Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder

Hey y'all... I know it's been a while since I've posted anything exuding my usual charm and wit... but it's hard to post with a nail gun in one hand and a piece of siding in the other.

Julie had asked me to finish up her post from Friday the 11th... read A Momentous Occasion... but I decided that I didn't know what else to add... I mean it seemed pretty complete to me. That and our writing styles don't mesh well. Then I thought I'll just hit the publish button and write something of my own... please contain yourselves.

Emmah's radiation is indeed over and done with and she did handle it like a champ... just like everything else that she's had to go through these past (almost) 10 months. I don't see Julie pining to make that drive to Northwestern everyday anymore, so it's a good thing that it's over.

Like Julie mentioned... she was the recipient of not one, but two Mother's Day celebrations and her participation to said events was made possible by Gramma's ability to take Emmah for the last radiation. Yes I could've taken Emmah but... never mind, it's a convoluted story. Anyway during their time together (Gramma and Emmah) an idea was hatched... the aforementioned Gramma-Emmah weekend... to which a twist was added. Emmah had decided that she wanted to surprise Julie and Jake with a Mother's Day/birthday celebration brunch... so we enjoyed that this afternoon.

While in the midst of preparing, Emmah found time to take two baths... two much needed baths! Gramma dug out the comet and s.o.s. pad and scrubbed her down. Emmah had a lot of dead skin that needed sloughing off and the comet and s.o.s. did the trick... okay, you got me, Gramma didn't use a s.o.s. pad, she used a wire brush. I don't rightly know what was used, I imagine a lot of rubbing and elbow grease. Brian knows all about that, just ask him about the time that mom tried to scrub some pigmented skin off his neck. I wasn't aware that having a neck THAT red was safe.

One of the chemo agents, the Thiotepa, made her skin turn brown... like a tan... but that tan wasn't fading... it wasn't peeling either it just kinda got darker and stayed... mostly on her scalp and under her arms. It was more like... hmmm like mud... actually dried up mud... let me explain. Mud when it's truly mud/muddy is smooth, but when the moisture is withdrawn and kept away for a long period of time, the mud dries up and the ground cracks into small odd shaped dirt islands surrounded by the cracks. Emmah's top layer of skin on her head was kind of like that... these tiny odd shaped islands of dark dead skin hanging on only to the little sprouts of hair. Gramma scrubbed it all away and now we can see how much hair there really is coming in. Nothing like a good scalp massage to get things going up there.

For the first time in almost 10 months... we will have for the most part a normal life for a while... not sure how to act, but willing to learn again. Emmah will still have clinic visits, but once a week or something like that. I'm not sure of the forthcoming scan/test schedule... and she will be starting retinoic acid soon, but it should be a far cry from what we've been dealing with. Not to worry though... I imagine that I will be spending my time on a ladder or plank... with a 20lb tool pouch tuggin' at my waist trying to take my pants down... which would be the most action I've seen in a while. Having a nail gun, a hammer, a piece of siding and/or a paint brush in my hand... all at the same time... will be keeping me plenty busy in this time of normalcy.

All this talk of work is making me sleepy... perhaps it's due more to the approaching hour than the work talk that's made me sleepy... either way that's a wrap.

Oh, one last thing...

Take your mouse on over to Jake's Blog... he's excited to share something with you all.

Until the next time I stay up past my bedtime...

KUIYTAP

A momentous occasion ...

...not only because of the Mother's Day serenade at Rachael's pre-school
or because of the Mother's Day Tea Party given by Jakob's Kindergarten
(of which I was the lucky participant)but because today marked the last day of radiation therapy for Emmah,
which she handled like a champ.
She will proudly boast that she made it through it all without ever taking Zofran,
the nausea medication that was prescribed.
She is a bit tired, but is celebrating by having a Gramma-Emmah weekend,
which includes a long-awaited and salivated over cinnamon roll and a long overdue bath
(that was delayed by PICC line healing and radiation markings we did not want to lose).
The last visit to clinic showed she was down 1 kg (which equates to 2.2 lbs),
so with radiation out of the way (along with the nausea it was inclined to cause)
we will be focusing once again on getting her back to a healthier fighting weight.
Emmah's eyebrows have sprouted up seemingly overnight
and her batting eyelashes are coming in a close second.
Her head is boasting mostly peach fuzz,
but hopefully it will see more growth in the coming weeks.