushes today?”
The boys had a fun weekend, Mac’s birthday party, the PB Christmas parade, and then Saturday night we went to Deb’s house for a party followed up by a walk down to the bay to see the boat parade of lights. Yesterday was Alisia’s birthday party and Maureen came over last night. Sammy stayed at Alisia’s with Joe after Neil and Andrew came home and he had a great time. I think it’s good for him to be on his own outside of school every once in a while because we tend to hover and smother him. Colleen said he had a really good time. We are the parents who had his carseat put in by the CHP, bought him his first helmet for his two foot tricycle with padding all the way around his head, fingerprinted him for the police in case he ever went missing, and walked ahead of him on every walk in case anyone was every backing out of a driveway without looking. My friends used to joke when he was a baby that Neil was going to make him wear a helmet to school when he grew up. Too bad we couldn’t protect him from cancer.
Today Grandpa is coming and Andy and I will go pick him up together. The boys are very excited to see Grandpa. As I was putting Charlie to sleep last night I heard Sam say to Neil, “Hey Dad, you know what? When I’m eating lunch at school tomorrow, Grandpa’s plane will land.”
We have a blood check today after school, an ENT appointment tomorrow and then probably ascorbic acid on Wednesday and Friday. We should get back HVA and VMA levels today or tomorrow. Here’s hoping we don’t bounce back this week. Come on Beta Glucans.
Andy is doing great. He’s as funny as ever. The other night we had black beans with the tacos Meredith brought over (thank you Meredith!) and he sang a little song to his black beans after I told him he wasn’t excused until he had one bite of them. The song went a little something like this: “Beeeeaaans Beeeeans, Don’t make me eat my beaaans. Becaaause, I reeealllly juuuust doooon’t liiiike theeeem.” I tried not to laugh and tried to seriously tell him that he hadn’t even tried them. He said when he was a baby the first time he tried them and so he knows he doesn’t like them. Argue with that logic if you will.
Thanks to Colleen and Deb and Meredith for dinners last week and thanks to all of the dinner elves, Celeste, Sandra, Monica and Larry, for the last round. It’s so nice to come home from a long day at the hospital and not have to worry about it.
Lastly, we are very excited that Gary Emerson, the husband of Lori Emerson (Sam’s awesome PE teacher) and his cycling team are going do their annual 24 Hour Corporate Challenge (part of The Race Across America) to Flagstaff Arizona from San Diego for Sam. It’s a 24 hour race and 500 miles – crazy! Gary and his team will be raising money for the Penelope and Sam Fund set up at the University of Vermont for Neuroblastoma research. We were floored and humbled by Gary’s offer to race for Sam. The race takes place in June. We’ll have more news and better details on it as it gets closer. Gary, I’m sorry if I got anything wrong here.
Will post counts and HVA/VMA when I get them.
Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | Comments Off on December 11, 2006

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