August 11: Just a quick update on some of Andrew’s sweet activities. In the last few days, he’s been saying, “I love you” much more than normal. When Bryan came home from work yesterday, he raced over to him, leapt into his arms, and said, “Oh Daddy, I LOVE you. I missed you!” And this morning, feeling full of happiness about our Saturday morning togetherness, he ran from me to Bryan, saying “I love you, Mommy.” “I love you, Daddy.” It’s music to our ears:)
This morning, Andrew and I got up early and made a loaf of banana bread together. Andrew dumped all the ingredients in, he helped stir, and he even pulled apart the egg shell (“It fell in, Mommy. Slimy.”). He also had fun tasting a lot of the batter (“I yike it, Mommy. Sugar. Yummy.”) We’ve baked together quite a bit, but I think he’s getting to a point where he really gets the process and enjoys knowing that we worked together to make our breakfast together.
Pictures of the last week are in the gallery.
Mom’s suspected Sister Joseph’s Nodule is not Cancer
August 11: I got a welcome phone call from my mom last night. The radiologist was finally able to compare four of Mom’s cat scans from over the last year, and they determined that the area that was suspected as a Sister Joseph’s Nodule has not changed or grown at all. That lead them to decide that it is not cancerous. What happy news!
After waiting for the last couple weeks to find out if Mom should have a biopsy of this nodule (which was just under the skin above her belly button), I’m relieved to have the doctor’s opinion. Apparently, Mom’s cat scans got sent to someone who was on vacation and then got stuck in transit, so that’s why it took so long for them to review them.
A radiologist reviewed them last night, and Mom’s oncologist called her at 8 pm to give her the results. This doesn’t mean that the clot in Mom’s portal vein isn’t cancerous, but it is a good sign. Here’s one thing I read about Sister Joseph’s Nodules:
Umbilical metastasis is one of many characteristic signs of extensive neoplastic disease. It suggests advanced distant metastasis and is associated with poor prognosis.
So I’m happy to think that this isn’t what we’re dealing with!
Mom’s brother, Kirk, is in town from Texas this week. He took Mom out to breakfast yesterday morning, so that was one of her first public outings in the past couple weeks. Her blood pressure continues to be very low, which means that when she walks around she feels really dizzy.
We’re going to talk over the next couple days about whether to try a blood thinner or chemotherapy, and I think Mom will be interested in starting whichever treatments she decides next week.
That’s the news for now!
~Althea
Rainy weather, but Mom’s feeling better
August 7: Still not much to report, but I figured that an update on Mom’s health may be appreciated. We all had a wonderful trip to Jack’s house on the Wisconsin River last weekend. Mom masterminded the menu, created the shopping list, and then she directed some of the cooking, but in general, she didn’t have to do much. It was a great little vacation.
To her great relief, the catheter Mom has in her belly to drain the fluid that’s been building up in her abdomen has stopped leaking. So four the last four days, she can stand up and move around without the threat of getting suddenly drenched without warning. Thank goodness. We’re still speaking about this quietly, though, and hoping it doesn’t start up again.
The next step medically are to try to get a biopsy of the suspected Sister Joseph Nodule. Doctors are conferring about this, and we should know in the next couple days whether they can get something scheduled.
We’d also really like to see if we can’t get Mom’s fluids stabilized. Her blood pressure has been low, she’s been weak and tired, and losing quite a bit of weight. If we can’t cure the situation causing those symptoms, we’d at least like to look at ways to treat them. Mom has been going in to the clinic every few days for infusions of saline, but that hasn’t done much to help her. So I think we’ll be looking at other treatments in the near future.
We all had a lot of fun spending the weekend together. When I talked to her yesterday, Mom was thinking about taking a solo trip out this week. It would be her first time out alone in several weeks.
So that’s the news for now!
~Althea
Summer = Weekend at Jack’s
August 5: I’m about to fall asleep, but I wanted to post the pictures I took during our weekend at Jack’s house. We all had a wonderful time. Mom felt pretty good, and there was lots of laughing and eating and being outdoors together. The weather on Saturday was rainy (for the first time in what feels like a month) and chilly, so we postponed the Wisconsin River float until Sunday. Instead, we drove around some of the beautiful areas surrounding Jack’s place, headed over to Iowa for a bit, and saw some beautiful views.
On Sunday, Michael, Matt, and Lisa had to head home early and so missed our float. Tremendous thunderstorms overnight kept Kyle awake, so he found a bed to catch up on sleep. But Terry, Jack, Tom, Josh (a friend of Michael’s), Joe, Becky, Bryan, Andrew, and I had a fun time on the river. We took a canoe so we could get home fast if Andrew stopped having a good time. And it was cold, cold, cold, but the wonderful thing was that Andrew was just sparkling with delight the whole time. He thought that being in the water was so neat, he did NOT want to ride in the canoe, and so he had fun in the river with the rest of us. We stopped for our watermelon demolition mid-way, there was some watermelon attacks, and despite the lack of sunshine and chilly water, everyone had a really fun time. Photos of the weekend are in the gallery.
Adorable Andrewisms
August 1: I’ve realized to my chagrin that this summer I haven’t done a very thorough job of documenting some of the wonderfully sweet and enduring things that my sweet son says and does. So here’s a stream-of-consciousness set of Andrewisms.
Last month, I started asking Andrew to tell me stories. To my great surprise, he really likes telling stories. Mostly just one, but he really gets into it. It goes like this.
Andrew: “Onceupontime there was…MONSTER.”
Adult: “A monster? Wow! What did the monster do?”
Andrew: “White monster. Big. Ate a table.”
That’s pretty much the story:)
We have two big cherry tomato pants in our back yard. All early summer, Andrew desperately wanted to pick the green tomatoes. It was a compulsion. It was as if he couldn’t help himself. Now that it’s the height of summer, he can pick as many ripe tomatoes as he wants. But sometimes he still grabs the green ones. He calls them “tomataoes.” “Go see tomataoes, Mommy!”
Another of Andrew’s favorite games is to hide under the covers in our bed while a ferocious bear (his dad) sniffs around him and roars. Then Dad shouts, “Shoo bear!” The bear runs away, and Andrew pops out of the covers. Sometimes Andrew considers the fact that a bear is now loose in the house, and he yells, “Mommy, bear coming!” I then yell, “Shoo bear, get out!” and let Andrew know that it ran far away and we’re all safe. He just loves this game. Daddy is a wonderful sport and plays it overandoverandover.
Favoritisms: Off and on for the last six months, Bryan has been the favored parent. When I’m alone with Andrew, we have a great time together, but if Daddy is home, there’s a constant struggle for Andrew to let me do things like play with him or change his diaper or pick him up. Bryan is a super-amazing dad, and he fulfills his requested duties well, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a change in the young master’s heart so he was a little less in the constant limelight!
Playing in the sprinkler: Andrew loves having me squirt him with the garden hose. For a little boy who so very much detests getting his face wet while having his hair washed, he loves getting sprinkled with the hose. He calls it “rainbow,” I think because I would try to show him the rainbow in the water and that was when he first realized how fun it was to run through the water. He’s such a cutie playing in the front yard as I try to water our dry, dry garden.
Speaking in sentences: Suddenly it seems, Andrew is moving from two-word phrases to much more complex sentences. The other morning, I brought his toy elephant into his room. He looked at the elephant and said, “Good morning, elephant. I am getting my diaper changed.” Bryan and I exchanged shocked glances. When did he learn how to talk like that!
He’s also started reciting books more. He’ll often repeat a couple lines, but last night while he was taking his bath, he pretty much recited Freight Train to himself. “Moving. Going through tunnels. Going by cities. Crossing tressles. Moving in darkness, moving in daylight. Going, going (whispered) gone.” It’s amazing to watch him learn and do new things.
We were reading a book this morning about 10 little fish, and he pointed and counted the 10 fish (sometimes counting to 11) several times. He’s been really into counting for a few months, but it’s not until more recently that he’s started pointing and counting the actual number instead of pointing at a group of objects and just saying numbers for a while. It’s so weird to think that someday he’ll be reading too!
Mom’s making progress?
August 1: I’ve been pretty wrapped up at work and with evening activities, so I’ve only talked to my mom on the phone the last few days. Not much to report, but I thought that folks might like an update none-the-less.
Mom said that the leaking catheter seems to have slowed somewhat. Yesterday (Tuesday), she went into the oncology clinic for a long time. She had an appointment with Dr. Frontiera, and he said that he had talked with Dr. Matzke about scheduling a biopsy of the suspected Sister Joseph’s Nodule. It was Dr. Frontiera‘s opinion, though, that the suspected nodule was just an old umbilical hernia. Differing opinions can be hopeful! I don’t think we have a date for the biopsy yet, but that’s in the works.
Mom was at the oncology clinic for about six hours, getting two bags of saline infused through IV. She’s been drinking loads of liquids, but so much of it is leaking out of her liver as ascites that her blood pressure is getting pretty low, and she’s feeling fuzzy and tired, and generally dehydrated. Mom’s brother Peter and his wife Marci came up from Iowa and visited Mom during her time at the clinic.
I talked to Mom briefly this morning, and she said that the leaking of catheter seemed to have maybe diminished, so that was hopeful. She was discouraged that after getting all that fluid yesterday that her blood pressure was still low (99), and she is still feeling really light-headed. Throughout the day today, she’s been feeling really wiped out.
We’re getting geared up for our annual trip out to Jack’s house this weekend. Mom’s thinking about the shopping list (we have 15 attendees this year!), and Joe and I are going to acquire the food.
That’s about all I have to report today.
~Althea