ONE YEAR OFF TREATMENT...really??

Wow! Yesterday Kaidan had her monthly oncology check-up, and it was her one year off treatment check-up, so they did extra blood tests, an echocardiogram, and a couple other tests. Everything looked really good, so for the next 6 months she only has to be seen every 6 weeks instead of every 4.

I can't really say that it feels like we've been done with chemo for a whole year. Some days it feels like we are still in the middle of it because of the side effects she struggles with, other days it seems like it's been forever since we were there. Either way, I'm happy that she's doing well and living a mostly normal life - she definitely deserves it.

Everyone else is doing well. Nate is recovering nicely and has gone back to work, my knee is almost back to normal, and Cash's hip complaints are few and far between. Preslee is getting geared up for a soccer tournament in Vegas over Thanksgiving and Porter has hit the terrible twos :)

Tonight I got to chat with some other cancer moms who have become great friends to me. Please keep all their little ones in your thoughts and prayers as they are all in different stages of treatment.

Halloween and Nate's surgery...

Lots has happened since my last post, so I'll do my best to recap without rambling.

Cash is doing much better. He's still complaining of the hip pain, but it's becoming more and more rare. His glands are still swollen and he's still having lots of tummy aches, but a million things could be the cause of that, so I'll try not to worry about the ONE thing that caused it with Kaidan. He is loving school too, which is nice - I'm enjoying the 9 hours a week I have with just Porter. Porter is doing great, he's usually asleep during the 9 hours a week that he's alone with me, which makes it nice too :) The girls are both doing well too. Kaidan starts her doctor appointments in 2 weeks for her 1 year post treatment and everything. She's got her labs, echo, and clinic in November and then in December she will see the GI doctor and the neurologist within a week of each other, and then have her 9 year check-up combined with her monthly cancer check all before the holidays. Something is telling me that time is going to fly and Christmas will be here WAY TOO SOON!

The kids had a lot of fun this year for Halloween. Cash was Paul Bunyan and Porter was Babe, his blue ox. They were really cute, but Porter hated his costume and it was a challenge to convince him to wear it. Preslee and Kaidan had more costumes this year than I care to admit, but they had fun. Originally, and for their school parade, Kaidan was the Twister board game and Preslee was Pippi Longstocking. For other parties Kaidan was a mummy and a clown and Preslee was a zombie (which I missed getting a picture of somehow?). The rain made trick-or-treating a little hard, but Preslee had a good time with her friends and Nate took the other 3 out to his sisters and they had fun with their cousins. He said Porter preferred to sit in the wagon and have others fill his bag for him - smart boy, already learning that eating the candy is much more fun than collecting it! We did pumpkin carving and clam chowder the week of Halloween too, but I didn't even get a picture of everyone with their pumpkins...what kind of a mother am I?? (my apologies for the random spacing of these pictures. i'm too tired to fix it.)

My knee is recovering well. I have a doctor appointment tomorrow morning and then I'm sure physical therapy will start full force...I'm so excited ;) I'm out of the brace now though, which is fabulous!

Nate is not doing so well at the moment, but hopefully his recovery will be speedy. I'm typing this from the hospital as I listen to his oxygen machine and other random things beeping. He had quite a surgery: his deviated septum was shaved and fixed, something was done with his sinuses, he had his tonsils, adenoids, and uvula removed, and then they drilled a hole in the bottom of his jaw and did something funky with his tongue, so he's got a 3 inch incision along his chin area. This is all an attempt to help with his SEVERE sleep apnea and hopefully save his life. I hope it works. Right now he needs to be able to keep his oxygen saturations higher without assistance, swallow food/water/medicine, and get the drain from his incision removed. Hopefully we'll go home tomorrow, but it may be Saturday. He was really nervous about the surgery and he's still struggling, poor guy, he doesn't want me to leave his side. It's been a rough couple of days. Tonight the boys and I are camping out here....should be interesting!

That's about it with us Sudbury's. Thanks for reading, I think I rambled....

Sudbury happenings...

Sorry it has taken me so long to update on this week's doctor appointments. I'm a slacker.

Cash's blood work was all great, but his ultrasound did show some fluid around his right hip. It's called toxic synovitis, but that name makes it sound much worse than it is. Basically we have to wait it out. We are treating him with Motrin twice a day and hopefully it's better by within a week or two. The doctor said it usually lasts about a month, but he's already been dealing with it for at least two weeks.

Kaidan missed her doctor appointment because I haven't figured out how to clone myself yet and I was dealing with Cash, but her blood counts look great and she has a full work up next month, so I figured she'd be okay. Next month she will be ONE YEAR OFF TREATMENT!! She will be having an echocardiogram to look for any possible damage from the chemo to her heart, seeing the GI doctor for her stomach issues, a neurologist for her headaches, and she will have her normal blood work and clinic visit. Sounds fun, right??

Everyone else is doing well. I will keep you all posted.

Please pray for Skyler and his mom Crystal http://crystalandskyler.blogspot.com/ .

monthly check-up and hip pain...

Kaidan has her monthly check-up this afternoon. She had her blood work done yesterday and I don't have the exact results, but I did talk with her doctor for a minute and she said it looked great.

Also, Cash is having more blood work done today and an ultrasound on his hip. He's still complaining almost daily of pain and the past 2 days he's been in tears about it. In fact, yesterday afternoon he was playing the Wii and he just started bawling and wouldn't walk. I gave him tylenol and a heat pack and he fell asleep, but even in his sleep he kept waking up and crying out to me.

Preslee started an antibiotic Friday for a possible sinus infection. She has had this dry cough for over 2 weeks now and the antibiotic was a last ditch attempt to try to get rid of it. She has no other symptoms, but the cough keeps her up at night and you can tell it's wearing her down. Anyway, the medicine doesn't seem to be helping, so she may be visiting the doctor again today as well.

I am recovering from my knee surgery quite well. I started physical therapy today and it went well. I'm sure it will just get worse and worse though...I hate physical therapy. It is nice to get my leg out of the brace and stretch it out a little. The goal is to get rid of the swelling and be able to bend to 90 degrees within the next 2 weeks. The physical therapist is a little concerned because I have some strange swelling below my knee that just popped up. It doesn't appear to be a blood clot, but it is a concern, so I'm watching it closely.

What else...I think that about sums us up right now. We are kind of a mess around here, but we are functioning. I finally got my house cleaned today, that felt so good. Nate did a great job of trying to keep up on stuff while I was down, but he doesn't do things like toilets and mopping unless he absolutely has to, so the house was in need of a good cleaning. I felt relieved to get that done, now I just need to find time (and money) to sit down and pay bills. Ugh.

Nate's surgery is fast approaching. He had a second opinion today and the doctor recommended the same things as his original doctor did, so I guess it's a go for sure now. He is really nervous. He's getting his sinuses/tonsils/adenoids/deviated septum/etc. all worked on - so it's quite an intense surgery. He's scheduled the first week of November for that.

I'll update again tonight about today's doctor visits. I hope you all have a great day.

Cash's bloodwork looks great!!!

All of Cash's blood work came back normal. He is doing well, except for the occasional complaint that his hip is hurting. The doctor said to bring him back in if he's still complaining next week. We are very grateful that he is healthy and that his blood work showed no abnormalities.

Please keep the families of Devan Lore and Thomas Musser in your thoughts and prayers, both of these boys entered heaven recently. Also, please pray for Grant Olsen and his family. He is in the maintenance phase of his treatment and has not been feeling well for quite some time. His doctors just confirmed relapse. Closer to home is cute Erin, she has been at PCMC for 22 days and is dealing with some pain, cellulitis, and her ANC has been 0 for most of those 22 days. Her mom has such a strong testimony and you can just feel her faith in her blog updates. Also at PCMC, Skyler and his mom Crystal. Skyler has been in the hospital for almost 2 months, in the PICU most of that time. Please keep all of these kids and their families in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.

Many of you know I had knee surgery Wednesday. The surgery went well and I'm home recovering. It's been tough, because I hate not being able to get up and move around, but I'm in a lot more pain than I expected. I'm hoping that I'll start feeling better before the weekend is over. Thank you all for checking in on us. I'll keep you posted on Cash's leg. We love you all!

oh my gosh, what if...

Today has been a rough day for me...really rough...an on the edge, ready to cry day. For those of you who know me, that's a pretty bad day. I don't cry very often at all.

Here's the story...

Cash has been complaining of leg pain since early last week. The first day was pretty bad, he wouldn't hardly walk. But, as time went on, he seemed better - only complaining periodically. By Friday he was still complaining off and on and Nate thought I should take him to the doctor. (Secretly I felt that way since the first day, but I really have been trying to minimize my thoughts when they start with "oh my gosh, what if...") Anyway, I decided we'd get through the weekend and see how he did. By Monday he was still complaining, so today I called and made him an appointment. I felt somewhat stupid because he is still playing and running around and it's really just sporadically that he complains. But, there I was, sitting in the doctor's office as she's checking him out - I'm telling her how dumb I feel. Then she asks him if his throat hurts...he says no. She tells me his lymph nodes are swollen. I am not kidding - my heart hit the floor. Suddenly my mind is RACING - swollen lymph nodes, random leg pain, more tired than usual, random nausea...

You see where I'm coming from, especially if you are part of the cancer world, right? I was freaking out inside. She ran a strep test and I was praying for it to be positive, but...NO. So she says we really need to have his hips xrayed, just to make sure...and I may as well get some blood tests done while I'm up there, you know, just to make sure...

Well, here we are at the end of the day, not all of his labs are back, but his CBC is and it's normal. His xray was fine. I do have to say that Cash was so brave! He did not want to get his blood drawn, but when it came time to do it he was such a strong, little man! Not a single tear! (is that how you spell tear? it looks weird) Anyway, the rest of the lab results should be back by tomorrow or Thursday, but so far so good! I cannot even explain the relief I am feeling right now; oh wait, now he's telling us his back hurts...real bad, and his leg is still bugging him, and his glands are still swollen! (This is where I let out a HUGE sigh....) I am so done with this being my life. I want aches and pains to be growing pains, I want a cold to be a cold, a bloody nose to be because it was picked, an extra nap to be because of a long day of playing, I want a fever to be a simple virus, a stomach ache to be because you ate your dessert too fast; you get the picture. But that will never be our life again. I try, I really do. We minimize most of the complaints that our kids give, because they usually are all those "normal" things, but in the back of our minds there is always that voice saying "oh my gosh, what if...."

The day wasn't all bad, we did get to go to the pumpkin patch with my grandma and some cousins after we were done at the hospital - that was fun, even though the trip started with Kaidan in the outhouse, crying that she just wanted to go home because her stomach pain was absolutely unbearable, but after a few minutes she felt better. (Here is another HUGE sigh...)

So, a good ending to a bad day.... I am thankful for that, so I'll stop complaining now :)
I really am grateful for all the good things, but I am going to be honest, there are days I wish so much that this wasn't our lot in life. I would love to be "normal", but I'm pretty sure I'm slightly psychotic and I think I'm going to blame childhood cancer for that.