Well, there goes another lightening fast year of school. Unfortunately the summers go by SO
fast, it's sad to me. I know a lot of parents who can't wait for school to start and dread having
their kids home. Not me. I love having Liv around and not having so many schedules to follow.
Since she is an only child, I do not find myself hoarse by 10 a.m. due to yelling at fighting siblings.
The only complaints I hear are "I'm bored" or "What do we have to eat?" We leave for a 9 day
stint in Cape May this Sunday. I sure hope NJ has finally rained itself out. Then she goes to a
day camp for the remainder of July. It is boring for her not to do camp. She's used to being with
kids all day at school and then it's just boring old me. It's just a 9:30 to 2:30 program and it allows me to still get my stuff done without her sitting around here bored. Tim's work is busy still but he's determined to get time off even if he loses jobs. We will go away again in August and I'm hoping to really spend some quality time together
this summer. The days just fly and I don't want to waste them. Happy summer everybody.
Hope everyone gets to get some adventure in.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
On softball and self-esteem
Well last night was our final game. It had been rained out and re-scheduled and we were lucky
to get it in at all. We played the other team in our town that we beat in the beginning of the season. They had a rough season. They actually had some better players than us but(I have to brag here) they didn't have our daughter, who takes pitching lessons and is very responsible for why we won any games this year. They do have one of their daughters making big strides on the mound though. So last night I had to tread a thin line between letting all my girls
play in an infield position at least one inning even though sometimes the positions were a little over their heads and staying competitive enough to win but you gotta keep the kids and
parents happy. The kids don't think the outfield positions are important. I also let all my sixth grade pitchers get up to pitch as they will be low men on the
totem poles next year(they move up to junior high) and probably not get the opportunities to pitch as much as this year, if at all.
Well Olivia pitched the first inning. She allowed no runs and made 2 if not three of the outs. She struck out
one, fielded a grounder and threw her out at first and I can't remember if she struck out another
or it was a fielding play. We were winning(4-0). Then I pitched 3 of my sixth graders. One of them is usually pretty good but not last night. In 2 innings,
they gave up 10 runs. I had to pitch them. 2 are taking lessons now and you have to reward that. We were scoring too and
I knew we could stay with them and we did. Then we went into the fourth and it was dark. The other team wanted it sooooo bad. Their coach was yelling at his daughter and other girls when they made mistakes. Their parents were cheering like crazy from the bleachers. We were ahead by only 1. The lead had flopped back and forth with each half inning, but now I
was putting Olivia back in who was not in her top form as we had not played in 2 1/2 weeks due
to rain but she's still a great pitcher despite being half the size of the other pitchers. Olivia pitched well enough to protect the win but then 2 of our girls made major fielding errors, missing 2 easy outs, and they scored a tying run. We had one out and they had the bases loaded. They only needed one run to beat us and their team was going nuts. The coaches and parents were yelling and totally trying to psyche their girls into getting it done and then our UNBELIEVABLE daughter proceded to strike out 2 batters in a row(the first with just 3 pitches) and retire the inning!!! It was magic. I think a tie was the right way to end the season. It was too dark to play another inning. These teams are from the same school and they are all friends. The
other team would have been crushed to lose again and I would have felt bad if we had lost (the girls wanted the win) knowing I had made
a choice to be a little more fair to our weaker players but a little less competitive. This way, no one went home bummed out and that's a beautiful thing. What a game. Even the umpire got into it, it was so exciting. Parents were too excited to even sit down by the end. I wanted to throw my kid in the air, I was just busting with pride.
The girls all ran off the field and said "great job Olivia." She was on cloud nine. I wanted this season to end with our daughter on the mound ending the game with a strike-out and it happened. She earned that right and after getting on base on all 3 of her at-bats(one walk, actually she got hit with a pitch and she played on a hurt ankle all night) and two base hits,
she really was our MVP last night. The parents and girls all thanked Tim and I for our coaching.
I am really proud of the job we did but I got so much out of this, I can't tell you. Coaching kids
and seeing them do well and feel great about themselves is some kinda high. Watching your own
kid strike out good batters and win games for her team is incredible. Seeing 3 head coaches from opposing teams, as well as parents,
come over and congratulate Olivia at the end of the game is so cool(I make sure to do the same for other teams too.) What a great season. It was soggy but so much fun. Got this old girl's blood pumping for sure.
to get it in at all. We played the other team in our town that we beat in the beginning of the season. They had a rough season. They actually had some better players than us but(I have to brag here) they didn't have our daughter, who takes pitching lessons and is very responsible for why we won any games this year. They do have one of their daughters making big strides on the mound though. So last night I had to tread a thin line between letting all my girls
play in an infield position at least one inning even though sometimes the positions were a little over their heads and staying competitive enough to win but you gotta keep the kids and
parents happy. The kids don't think the outfield positions are important. I also let all my sixth grade pitchers get up to pitch as they will be low men on the
totem poles next year(they move up to junior high) and probably not get the opportunities to pitch as much as this year, if at all.
Well Olivia pitched the first inning. She allowed no runs and made 2 if not three of the outs. She struck out
one, fielded a grounder and threw her out at first and I can't remember if she struck out another
or it was a fielding play. We were winning(4-0). Then I pitched 3 of my sixth graders. One of them is usually pretty good but not last night. In 2 innings,
they gave up 10 runs. I had to pitch them. 2 are taking lessons now and you have to reward that. We were scoring too and
I knew we could stay with them and we did. Then we went into the fourth and it was dark. The other team wanted it sooooo bad. Their coach was yelling at his daughter and other girls when they made mistakes. Their parents were cheering like crazy from the bleachers. We were ahead by only 1. The lead had flopped back and forth with each half inning, but now I
was putting Olivia back in who was not in her top form as we had not played in 2 1/2 weeks due
to rain but she's still a great pitcher despite being half the size of the other pitchers. Olivia pitched well enough to protect the win but then 2 of our girls made major fielding errors, missing 2 easy outs, and they scored a tying run. We had one out and they had the bases loaded. They only needed one run to beat us and their team was going nuts. The coaches and parents were yelling and totally trying to psyche their girls into getting it done and then our UNBELIEVABLE daughter proceded to strike out 2 batters in a row(the first with just 3 pitches) and retire the inning!!! It was magic. I think a tie was the right way to end the season. It was too dark to play another inning. These teams are from the same school and they are all friends. The
other team would have been crushed to lose again and I would have felt bad if we had lost (the girls wanted the win) knowing I had made
a choice to be a little more fair to our weaker players but a little less competitive. This way, no one went home bummed out and that's a beautiful thing. What a game. Even the umpire got into it, it was so exciting. Parents were too excited to even sit down by the end. I wanted to throw my kid in the air, I was just busting with pride.
The girls all ran off the field and said "great job Olivia." She was on cloud nine. I wanted this season to end with our daughter on the mound ending the game with a strike-out and it happened. She earned that right and after getting on base on all 3 of her at-bats(one walk, actually she got hit with a pitch and she played on a hurt ankle all night) and two base hits,
she really was our MVP last night. The parents and girls all thanked Tim and I for our coaching.
I am really proud of the job we did but I got so much out of this, I can't tell you. Coaching kids
and seeing them do well and feel great about themselves is some kinda high. Watching your own
kid strike out good batters and win games for her team is incredible. Seeing 3 head coaches from opposing teams, as well as parents,
come over and congratulate Olivia at the end of the game is so cool(I make sure to do the same for other teams too.) What a great season. It was soggy but so much fun. Got this old girl's blood pumping for sure.
Monday, June 15, 2009
I'M SO CONFUSED!!!
I don't know what is going on now. It appears that this band may not be myeloma after all.
I am so afraid to get my hopes up. I just spent 3 days coming to terms with the fact that this
remission did not last as long as I hoped and now it turns out this may be from an infection
or inflammation of some sort. The doctor said something to that effect but I thought that this
sentence meant that a tiny m-spike was detected. Apparently, it may not mean that. I think....
I don't know..... I'm trying to find out now...... OY!!!!!! My sister is in the medical field. I try not
to ask her questions as I know it's tough on her when it's a family member but she told me that
if this result did not say that it detected a monoclonal protein(it didn't) then the "band" it found
may be the IGG immunoglobulin reacting to an infection. She's a pretty smart cookie and labwork is what she does so I'm inclined to think the gal knows what she's talking about. Although he is asymptomatic for
one, there are a few labs that did show that he may have something like that going on.
Please GOD, let that be it.
I am so afraid to get my hopes up. I just spent 3 days coming to terms with the fact that this
remission did not last as long as I hoped and now it turns out this may be from an infection
or inflammation of some sort. The doctor said something to that effect but I thought that this
sentence meant that a tiny m-spike was detected. Apparently, it may not mean that. I think....
I don't know..... I'm trying to find out now...... OY!!!!!! My sister is in the medical field. I try not
to ask her questions as I know it's tough on her when it's a family member but she told me that
if this result did not say that it detected a monoclonal protein(it didn't) then the "band" it found
may be the IGG immunoglobulin reacting to an infection. She's a pretty smart cookie and labwork is what she does so I'm inclined to think the gal knows what she's talking about. Although he is asymptomatic for
one, there are a few labs that did show that he may have something like that going on.
Please GOD, let that be it.
Friday, June 12, 2009
The shoe dropped
Well the bad thing about things going so well is you know there's nowhere to go but down.
Tim had his first appt. in 3 months today. I was nervous as usual but this time I must say
I was worried. When he had the flu a few months ago, his white cells really dropped and at one point his CBC showed his hemoglobin as being a full point down. The nurse said don't worry about it. It was probably just from the flu but I was not convinced. When I saw his CBC, I thought GREAT. His white cells were in normal range for the first time in I don't know how
long. His HGB was back up to 13.1 and platelets were still low range of normal. Then I looked
at the rest and it showed a slight band in the IGG Kappa region. CRAP!!! I had hoped to go through this summer without appts. and with Tim being in remission. Having just found out at
the end of last summer that he was in remission, it was less than 10 months of enjoying this
good fortune. Oh well. The doc said this was nothing to get worked up about. It sounded like
he could not even be positive this was the myeloma but I don't see how. The rest of his bloodwork looked great but that damn sentence. Well, now I just hope he stays stable for
a long while and can avoid chemo. I'm disappointed. I knew it would be here eventually but
having seen people on the myeloma listserv who went 4 and 5 years from a Velcade remission,
I prayed Tim would be one of them. Gotta go.
Tim had his first appt. in 3 months today. I was nervous as usual but this time I must say
I was worried. When he had the flu a few months ago, his white cells really dropped and at one point his CBC showed his hemoglobin as being a full point down. The nurse said don't worry about it. It was probably just from the flu but I was not convinced. When I saw his CBC, I thought GREAT. His white cells were in normal range for the first time in I don't know how
long. His HGB was back up to 13.1 and platelets were still low range of normal. Then I looked
at the rest and it showed a slight band in the IGG Kappa region. CRAP!!! I had hoped to go through this summer without appts. and with Tim being in remission. Having just found out at
the end of last summer that he was in remission, it was less than 10 months of enjoying this
good fortune. Oh well. The doc said this was nothing to get worked up about. It sounded like
he could not even be positive this was the myeloma but I don't see how. The rest of his bloodwork looked great but that damn sentence. Well, now I just hope he stays stable for
a long while and can avoid chemo. I'm disappointed. I knew it would be here eventually but
having seen people on the myeloma listserv who went 4 and 5 years from a Velcade remission,
I prayed Tim would be one of them. Gotta go.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Good luck, bad luck?
So there's this story about an indian who gets injured and they say to his father "oh such bad luck" and the father says "maybe" and the story goes back and forth between good luck and bad luck with his son's life winding up being spared because he could not go to battle while injured and everyone else was killed in the
battle and so on. You get the picture. This morning, we had a terrible storm just as I was bringing Olivia
to school. The sky went black in a matter of minutes and at 8 am, it looked like midnight outside.
When I came home, I decided to park my car close to the walkway that leads to my back door
instead of down by the garage as it was raining so bad and there was plenty of lightning too.
When I got into the car this afternoon to go pick Olivia up, I saw that a large branch had fallen on the driveway
right where my car would have been parked. I thought "Whew, wasn't that a stroke of good luck.
Maybe it was divine intervention!" As I drove home, I told Olivia about it but just
as I pulled down the driveway, I saw where that branch made its original landing before I guess
it tumbled onto the driveway. It was Tim's pick-up truck. Uh-oh. The windshield is shattered,
the chrome moulding is shot. So much for that good luck. But there's always 2 ways to look at
things. His truck is older, doesn't get used as much, already had a chip in the windshield anyway
(as does my car) and at least no one was in it at the time. It also seems to have missed the whole hood that he just had painted a few years ago. He still won't be happy. He always hated that tree too. I can hear the chainsaws now. Just hope this doesn't turn into an excuse to finally buy a new truck and cost me 30,ooo clams. I'm gonna have to put the ol' kibash on that deal.
battle and so on. You get the picture. This morning, we had a terrible storm just as I was bringing Olivia
to school. The sky went black in a matter of minutes and at 8 am, it looked like midnight outside.
When I came home, I decided to park my car close to the walkway that leads to my back door
instead of down by the garage as it was raining so bad and there was plenty of lightning too.
When I got into the car this afternoon to go pick Olivia up, I saw that a large branch had fallen on the driveway
right where my car would have been parked. I thought "Whew, wasn't that a stroke of good luck.
Maybe it was divine intervention!" As I drove home, I told Olivia about it but just
as I pulled down the driveway, I saw where that branch made its original landing before I guess
it tumbled onto the driveway. It was Tim's pick-up truck. Uh-oh. The windshield is shattered,
the chrome moulding is shot. So much for that good luck. But there's always 2 ways to look at
things. His truck is older, doesn't get used as much, already had a chip in the windshield anyway
(as does my car) and at least no one was in it at the time. It also seems to have missed the whole hood that he just had painted a few years ago. He still won't be happy. He always hated that tree too. I can hear the chainsaws now. Just hope this doesn't turn into an excuse to finally buy a new truck and cost me 30,ooo clams. I'm gonna have to put the ol' kibash on that deal.
Monday, June 1, 2009
The cancer club
The other night, there was a relay for life cancer walk near us. We had a softball game and could not participate but Olivia saw a bunch of kids wearing team t-shirts in school that day and wanted to go. I took her over there for a short time before the game so she could be a part of
it. We went back again after the game and stayed till late that night. There are several kids in our school system who are battling cancer. I'm actually aware of more kids than parents who have it. These things are tough. Olivia ran around and played with some school
chums but seeing kids with cancer rips me up and getting those little shockwaves of reality
that run through me everytime I stop to think, "shit, my husband actually has cancer" isn't
much fun either. I saw a woman who lost her husband over a year ago and all these reminders
of what it really is to be in the "cancer club" just stink. I saw one of Olivia's classmates who
is in remission from Hodgkins getting lots of attention that night. I'm sure it was fun for her
but I'm also sure she would opt out of this club in a heartbeat as most of us would.
There's no doubt that you are touched by the things some folks do and you get a whole new
perspective on life when you become a family touched by cancer or serious illness. You certainly learn a lot too but I'd trade it all in to be able to be "normal" again. Our life has felt very close to normal since Tim has been off treatment. With the exception of those "hold your breath again" labs and dr. appointments, we try to put it out of our minds but sometimes when we are
in a group of people, I think to myself, all these people are living a normal life and ours as we
knew it is over. I find that I have to play constant mind games with myself. I have to keep pushing thoughts out of my mind if I want to be able to at least ACT and function normally.
Nothing is ever truly sweet anymore, it's bittersweet. Everything in life takes on completely
new meanings and it's not the same. I think the three of us have learned to adapt pretty well. It's the only
thing you can do. Well not really, you can fall apart but that seems like it would suck even more
than this. I've said it before, I don't know how Tim does it. I do know that because he can hold
it together is the main reason why Olivia and I can deal with this as well as we have. His attitude
is really incredible. There has been nothing that has happened in the last 2+ years that has amazed me more than his mental strength in all of this. He really deserves all the credit for
showing all of us around him what TRUE strength really is.
it. We went back again after the game and stayed till late that night. There are several kids in our school system who are battling cancer. I'm actually aware of more kids than parents who have it. These things are tough. Olivia ran around and played with some school
chums but seeing kids with cancer rips me up and getting those little shockwaves of reality
that run through me everytime I stop to think, "shit, my husband actually has cancer" isn't
much fun either. I saw a woman who lost her husband over a year ago and all these reminders
of what it really is to be in the "cancer club" just stink. I saw one of Olivia's classmates who
is in remission from Hodgkins getting lots of attention that night. I'm sure it was fun for her
but I'm also sure she would opt out of this club in a heartbeat as most of us would.
There's no doubt that you are touched by the things some folks do and you get a whole new
perspective on life when you become a family touched by cancer or serious illness. You certainly learn a lot too but I'd trade it all in to be able to be "normal" again. Our life has felt very close to normal since Tim has been off treatment. With the exception of those "hold your breath again" labs and dr. appointments, we try to put it out of our minds but sometimes when we are
in a group of people, I think to myself, all these people are living a normal life and ours as we
knew it is over. I find that I have to play constant mind games with myself. I have to keep pushing thoughts out of my mind if I want to be able to at least ACT and function normally.
Nothing is ever truly sweet anymore, it's bittersweet. Everything in life takes on completely
new meanings and it's not the same. I think the three of us have learned to adapt pretty well. It's the only
thing you can do. Well not really, you can fall apart but that seems like it would suck even more
than this. I've said it before, I don't know how Tim does it. I do know that because he can hold
it together is the main reason why Olivia and I can deal with this as well as we have. His attitude
is really incredible. There has been nothing that has happened in the last 2+ years that has amazed me more than his mental strength in all of this. He really deserves all the credit for
showing all of us around him what TRUE strength really is.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Headin' north
Well, we are gonna try to get another vacation in. We normally go to Vermont for Memorial Day.
Now that Olivia is in school, that means missing a few days but I've always been one to think that travelling can teach kids more than they learn in the classroom anyway. She will be working on the dairy farm across the street and she loves it. A few less days around Mr. Adkins makes this a win-win situation. My parents will be going up too and staying with my sister and brother-in-law in Craftsbury so this should be a good time. Just hoping for some warm weather(we've had snow on May 31st up there before) and that the black flies don't hatch while we're there. As always, I have a lot that has to be done before we leave and I'll be exhausted by the time we jump in the "mommy van" but it's worth it to have some respite from the responsibilities
around here.
Now that Olivia is in school, that means missing a few days but I've always been one to think that travelling can teach kids more than they learn in the classroom anyway. She will be working on the dairy farm across the street and she loves it. A few less days around Mr. Adkins makes this a win-win situation. My parents will be going up too and staying with my sister and brother-in-law in Craftsbury so this should be a good time. Just hoping for some warm weather(we've had snow on May 31st up there before) and that the black flies don't hatch while we're there. As always, I have a lot that has to be done before we leave and I'll be exhausted by the time we jump in the "mommy van" but it's worth it to have some respite from the responsibilities
around here.
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