A Reprieve

Michael saw his oncologist this morning and the doc has decided not to start the chemo back up until Thursday, based on some symptoms M's still having. The intial dosage is based on a person's height and weight, but it's trial and error to figure out what a particular person can cope with with their unique metabolism and tolerance. Michael is still having radiation every morning, so it's not as if treatment has stopped completely. Dr. A has been very clear that this break from the chemo will not prolong M's treatment, nor will it jeopardize the effectiveness of the overall treatment.

I'm glad he's getting a break. Last week was really rough. It feels like my old Michael is back for now. It's nice to see him eating again, and not hobbling around in pain. Hopefully by the time he goes back on chemo Thursday, the levels in his system will have lowered enough that any side effects from starting up again will be minimal.

Oh yeah, and the PICC line entry site in his arm is still infected apparently, so he's on another round of antibiotics for that. The thing about chemo is it's poison. It's this very toxic shit that wipes out a person's immune system and makes it much more difficult for their body to heal, so any infection, wound, or illness he gets while he's on chemo (and I would imagine for some time after he's completely finished with it late this year) will be much slower to heal than it normally would be.

~~~

Believe it or not, cancer and Michael's treatment aren't the only things that have been going on, although they're certainly never far from my mind, and I'm sure not from Michael's either. But life has a funny way of marching on. Even with this happening, the kids still take center stage.

The twins are loving their dance class, and Mommy got her creative juices flowing today and made some lovely tutus for them (pics coming soon!). I think I'm going to have to make some more just for play since all three girls love dress-up so much. Also, we've pretty much decided to go ahead and enroll the twins in kindergarten for this fall. We've been torn about it for some time, mostly because of Daisy's phobias, but their preschool teacher as well as Daisy's speech teacher and the school psychologist have all said that the girls are ready for kindergarten and Daisy's phobias aren't a reason to hold them back. She may very well have these phobias a year from now, and we can't hold her back forever. So I guess we're taking the leap. But really, that's still a way off.

Lilah's big girl bed is due to be delivered later this week, so she will soon be moving in with the twins, the twins' beds will be put up as bunk beds, and Finn will be moving out of our room (sniff sniff) and into a crib in his own room. Not sure if it will take place this weekend, but soon. So we're in for a little (more) upheaval.

I guess that's about it for now.