March 12: Andrew is so much fun!! He’s laughing and reaching and is engaging more and more with the people and objects around him. Photos in this week’s gallery include playing with April and visiting with Alex and Clara…friends from my office.
We had an Oscar-watching party last weekend, which was great fun, and the past couple days have been warm and full of the promise of spring. We saw and heard a large flock of sandhill cranes fly over our house yesterday. Spring is on the way! Here’s a website with some nice quotes about spring.
Andrew is getting more and more adventurous with food. He started eating Cheerios last weekend, and I think that was a major turning point in his experience with solid food. He loves focusing intently to pick up each Cheerio and then to carefully try to maneuver the part of his hand holding the tasty morsel into his mouth. His success rate is at about 1 in mouth out of 4 attempted.
Andrew’s solid foods don’t gag him when they’re not totally smooth this week, and he’s starting to enjoy mashed carrots, avocado, and little pieces of fruit and tofu. The little guy is sitting next to me as I type, and I imagine he’s saying “Hi to all!”
Chemo treatments are staying the course
March 12: Mom had her second round of chemo on Tuesday, March 7.
She was scheduled to go to Mayo for a consultation with an oncologist there on March 3, but at the last minute, we found out that the insurance didn’t go through. So she’s currently going through an appeal process, and in the meantime, she’s proceeding with the clinical trial protocol. At some point, she’ll go back up to Mayo to have a follow-up appointment with Dr. Farnell and hopefully also get a consult with an oncologist there.
Mom’s post-surgery chemo protocol calls for two weeks of chemo followed by one week off. So she had treatments on Feb. 14 and 21, had the 28th off, and had another treatment on March 7. She said that her main side effect is fatigue a couple days later. She’s scheduled for treatment on March 14, 28, and April 4. We thought she was supposed to have 15 rounds of post-surgery chemo, but according to the arm of the clinical trial that she’s assigned to, she’s just suppposed to have six treatments. Not sure if that’s a good things since she’ll have less icky treatments or a bad thing because more treatments would be more effective.
Yesterday Mom and Andrew and I went shopping for the afternoon and then spent the evening togehter. It was a great day. Beautiful weather and fun in every respect. Plus we got a great coat for mom and some cute clothes for Andrew!
Mom’s post-surgery chemo regime has begun
Feb 27: It’s almost six weeks since Mom’s successful surgery, and she is well on the road to recovery. So far along the road, in fact, that she started her post-surgery chemo regime on Valentine’s Day. She is scheduled to get an infusion of gemcitabine every two out of three Tuesdays for 15 weeks. I think she said that put her at finishing in June. The 28th will be her first week off. During her first week of treatment, Mom had some negative side effects, mostly relating to headaches and racing pulse. She went into the clinic for infusions of saline on Friday, and by Saturday she was feeling better.
On Friday, March 3, Mom is going to be heading back to Mayo for a follow-up appointment with Dr. Farnell and with an oncologist there. I’ll let you know what they say!
We’re on to the next phase of treatment…and Mom is doing a fabulous job.
~Althea
Continue reading “Mom’s post-surgery chemo regime has begun”
Ahh…a vacation in Texas
Feb. 26: We’re just back from a lovely visit to Texas where we moved in with Bryan’s parents for the week. Andrew’s day care provider went on vacation, so we decided to modify our planned weekend trip to Texas to a full week. Ben and Melanie came down from Dallas for the weekend, and we really enjoyed our brief visit with them.
Photos from our trip are available in the gallery. Andrew came down with a head-cold on Monday, and he spent most of the week coughing and sneezing. But he was happy even so. Granny Lu earned her wings or super-hero status or some level of sainthood by getting up early every morning with Andrew so Bryan and I could sleep in. I think it worked out well for everyone.
Bryan and his dad got to golf one day, and we ended our visit by getting to see several of Bryan’s parent’s friends. I’m really glad that they had an opportunity to share their grandbaby with their friends!
I also posted a few photos of Andrew on Valentine’s Day. He had a great time eating some of his Valentines:) And now it’s almost March! The days are getting longer…
Our happy boy is back
Feb. 12: For the last week, Andrew has felt so much better, and it is just wonderful to have our smiley boy back. 
He woke up this morning feeling good and was playing in his crib and shouting “baba ba ba Ba BA BA BA BA!”
On Monday last week, we had a few friends over, and it was cool to watch Andrew interact with other babies. They all sat on his sheepskin rug and played with toys. Andrew is an observing kid, and when someone took a toy from him, he didn’t react much. He mostly watched … startled and surprised. We put him in a johnny jump-up last night, and he was jumping and jumping. This is the first time he’s gotten the hang of how that game is supposed to work.
He’s eating a variety of solids now, but he still only really likes yogurt, bananas, and sweet potatoes. It’s cute to watch how excited he gets when he is eating food he likes.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Hope yours is lots of fun. New photos from the last week are in the gallery.
Mom came to visit me
Jan. 31: To all those who have been checking my website for updates on Mom’s continued recovery, I apologize for the long delay between posts. Andrew’s recent bouts with pink eye, a high fever, and getting two new teeth sapped all my extra time and energy.
But the good news is that there really hasn’t been much to report in the last week or so. Mom continues to improve. She went to Terry’s condo last week, went out to Culvers with Dad on Saturday, and yesterday Dad brought her over to my place for the afternoon. She kept me company while we tended to a somewhat unhappy Andrew.
She’s still very tender and taking it slow. Several naps help. But she’s looking good, and I’m sort of awed at how well she’s recovering. Mom has an appointment back up at Mayo in the next week when I believe she meets with an oncologist there to talk about additional chemo options. I’ll post an update when we know more about what her next treatment will be.
Thanks again to so, so, so many people for thinking of Mom while she had her surgery. I still can’t believe that it went so well.
We have teeth!
Jan. 31: It’s been an intense week with little Andrew. He’s helping us grow as parents.
Last Tuesday, we had our first experience with Pink Eye. The little fellow had lots of goobies in his eyes, and the doctor took one look at him and prescribed antibiotic eye ointment. He wasn’t too upset by the whole thing, but since it is contagious, Bryan and I both took a day off work to stay home with him. Then on Friday night, he started running a fever. Over the course of the weekend, it skyrocketed, and Andrew was really miserable. On Saturday, we were excited…stunned really…to feel a sliver of a tooth peeking out from Andrew’s bottom gums. On Monday, I felt its partner peeking through. We can’t see either yet, but they’re coming in. A low fever is sometimes associated with teething, but since his fever was so high, it appears that he was hit with a double-whammy of teething and being sick in the same weekend. He’s better today (Tuesday), but still needing a lot of extra loving. So Bryan and I each took a half day off to be with him.
Andrew is growing up! I’m feeling so proud of him. That and general exhaustion from helping him cope with this exciting new development. He’s not so keen on the teething experience. Photos from the last couple weeks are in the gallery.
Mom is back home!
Jan 21: It’s 1 pm, and Mom just walked in the door of her home. Yay! Terry drove up to Mayo last night, and this morning Mom and Maretta and Dad and Terry came back home.
Duncan went bonkers when Mom came in, and the cats continue to circle her.
We had a beautiful snowfall yesterday, so once again the outside world is white and bright. Mom is feeling well…the drive home wasn’t bad…and she’s beginning to catch up on the newspapers she missed. We’re all so glad to have our mommy back at home.
Mom Unplugged
Jan. 18, 8 pm: All tubes, plugs, and other wires and equipment are removed! Mom is moving freely and continues to make forward progress. I spoke with Maretta, and she said that Mom had some baked potato for dinner tonight. That’s the good news. The bad news is that now that she is eating she is feeling pretty nauseated and crummy in the tummy. Hopefully those feelings will subside as her digestive system re-establishes itself in its new route.
Mom’s doctors continue to be pleased with her progress, and she’s looking at potentially coming home this weekend.
Maretta had an adventure with an amphibian yesterday. As she was adjusting a nice potted plant, a tropical frog jumped out at her. She said it had big sticky toes and that it climbed the wall and that it changed color to match the surroundings. Apparently the nurses captured it and put it in a bucket with some green leaves. I wish I had been there to see it!
That’s the news for now:) ~Althea
Knitting makes a girl feel good
Jan. 16, 1 pm: I talked to Michael and Joey before they left for Madison today. They said that Mom just feels better every day. She spent much of the morning working on knitting a cable blanket for little Andrew. The sun shines across the room onto her bed, so it is pretty cozy. More walks are planned for the afternoon.
The Gatorade Mom sipped yesterday made her feel a little ill, but she’s moving on to some broth today (her first real nutrition since Tuesday the 10th!). So things are pretty quiet at Mayo today. And I’m having a fun day at home with Andrew. We went out to have lunch with a group of our friends with babies. They are all getting so big!
~Althea