Ladies and Gentlemen.... Start Your Engines!

This is the last normal weekend of the next year(ish).

We got a call from the nurse practitioner who works with Dr. Robertson tonight, and she and Shelley talked for over an hour.  Here are Shelley's notes from the conversation:

A short version of the notes:

• We're most likely going to start chemotherapy on Tuesday.
• They told us to expect to be admitted for 4 days for the first round of chemo.  They'll deliver the 4 drugs during the first three days, and then keep her on IV for the last day as the last drug is quite dehydrating.
• For those who are in the biz, the chemo regimen will be: Vincristine, Etoposide, Cytoxan, and Cisplatin.
• During the chemo, at least for the first few rounds, we'll be giving Amelie daily shots of GCSF, which will help her develop a healthier colony of stem cells to be harvested for the later series of chemo.
• We need to get used to being in the hospital.  :)

So yeah, that's roughly what we have coming at us...and quick.

Tonight, during that phone call, I played with the girls.  When I (normally) play with the girls, it's usually revolving around the basic idea that I'm an attacking monster who wants to eat some random body part....usually in the lower extremities. 

We've been shepherding Amie around the house all week, and she's been getting more and more steady (as they predicted) as her brain re-wires itself.  Today, she just shot away from me towards the bedroom, and it was so steady I just let her go.  She ran....not walked, or sauntered, or moseyed....  She ran towards the master bedroom and stopped dead and turned around and laughed at me.  No hesitance, no wobbliness.  Just speed and joy and screeching happiness that her Daddy was chasing her across the room going "nom nom nom" looking to eat her toes.

We did this for the next 30 minutes, as she ran across the room over and over, and then down the hallway and into her room.  We dodged around the glider, up into the crib (where they hid under blankets).  They shrieked with joy as we played.  There was no time spent towards worry and hesitation and fear..and that was amazing. 

So this is the last weekend for that type of thing.  We're going to be heading somewhere tomorrow as a family, to celebrate....nothing and everything.

As a final picture, Shel and I sat outside tonight:

(Pardon for those young readers and overly restrictive people, but sometimes it must be done)

We sat outside, enjoyed each other, and prepared to wage war.

To be overly grandiose, I feel as though we're at the gates of Thermopylae, or maybe riding the seething waves towards a very unfriendly greeting at Omaha Beach.  

In the week ahead, we're going to do our best not to soil ourselves as we head towards the gunfire.