Random Thoughts and Musings

Many of you have seen me Plurking/Tweeting about Baby S power puking every day a couple of times a day from the chemotherapy over the last two weeks. We were told it is because the body weakens with each round of chemo, and hers is less able to recover properly. She has been taken back off solid foods and ONLY receives nutrition through nursing (for the last two weeks), and we do our best to make her nurse for only 5 minutes at a time to keep her belly from feeling overwhelmed.

Earlier this week (Wednesday), she had “clinic,” where she receives her follow-up treatment for the 2nd and 3rd weeks of every round of chemotherapy. At clinic, they always draw blood and test her Alfa-fetoprotein levels - these are basically tumor markers. For Baby S, because she is still a baby, “normal” AFPs should be around 50-80. She is once again showing AFP’s over 100.

The doctors are stumped, and concerned. She is being sent to St Jude’s for a Positron emission tomography (or, PET scan). This is a radiological scan that will (hopefully) help them determine what is going on inside her little body.

This is all the information I have to date. I will of course update you as much as possible, whenever I have anything new. We do not even know, at this point, when the appointment at St Jude’s will be, as they have to fill out all the paperwork, fax it up, then wait for an appointment time.

Thank you for keeping Baby S in your thoughts and prayers. Please continue to do so.

xoxo

December was a crazy month for me. More on that later. The relevant parts of the story are:

1) My ex-husband and his family promised my Tween a trip to Cali, and promised me to cover her Santa gift (the Nintendo Wii) this year since it has been a tough year for me. They then backed out of both of these plans, and said they weren’t sending anything. Later (much later), it turned out they sent her a camera (the camera they had previously promised her for her birthday in 2007, Christmas 2007, and for her birthday in 2008) as a Christmas gift for 2008. The camera is awesome, so please do not think I am complaining they sent it. I am just disappointed it took them more than a year of broken promises to do so.
2) I was laid off from my job, and had to return all of the gifts I had already purchased for Tween, family, and friends. Anything non-refundable was set aside to send out later in Jan or Feb, when I know I have the money to spare for postage.

Tween has been asking for a Wii since they came out, but as a Mom I thought she needed to wait a while before getting one. I would not typically get game systems for her, but my Dad & Stepmom Connie purchased her a Gameboy Advance SP in 2005 when they purchased the same thing for my new step-sister (Connie’s younger child, who is 2 yrs older than Tween). In 2006, I got her a few games for it, and in 2007 (because she had taken such great care of the SP, but mostly because I found it on sale at 75% off), Santa brought her a Nintendo DS Lite. The SP and all of the games she had outgrown were donated, as per our custom, and she now takes great care of the DS. She began talking about getting a Wii more and more frequently when one of my friends started inviting us to come over and play his Wii. Unfortunately, I do not agree with the way he leads his life, so I will not take Tween to his house. I have also been looking for something else for she and I to do together, and since we are only home together in the late evenings, I wanted something indoors, that could be picked up at any time. The Wii fits all of these requirements.

Due to both of the afore-mentioned circumstances, a group of six people banned together to provide Christmas for my Tween. They sent an amazing set of gift cards, so I decided she would get her Santa gift after all: a Wii. The gift cards were sent with that intention, but with the option of using it any way I felt necessary. Besides the large gift cards to be used on the Wii, there were also smaller gift cards for stores that Tweens like to shop in: a bookstore, a jewelry store, and a clothing store. These three I saved for a later date & time.

Several other friends (who I also consider Christmas Angels) provided much-loved gifts to Tween: a gift card to JCPenny, which was one of the things she had requested; the latter three Twilight books, because she loved the first one so much; a small set of candles; and a photo frame.

I am grateful to everyone who helped make my baby’s Christmas special. It is one of the few times I allow her to feel so utterly spoiled, and I was VERY bummed out about having to return all the things I had purchased for her over the last six months.

I can not ever repay my Christmas Angels for their generosity. Financially, I hope to be able to do so someday in the near future. The value of their gifts go far beyond their monetary value, though, and I only hope I can be half as good a friend to them as they have been to me.

As promised, I am sharing the pictures from when Tween realized she is getting a Wii. Santa’s Elves sent her a letter via Santa & Mrs. Claus telling her that since she was such a fabulous child, she was receiving a special gift this year. It also mentioned the actual system would arrive in Jan (they have to build it, yanno!).

Thank you again to all of you who have shown your love and support through various methods. You are appreciated, and I treasure each of you.

xoxo

Devyl