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The Dark Side of the Moon
By Margot | October 22, 2008
Sam very earnestly told me the other night when we were out for our after-dinner family walk and it was a full moon, “Mom, you know you aren’t really seeing all of the moon. That side is the side lit up by the sun but there is a whole other side that is dark because it isn’t being lit up by the sun. Sometimes the posts on this website are only the bright side of the moon so to speak which is funny because people have told me they can’t read it because it’s so depressing. I do post the dark side sometimes because it is our reality.Â
Our bright side of the moon this week:
Sydney Dudley had clean scans! Always love to read about clean scans and Sydney has a special place in our heart. Go Sydney!
 Sam and Andy both had great soccer games over the weekend. Sam was awesome on defense, especially in the first half and seemed to have his confidence back after last week. Andy scored and scored and passed a lot this week too so his teammates could score. I think Neil got a photo of him doing his dance. I’ll post it if we got it. We had a wonderful night at the beach Friday night with the boys just playing tag and running in the sand. Watching them run from Neil and laugh silhouetted against the sunset was magic. We met the Bonebrakes at the park on Sunday afternoon. It was great for the boys to get together since they haven’t seen much of each other since school started. They played football and kickball and argued quite a bit but had fun. Kurt was a wonderful referee.Â
Charlie is funny as can be. He’s doing a MyGym class on Fridays which he keeps calling “YourGym” because I call it “MyGym.” He also has swimming lessons so we can get him water safe.  As much of a ham and a clown as he is at home, he is a complete stone when I take him out in public.  He’s just barely warming up to his swimming teacher after 13 lessons and at MyGym all he wants to do is jump in the ball pit (I always think of that Will and Grace episode when Karen yells at Grace to get out of the ball pit because it’s “a pit full of pink eye”) when it’s circle time he keeps his hands rigidly at his side and is a complete stone face to the point where it is actually funny.  His two funniest tricks are picking up the handset on my fax machine and talking into it: “Hello Elmo? What are you doing? Oh, you went a the zoo? I went a the zoo too. Mmm hmm mmm hmm. Bye.”  He also does this awesome Darth Vader with the light saber when he rolls his eyes up in the top of his head and makes his voice very dark and deep and says “You come a Dark Side.” Â
Sam and Andy read together on the couch today so beautifully. They both have to read for a half an hour a day and I’ve found Sam loves reading to Andy and then Andy reads his little books to Sam and Sam helps him with the words.  I think it’s good for Sam’s confidence and it wasn’t a struggle to get them to read for once. It was funny to listen to them. Sam was asking Andy which of the books he wanted to read and he remembers them from when he was learning, he said, “Ok these are the funny ones so you should pick from these three. This one is the funniest so you should pick this one.” I was thinking of Andy channeling Kramer, “Why don’t you just tell me which book you’d like me to pick.”  Andy has a playdate tomorrow with Beau and he is so excited he can’t stand it. He’s been counting down since I told him about it. I volunteered for a little while in his classroom today and he just beamed when I walked in. He’s doing really well in school and loving it. Sam has a spend the night party for Tanner’s birthday on Friday and I’m working on figuring out getting all his meds in him so he can spend the night.
On the dark side of the moon:
I had a work week last week that made me wish that I was living on the Island of the Blue Dolphins, just me and my loyal dog Rontu, collecting abelone and digging roots for survival. I was really struggling for perspective.  Picking Sammy up from school today and seeing a 55% on his math test made me think perhaps I’d better take the whole family to the Island and we can all become abelone collectors and root diggers.  Sam’s VMA/HVA numbers came back late this afternoon and his VMA jumped up to 9.5, HVA 11.6. Nothing like life coming along to kick us in the teeth to give me the perpective I was so desperately seeking last week. We had switched chemos from oral temodar to oral etoposide and now we think we will switch back.  We dropped off urine at the hospital this morning so next week’s numbers may be up as well since the results from today will still be with etoposide. We are trying not to panic as they are not crazy numbers but whenever numbers go in the wrong direction it’s impossible not to get that sick feeling and freak out.  Â
Sam turned his ankle pretty hard at school today and had to go to the nurse’s office. He’s been turning them more than I’d like to see lately so we need to keep a close watch on his ankles.  We had an appointment last week to reprogram his hearing aides as he’s lost more high frequency hearing in right ear. Our audioligist, who we love, was amazed at how good Sam is at gleaning information from context in sentences and I was floored at how hard he was working to figure out how to repeat her sentence back to her so that it made sense.  This was with his hearing aides on. He obviously missed a lot of the words but he’d take what he did hear and try to make sense of it. It almost made me cry to think of him doing this in school. Thank God for the sound system. I hope with having reprogrammed his hearing aides, he’ll have an easier time of it.  I hate cancer and I hate the stupid treatments. I hate it. Hate it. Hate it.
Little Hector Soto died last week. Neil went to his funeral on Sunday and sat next to his devastated father and family. Please think good thoughts and say some prayers for them.
MargotÂ
Topics: Progress Reports | 2 Comments »
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Margot,
You write from the heart and it is beautiful. The Witmers would be pleased to join the Hutchisons on the Island of Blue Dolphins. I have a couple of little dogs who could help us dig for roots.
Regarding Sam’s ankles, take it from a hockey/cancer Mom whose son had a very weak ankle from chemo neurotoxicity…there is NOTHIN’ better than ice skating to strenghten ankles. Better than anything a PT can dream up and a lot more fun.
L,
Meryl
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 am
Hi Margot, I am glad you post the dark and bright side of the moon. I of course wish you only brightness but when the dark comes up it is good for people to know what your family is dealing with. I wish you all the best. I hope Sam has a great time at Tanner’s sleepover. Angela (Madison’s Mom)