Monday, January 16, 2012

Happy New Year



We tried out sushi-making at home tonight.  That was a first!  A great experiment, and a "mulligan," a do-over.  In our house, a "mulligan" is a meal that we'll do-over again.  Not because we didn't get it right the first time, but because we liked it!


Nella helped to make them, and everybody enjoyed using their chopsticks to grab and munch on the sushi.  Aleah can't quite say sushi, sometimes it comes out "lucy."  "Are we having lucy tonight?" 


As Aleah gets older, we're discovering more of the challenges of left-handed living.  Tim is left-handed, and it seems Aleah is too.  We made snowflakes for our table on Sunday, and Aleah was not able to use the scissors--they wouldn't cut right for her.  This right-handed mom realized that I need to go out and buy some left-handed scissors!  Today, we discovered that the trainer chopsticks we are so happy to use are also designed for right-handed people.  Aleah found ways around it, though.


She is so proud of herself for having figured out how to pick it up! 

Things are rolling along at our house, it feels like time moves so fast.  We are already half-way through January!

This year, we look forward to being done Caleb's active treatment for leukemia.  Chemo will continue until the end of July/beginning of August.  I don't know the exact date, because right now, that's still looking too far ahead.  There's still room for change in the plans, and July is still a long way away.  No parties planned just yet. 

Caleb had a lumbar puncture and bone marrow aspiration (LP/BM) done this past Tuesday.  We've blogged about this procedure before.  It's a sedated procedure, and as time goes on, it seems to get harder on Caleb to go through it.  He's a trooper, though, as we know. 

Caleb's plan was to go through the procedure and then get back to school in time to finish off the rest of the day.  It's a contrast, for sure, the hospital environment to the school environment.  When we sit in the hospital, surrounded by the beeps, the oxygen mask, heart rate monitor, the noise of other families waiting or kids just waking up, it seems like a crazy idea to entertain going back to school in the afternoon.  Especially as Caleb sleeps on, sedated, at 11am, and I wait for him to wake up.  I think our nurse was trying not to look at me like it was a bad idea, but I'm pretty sure she thought we were a little fool-hardy to think that going to school was a good idea.  And when Caleb did wake up, groggy, ornery, and hungry, it seemed like a crazy idea to me, too.  It took a long time for him to get going, he sat up, laid back down, closed his eyes, snacked on some food, grumped at me for asking him too many questions, and insisted he was going to school.  The nurse de-accessed his port, getting him ready to go, just before he said that he felt sick.  Too late to administer any intravenous meds to help him feel better, and Caleb refused any oral meds.  I piggy-backed him out of the hospital, right up to the car in the parking garage.  Caleb threw up on the ground, got into the car, said he felt better and we went to school.  He lasted the rest of the day, and went to bed at 6:30pm.  What a tough kid.

We get results from those tests, which we try not to think about too much as we wait.  The waiting is the hardest part, right?  Definitely.  We put the test results out of our mind as we focus on how Caleb is doing and getting through the day with our family.  Wednesday morning we learned that Caleb is still in remission, thankfully.  We rejoice with these results, and celebrate that he is doing so well.  We thank you for your prayers, and ask you not to stop praying as we see those prayers answered.  We're still fighting leukemia, and still need your prayers.  God is good, and we feel your prayers.