A lot's been happening (as usual) around here. Robert and Daniel are both in basketball, they did another Gamma Knife treatment on my brain on January 23rd up in Portland, Sarah fell two stories out of a loft apartment, and the wedding happens this Friday night. We applied to become guardians of our son Daniel, who turned 18 on December 1st and also applied for Social Security benefits for him (lots of appointments and paperwork on the above.) That about covers it, except that I did land in the hospital this last Monday and Tuesday due to a high bilirubin count. Thankfully it came down on it's own, and we were able to return home after just a CT scan and an ultrasound. I had some fluid in my abdomen that the doctor thinks may be from the radiation to the brain, the steroids (to reduce the brain's swelling, post radiation), and the toxicity of this last chemo that I was on. All of that is pretty tough on the liver, and it evidently can make it put out some "I'm unhappy" fluid. I went to the hospital here in town to have them remove the fluid, and they'll run it through a bunch of tests to try to find out exactly what it was from.
The Gamma Knife went pretty well; they say they got everything again. They almost went ahead with the whole brain because they found more lesions, until Pat told them that Nicole was getting married soon, then they said to forget the whole brain, they'll just do the Gamma Knife due to the scheduling. I'm taking a break from chemo because my counts came down, and everything seemed to be normalizing, so Dr. Chui didn't want to create any more havoc. We'll wait until after the wedding, to get scans, then at the next appointment we will discuss options (again), and go from there.
As for our 9-lives Sarah, she and Valerie went skiing with friends two weeks ago. They were dropping some kids off at an apartment and leaned up against a wall that wasn't there. (Her words.) She fell down a story into their car garage, landed on their car (which is fine), and then into a pile of lumber. Valerie got her home, we iced things, gave here some homeopathic Arnica, took her to the ER, and she was dinged up a bit, but ok. They x-rayed her elbow, which had a puncture wound, but no breaks. Our saving grace seemed to be the two college guys waiting in the ER. As Pat and I grilled Sarah..."Now--HOW did you do this again???" They got to listen in and thought she was VERY cool, would have a great story to tell, etc. We laughed for a good 45 minutes. I think the endorphins helped us all a ton. Anyway, she's fine. Ice skating a week later she bit it a few times and it hurt some, but nothing was badly damaged. She had to have one big fat angel watching over and under her!!
Daniel, our 18 year old has Down's Syndrome, and is now is considered "emancipated" in Oregon. We thought it would be a good idea to be able to sign legal forms, documents, etc. for him as we always have, so we applied for guardianship. To do this, they appoint someone to come to your home, check out the people who live with the person, and evaluate whether or not you would be good guardians, whether he really needs it, etc. Now we are waiting for a judge's decision. Should get results in one-two weeks. No stress.
Wedding plans are all made, and now it's the last minute stuff that needs to finally get done. Nicole has this week off, so hopefully it'll all be set for the big day! We're all very excited, especially her fiancee, who is SO happy to not have a curfew anymore. We'd boot him out at 8:30 or 9 PM so we could get the other kids to bed, plus with all these dr. visits, we were often up until 2 AM or so, and we needed to get to bed!! We're getting like really old people around here.
I think that's the latest~ that's plenty anyway.
Love you all very much. Thanks so much for your prayers and notes in the mail, for the offers of help, the meals, etc. We couldn't make it through this season quite so intact (if that's what this is) without you!!
Jeanne
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