It Has Been Two Years Today

So as I promised here is Daniel's logo he designed. There is this Tapas restaurant and lounge in Denver and his challenge was to come up with a logo for this company and to present it. Tapas are Spanish appetizers this place is named after a bar made famous by James Michener's novel "The Drifters" in Spain. It was a favorite hangout for poets and artists.

The restaurant here in Denver is known for their Spanish wines and lounge like atmosphere. My favorite version of the logo is the top version because the glass of wine is red as well as the number 9. The musician has the Spanish feel and the glass of wine conveys what the restaurant is famous for. The current logo is 8 purple, red and orange rectangles (http://9thdoor.com/events.html). I am probably biased but I am so proud of Daniel and I think his logo is fantastic.

I tossed and turned last night - uncomfortable - and woke up feeling off. The day flew by as I did all the things I was supposed to do today, but I kept flashing back to the events of this same weekend two years ago. We had just learned that Samantha did in fact have cancer. The fear was indescribable - to this day nothing matches it except the fear that it may return. I have watched my daughter grow up the last 2 years from a girl to a young courageous woman. Even with all the complications and the multiple scars covering her body, she is a one year survivor! Thinking on it - I decided the whole family are survivors. Samantha had the worst of it - but Daniel and Isabella and Jeremy have paid a price as well - I sometimes forget....

I still read the Caring Bridge sites and I still hear of children whose cancer has returned for second and third times. Two of Samantha's friends from her cancer teen group are always in my thoughts - one young man so full of life who always has a smile is battling for his third time and another girl's mother is battling with the decision on how to handle her daughter's last days. Each and every day I am grateful that Samantha is still cancer free.

I know our family is stronger than we were - I hope my 3 children realize it as well as they grow and are able to look back with perspective. I will not lie and say life has been easy these past two years, but we got thru them and we will continue to get thru them. My hope is to make sure my family laughs more than we cry and that the arguments are short - some days are better than others...

Samantha is feeling alright - a bit restless but who can blame her. Daniel teaches me daily the importance of keeping my mouth shut :) and Jeremy is still a bit sore (it has been barely a week) and a bit restless as well. Isabella had a full weekend - friends and parties - oh my!

I was all exited to have a chance to clean the house in a nice and relaxing way; however, between Isabella's social calendar and Daniel's impromptu requests to get some new clothes and a hair cut, nothing was accomplished. As I sit here I am amazed with that even though I barely sat down all weekend.

Oh well, it was still a good weekend. And now that it is over, I will say goodnight and love to everyone!

Getting Better

Well all patients are on the mend.

Here is a picture of what Jeremy has been doing to keep himself amused - notice the iPhone in his hand...

Samantha and Daniel came back home on Wed - so the activity level has increased. Sam kept herself busy one night taking pictures of herself - she had just washed her hair and it looked good. She wanted to capture it before it turned into bedhead. :)Grandma Liz got Isabella some cool sunglasses - she was posing for me - wonder where she learned to do the looks....

You would think family life would have slowed down a bit - but no. Monday Isabella had to get out of the house (Jeremy was still recovering and I had to work during the day and she was bored). So we spent some time at the park (actually til dark) once work slowed down.

Tuesday we hit the book store - Wed the big kids came home - Thursday, Lindsey brought dinner so Isabella had Leaf to hang with.

Here is quick picture of Dan. He doesn't let me grab them often, but he was in a good mood. After a day on the slopes he got all dressed up to go to Salsa dancing lessons with a friend of his. He is also competing in a Graphic Arts contest and just submitted his artwork and write up today. The challenge was to design a logo for a local business. I will see if I can get a copy of it and post it this weekend. I thought it was really cool. He is so excited - it is a breath of fresh air.

We met with Sam's surgeon yesterday as well. Everything looks good. The portion of her left thigh where they took her skin graft is healing beautifully and she doesn't have too much pain any more. She is a bit bored always sitting and not too motivated to do school work. We have 2 more weeks before the next surgery (scheduled for March 4th) and then 4 weeks more after that before she can get mobile again. The doctor said she probably won't have a cast after this next surgery since she will have a bone and they don't want to cover the flap - we will still have to watch is closely.

Everything is really getting better. Jeremy is a bit grumpy dealing with his restrictions but he got a 'get out of the house' pass for tomorrow.

Roxy got her staples out (we think a bit too early) but she is pretty happy that she doesn't have to wear the cone any more. I joke that is has been a canine pinball game in the house - she bounced of one thing or another constantly.

Isabella has a fun filled weekend coming up - I will take some pictures. I am just excited to have a chance to catch up on cleaning the house. Silly isn't it - but with always heading back and forth to one hospital or another - I only get to do it every other week. Then it takes all weekend. I actually cherish the ability to clean at my own leisure. I mess with my plants and I can follow my train of thought as it wanders off course without stressing. I think it will be a nice day tomorrow so I may even go for a bike ride (he he he). It is time to start thinking about the Courage Classic ride and I am going to do the complete course this year.

It is also time to start planning the gardens - life is good!

Ok - I am off - Love to everyone!

Happy Day of Love

Valentines day in our home isn't a really big deal - I like to think everyday is a day of love for us. -- lol.

Isabella however, did have a great day yesterday. She filled out her cards and we brought treats for the Valentines Day party at her school. They had so many sweet treats that the kids (including Isabella) were turning them away - what a surprise!

Our friends Phil and Cori brought Jeremy a heart shaped cookie and a bike magazine yesterday - so he got his sweets too!





Here is Isabella in her Valentines day hat! Grandma Liz was telling her that not everyone is a hat person - but she definitely was! Totally Cute!





I took these other pictures when the girls were watching the Grammys on Sunday. Guess who was performing? One guess - the Jonas Brothers - what a surprise. As you can see, Samantha is looking wonderful - even bedridden.


















Jeremy is doing well but he decided he wanted to stay one more night - just to make sure his lung isn't leaking. The pump has been turned off all day today and he is still pink! All good.
His Uncle John and cousin Sean came for a visit. Damien was here at the hospital when we arrived this morning. We decided to give him a bit of a rest this afternoon while we took Isabella home and I made him some dinner. I then came back and we had a nice dinner together - kind of a date... :)

I told Jeremy he should update his facebook - post "here a hole, there a hole, everywhere a hole - hole". He has 2 holes in the front of his chest and one in his back where the scopes went in.

He has been up and walking around pretty good so I am sure he will do fine once we get him home - even better when he can get a full nights sleep.

I know I am ready for a good nights sleep as well. When Jeremy doesn't sleep at home - our dog Roxy thinks it is her duty to take his place - I actually has to sleep horizontal in our king size bed because both dogs and the cat took over. I guess I am just too soft - I can't kick them out like Jeremy does.

We got a bit of snow last night - I am glad for the moisture but the warmer days last week make me stir crazy for spring. Spring is my favorite time of year. I should probably start planning my gardens and searching for seeds. I am super excited because I have an outside greenhouse and a bigger veggie garden this year - yahoo! Hopefully we will be able to enjoy more of the summer this year.

Have a great weekend - Love to everyone!

Quick update

Just a quick update - Jeremy's doctor just came out and said he is doing well. Everything went as expected. He will be in recovering for about an hour and then they will let us go back to see him. After we move up to his room and get him settled - I will give folks a call.

Love to all!

Blebs

It could be one big bleb or many small ones, kind of like bubble wrap - that is the official medical term for the imperfection on Jeremy's lung. A bleb causes the lung to pop.

Jeremy met with the surgeon and after talking with the doctor we feel certain that the surgery is the best coarse of action. After looking at his x-rays, the surgeon said Jeremy actually had a tension pneumothorax - that is when the lung collapses so much that it starts pushing the heart out of place. This can be very dangerous because the movement of the heart can kink the blood vessels...

The surgeon said if Jeremy had come into his ER, he would have performed the surgery right then. As it stands now, Jeremy's surgery is Friday morning. They will go in and first scope the lung to find the blebs, then they deflate the lung and remove them. They then do a controlled injury to the rib cage and re-inflate it. The lung then heals against the rib cage so in the unlikely event that this happens again, the lung won't collapse. The blebs are usually on the top of the lung and the doctor assured Jeremy that his lung capacity will not be compromised. He will stay in the hospital 2 to 5 days depending on if his lung leaks a bit or not. He won't be able to travel to higher elevations for at least 10 days. He will then be good as new.

Jeremy's mom - Liz - is flying into Denver tomorrow evening. Jeremy is a bit nervous - who can blame him? I will be working from the hospital on Friday and will post as soon as I can after he is in his room. The procedure should only be an hour and a half.

Samantha is doing well - moving around as much as she can. She is staying with her dad this week. Isabella is excited to see her grandma. Jeremy and I are enjoying a few relatively quiet days - trying to get caught up on work.

The weather is cold here - last night it snowed and I think it might again tonight - but it was so beautiful. Big white flakes coming down in the moonlight. My favorite time of the year is coming up - Spring. Hopefully I will have a happy, healthy and mobile family by then!

Take care - Love to everyone!

My Poor Stitched Up Family

Roxy is Home! Yahoo! She is getting around very slowly - she just looks at me, her eyes saying "help me!" She of course has the big cone on her head. In the picture below - you can see her paw trying to push it off.

The surgery went well and in about 2 weeks she won't have to wear the cone any more and we can start exercising her.

Roxy is home all stitched up and hobbling around and I wanted to show everyone a picture of Sam - all stitched up and laying around. She is not too happy with me here... She has an ice pack in her hand - icing her shot site. She has a small catheter insterted just under her skin where we give her blood thinner shots. They sting pretty bad - but icing helps.

Jeremy went to see the lung specialist on Thursday and they took the tube out of his chest. He is feeling pretty good. We found out that there is a 50% chance of this spontaneous neurothormax (lung popping) happening again with no warning. There is a procedure that changes that to a 95% chance it will never happen again. He is meeting with the surgeon next week to get more information on what they do. So far we are thinking they will scope his lung to find the imperfection and reinforce it for lack of a better medical term. He will be in the hospital for about a week and then another week at home taking it easy and another 4 to 6 weeks doing nothing strenuous and no high elevations or flying.

Jeremy has decided to get this done as soon as possible - before Sam's next surgery. That way our summer plans won't have to change too much. We have traveling to do for his cousins graduation - we have the Courage Classic - Jeremy has mulitple Leadville mountain bike races...

The list is long. We continue to battle for balance. I guess the price we pay to have some quality time later is a bit of craziness now. That is what Sam is doing - Once she is done and walking again - she will be set.

So I think that is it with the family health update... Daniel and I battled a little stomach thing that only lasted 24 hours and we are back to feeling good. Daniel has plans all weekend already. Isabella is booked for the rest of the month if you can believe it. She has a birthday sleepover tonight, another birthday party next weekend, and a birthday party and TeddyBear Tea and concert the following weekend. I talked with her teacher and she did ok this past week when we were in the hospital. She was a bit emotional a couple of days but is back to normal now that we are home.

Jeremy tells me I should just stop talking to people - but I decided to make some friends with the mothers of Isabella's school friends. That way we can do play dates and such. Isabella is a lot like her dad that way - she loves to keep busy and is happiest hanging out with her friends.

Now for something light.... When Samantha was in the hospital this last time - she hated that her hair was so yucky. She never had to worry about that before - lol. Any way the nurses found this shampoo cap. It is pretty cool - you warm it up in the microwave and stick it on her head and massage it for a while. I cleans the hair - we took pictures and I am posting as I promised Amy (Dr. Heare's assistant and Sam's second mom).

Here is Sam - out of her bed for the first time, getting her head massaged.

As you can see, she loved it. It actually worked pretty well - we didn't have to rinse - just towelled her hair dry afterward.

Alrighty - I better get to work . My weekends are precious and I have quite a list already.

As soon as we have the date for Jeremy's surgery I will post it. Samantha and Daniel are heading to their dad's house on Monday. Samantha is super excited to get to spend some time with her new brother! She will also have to start spending some time each day getting caught up on her school work.

Enjoy your weekend! Love to everyone!

Home Sweet Home Again!

The Gilmore Girls did it - we watched the last episode and Samantha declared she was ready to go. We got home around 5 pm this evening.

Samantha is doing great - did you expect anything less?

Isabella is so cute - I was excited to see her. Even after being gone from home for a week and not seeing her since Sunday - I still took the back seat to her friend Reagan from across the street.

Jeremy still has the chest tube in but he is feeling back to normal which is good. He is meeting with his doctor tomorrow morning - I am assuming the chest tube will come out. He is also hoping to learn if there is anything he can do to prevent this from happening again.

Work was busy today but one more day down until the weekend. I am cutting this short tonight - I get to sleep in my own bed tonight - Yahoo!

love to everyone!

Moving and Grooving

We are still here at the hospital. Yesterday was a big day for Samantha. Dr. Heare took all the dressing off of her leg and put her in a cast from the knee down. There is an actual hole in the cast so we can see the flap. She needs to watch it carefully when she moves to make sure it doesn't turn from pink to blue. Right now she can only lower her leg for 5 minutes or less.

Today she moved from the bed to the chair and is using the bedside commode. The most painful part of her leg is where they took the skin graph. It is pretty intense looking at her leg all beat up. For some reason this latest surgery is really hard for me to look at - I think seeing all her scars and bandages is visual reminder of what cancer does. She has scars under both breasts from her port and broviac. She has a big brown scar from the front of her pelvis around her hip ending at her butt cheeks. From the last post you can see how big the lower leg scar will be and she will have another long scar on her inner thigh and a 2x6 inch rectangle on the top of her thigh.

She has a small catheter placed under her skin so daily blood thinner shots can be given for the next 4 weeks. This medicine is necessary while she is bed ridden to prevent blood clots in her legs and stings like mad for the 3 minutes after she gets it.

She now knows exactly how tough she is now and she has the battle scars to prove it.

I talked with Jeremy today as well. He saw a doctor yesterday and his lung looked good so they capped him off but he was having trouble breathing and took it off for the night. This morning he capped it off again and has made it all day feeling good. He has an appointment with a specialist on Thursday and they will probably remove the tube then. He will also learn what needs to be done to make sure this doesn't happen again.

All Samantha has to do is feel comfortable using her crutches to get back and forth from the bathroom and we can leave. We only have 1 more episode of Gilmore Girls so I am thinking she may be ready to leave tomorrow.

Daniel took Isabella swimming tonight - if you have facebook - look for Jeremy and you can see the picture. When I am home I will grab it and post hit here...

I know it is only Tuesday but I am ready for the weekend already. Work is busy and as much as I think I will get done here at the hospital - the distractions are many so as usual - I am behind.

I haven't been able to see Isabella, Daniel and Jeremy since Sunday and I am missing all of them bunches! I bet you get tired of hearing that... :)

I'm sorry I didn't post any pictures tonight - I have been trying to convince Samantha that she should let me take a few to show everyone had great she looks - but you know 15 year old girls - no make up no picture.

I am pretty tired tonight so I am going to hit the sack.

Love to everyone!

One of Those Days

Pictures of Jeremy and Isabella today - Isabella is still in her jammies holding a someone else's glass and of course not looking at me as usual.

Every once in a while I have these days when I wish... The kind of wish where you get angry when you realize it isn't going to come true.

Sometimes they are big wishes - like Sam would never have had cancer or since she did that her surgery would have worked out the first time.

Sometimes I wish I would win the lottery and sometimes I just wish that I wouldn't have to chose between work and family at times.

Today I wished that I didn't have to chose between Jeremy and Isabella and Samantha...
I felt sorry for myself on the ride back to the hospital but by the time I got to Sam's room, I was back into my mom mode and not wasting time or energy wishing - just accepting the way it is right now.

Sam gave me the green light to go visit J and Izi for a couple of hours. Isabella must have missed me a little bit because she let me just hold her longer than just a sec - that hardly ever happens.

Jeremy and Isabella are over at a friends - Isabella is playing and Jeremy was helping Seth put together some sushi rolls for dinner. My visit with them was nice - I just sat back and watched them both. Jeremy's color is still good but he went in for an x-ray today and his lung still isn't completely inflated. He will need a couple more days to get back to normal. It is hard for him to just relax but he knows what he has to do.

Samantha is having a better day today. She is on oral pain meds now and soon will be able to get rid of her IV. She still has to lay flat but Dr. Heare said that tomorrow he will put her leg in a cast so she will be able to move easier. He told us the cast will have a window so we can watch the flap to make sure it stays healthy. She will be bedridden for the next 4 weeks, able to get up to go to the bathroom only. She has 2 more weeks of antibiotics and we are expecting the next surgery to be mid March. I thought we would be going home Monday or Tuesday but now they are saying Wednesday or Thursday. The doctors want to make sure Sam can move easily and learns her limits before leaving for home.

Right now we are watching the Superbowl, waiting for the cool commercials. I finally set up a facebook profile. Tommy with Samantha's cancer teen group went on and on about it and my friend Lindsey also told me I should - so I bit the bullet and did it. Now I just have to sit back and see if I can connect with any friends...

Samantha has promised to add me - so I will have at least one. :)

I guess I will end with a picture of Samantha's leg - the doctors are very proud - but a warning it is a bit graphic ...

The grid that you see is the skin graph and will eventually fill in - when everything is healed up it will look similar to a burn scar.

It will look a lot better than the earlier scars.

I hope I didn't freak anyone out - but I thought it was interesting.

I want to end by wishing my Grandma a happy birthday and I will try to call tomorrow.

Love to everyone!