Johnny had a clinic appointment on Wednesday and his counts were great — ANC of 1060! Everything else was up too, his RBC and platelets, and he seems to be eating a bit more too.

Kathleen, his tutor, is almost finished for the year, we will really miss her a lot. She has been so wonderful with all of the kids, I think Sophie will miss her just as much as Johnny. I can’t believe that school is almost done! This month is FLYING BY so fast — too fast. We are busy packing and getting ready for the move to the beach! Of course in my haste, I found that I have already packed WAY to much stuff and sent it to storage or taken it to the beach house, I just can’t wait for everything to be in one place!

I think it does us all good to be close to the water. Johnny seems to perk up when he sees his friends, to see him get enough energy to skate all day makes Mike and I so happy. He really hasn’t bounced back like we were hoping, still laying low, and even gave Mike and I the okay to pack up ALL of his skate ramps to take to Galveston. It will hopefully be about two more weeks or so before everything is moved, but that means two weeks without ramps. He will probably make me take him to the skate park here…

Our plans for the weekend have changed from day to day, and moment to moment. It was crazy! Of course we all wanted to be together for Mother’s Day, but with Granny falling the week before and not able to get around (she is staying at Aunt Carole’s house), I wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe stay here and meet Mike and the kids Saturday night, stay here the whole weekend, or just go to Galveston with my family. Then Friday came…

Kristin (9 months pregnant) was in an accident while driving Emma to school. She and Emma are fine, heck the car looks pretty good too. But I told Kris to call her doctor to see if she should get checked out, with much resistance, she finally gave in and called. Of course they wanted to see her right away. I told her I would keep Emma until she came back. Kris called about 3pm and said she has to stay over night for observation. Everything is fine, they just wanted to make sure. I said “no worries, I have Emma — you just take care of yourself and ‘baby julie’”. No she isn’t naming the baby ‘Julie’, she hasn’t told me the name, so I named the baby for her. Emma and the kids played outside for awhile, and as I was watching them, I kept seeing the girls run to the corner of the yard, — they definitely looked like they were up to something. And they were. Sophie came happily running up to me and said “Emma is eating the poison apples!” I freaked. Now Kristin will NEVER name her kid Julie. Crap. I called poison control and told them what happened and that I didn’t know what kind of plant it is. The guy at poison control told me “if you don’t know, I don’t know… (ha ha, now shut up and HELP ME!). You need to take the baby and a large piece of the plant to the nearest nursery and tell them what happened, and call me back.”

Of course Kathleen had just walked in (it’s never a dull moment at our house — dogs and kids everywhere), and said she would watch Sophie and Johnny while I ran Emma to Home Depot. Of course NO ONE at HD knew what kind of plant it was, and while they were searching for someone who knew plants, I searched the shrubs myself for a match. It didn’t take long — I tore the information card off the bush and called poison control with the name (of course I can’t remember it now), and found out she was going to live! Turns out, some people make jelly out of the berries — maybe in the Appalachians or something. WHEW! I was glad, not only for Emma, but now the baby name “Julie” was back on the table. I toyed with the thought of not telling Kris and Craig for a moment, then my babysitting skills wouldn’t be questioned, but thought against the whole idea. Emma is two now, AND a GIRL. Girls tend to talk, nay, squeal, on said perpetrators. With boys, you have to trick them into getting information out of them, not girls. Usually girls LOVE to immediately tell you what you have done wrong in graphic detail. Actually telling them “NOT to ever mention” an event or word to anyone else is like taking out a front page an add in the NY Post or something — everyone and anyone will hear the story. Once I knew she was okay, I called Kris and told her the ‘funny’ story. I think my blood pressure finally came down a few hours ago….

I also told her that I was going to stay with her that night, I didn’t want her to be alone (and I’m the nosey big sister, I wanted to ask the doctors a few questions myself). I finally got to the hospital about 8:30pm, and we just talked until about 1AM! It was nice, we didn’t have to interrupt our conversation to wipe someone’s nose (or butt), or break up a girl on girl fight (my money is always on Sophie). We laughed all night! It was nice that she was just being observed, no IV’s, meds or any middle of the night nurses coming in. Luckily all of her tests were fine — turns out the baby weighs over EIGHT pounds NOW. RIGHT NOW! She still has about 4 weeks left, but I give her less. EIGHT POUNDS! Usually they say that babies gain a pound a week the last month. ouch. double ouch. Sophie was my biggest at 8lbs. 10oz, and she was on time.

Anyway, Mike took the kids to Galveston for the day, and they had a great time — the weather was perfect and Mike even took Johnny surfing. They didn’t get home until close to 11:00pm. Of course today it rained most of the day, but it was still nice to all be a family. We laid around most of the day. I took Joey and Sophie to my mom’s and then on to Aunt Carole’s house to see granny. She looks good. She just can’t walk because of her arthritis. Poor thing.

Joey made me home made strawberry jelly, and then a PB & J. It was actually pretty good. I had lots of ‘home made’ food projects today — I guess that is what made it so special. I told the kids that all I wanted for Mother’s day was to go an entire day without a fight. And that is exactly what I got — and a whole bunch of hugs and kisses. All in all, it wasn’t what we originally planned, but it was a memorable Mother’s day — very special.

WHEW! Today’s visit went very well, Johnny’s ANC is 1350, his hemoglobin was 11.5, and his platelets were 112. His platelets keep going down, but it’s nothing to worry about, I asked what it means, and our doctor said it could be anything, the virus, the chemo, anything — but nothing to worry about.

He is still not feeling great, I had him cough (it still sounds yucky) for the doctors, and they checked his ear — both seem to be clearing up. Not looking great, but definitely not what he was on Friday. I swear he dropped 5 pounds, but after he was weighed, it was only about a pound and a half. When I told Mike, it was even hard for him to believe too. I think that the reason he isn’t feeling great is he’s not eating or drinking like he should, it’s hard on ANYONE to have a virus, then to have chemo on top of that, and then to not eat or drink. Dr. Muscal suggested that he drink some Boost, you get a lot of “bang for your buck”, even if he had 1/2 a can, it could do him some good.

As she was asking him how he was feeling, he was just laying down nodding his head. I told her that he mentioned his legs felt weird from the vincristine, and she asked him “how do you know they feel weird, does it hurt, or tingle?”, and his reply was “they are just weak, I can’t do an Ollie”. Then I had to explain what an Ollie was… I know once he gets some food in him, he will regain his strength. We are going to Galveston this weekend, and I can tell he is starting to gear up for that. I often wondered about the past 3 weeks if we lived in Galveston, would he have acted differently. Not that is he ‘acting’, just if he saw a gang of kids outside his window every day, would he have gotten dressed on a daily basis, or even tried to skate. I guess we will find out this summer how things will be….

We still have to go back next week to check counts to see if he can get up to 100% dosage on his daily chemo. His ANC is probably high right now due to a week of steroids, so it could be a “false” reading. Once we go back next Wednesday, we will know more.

He and Dr. Muscal talked “fashion” (I use that word loosely). Each week she has to check his “privates” for swelling because the testicles are a sanctuary for leukemia. During our last trip to CA, Johnny bought what he calls his “skinny jeans”, made by this skate company called Krew, I may have mentioned them before — but Johnny LOVES them — and they are VERY hard to find in his size. For his birthday we bought him two more pair, I had to order them over the internet, and they just came yesterday. The reason Dr. Muscal was so interested in his jeans was that the ones we bought in CA have a button fly, and he can never do them on his own, let alone with an IV in his hand, and it’s even harder for the doctors to figure them out. One pair of his new jeans has button fly, the other pair has a zipper. When he saw the pair with the zippers his eyes lit up and he had this big smile that went from ear to ear. Anyway, today he wore his new jeans, and Dr. Muscal commented on them as well as him wearing the ones with the buttons — NOT the zippers.

They get along really well, I think she is his favorite doctor, he even mentioned it to me a long time ago — I like her too, she always is very thoughtful, patient (with me), and thinks of everything we need to talk about. The best part is, it never seems like she’s in a hurry — which I LOVE!

This weekend we are going to start to move some stuff to the beach house, I will update more on Monday! Have a great weekend!