75,000 - What the heck.....?

Greetings All!

It was a long weekend for me, and a whole lot of time playing with the kids.  Also, I took some time to go through all the various electronic devices that take pictures, and sort through the mess.  I had several hundred pics to wade through, so there's going to be a bit of a gallery of pics in this post.

First up is this picture of Amelie.  It looks like a still from a reshoot from The Shining, or some other similar horror movie.  What it actually is not quite that.  Amelie and Anya have a "little girl table" that was built for Shelley by her father when she was a kid.  The girls play with it in the living room often, and Amie was sitting underneath it.  She looks freaking terrified, but that's just one of the more extreme expressions she likes to sport.

This is part of the photo wall at 7E Mott.  I detailed a long time ago how amazed we are at it, and what it means to us to walk in and feel like we're part of a community, and not so amazingly alone in this experience.  

We get so much love and care from so many people, but when you're walking the halls at 2am here, it's just a collection of ghosts.  So there's times where I walk down and look at the picture of Amelie and all these other kids who have struggled with similar experiences, and it makes me feel like there's a whole lot of people in this boat, or at least there's a whole lot of boats aiming in the same direction.

So that leads us to this particular picture.  They added a TON more pictures in the last month (easily doubling more maybe tripling the pics) and Laurence's picture was in the mix.  This is the young man who donated his brain to research in his teenage years when he heard his diagnosis, and the prognosis for treatment.

I can't really put it into words accurately why his story affects me so damned much, but it does.  I totally  teared up again today seeing it, seeing Amie's picture just down the road, and thinking how amazingly powerful this kid's will and vision and belief in the overall good of humanity was....the same things that are really shaken in me so often in the last year.  Anyway, wanted to share the pic, and remind you (and me) that there are visionaries out there who see past all the hate and distrust to invest...invest in each other and in the future of us.

This is a picture of my Dad, and was on a device that Anya uses to take pictures.  I loved it, because it's insane.

Shelley bought Amie a balance board to play with for Christmas.  We were a bit worried about her ability to use it, but thought it might have great play/therapeutic value.  Amie has LOVED it, but always says that she feels a bit "tippy" when she's using it.  That's her word for lacking overall balance.  That's something she's going to battle the rest of her life.  Quoting the neurosurgeon, the balance beam is never going to be her friend.

Our friend Sarah took this for us, a few weeks back.  She was dropping off food from CMH (Shel's former co-workers), and we were talking at the bottom of the stairs.  I thought it was a great picture, and really showcased how decent things are going with all of us right now.  

The girls have been playing so well most days lately.  In their matching homemade Hello Kitty aprons (Thanks Grammie!), they play so many games with food and restaurants, and cooking.  They love it.

This, my friends, is me at my sexiest.  More suave than Daniel Craig, that's me.

This is an explosion of Scrunchy Face.  It has hit epidemic levels.

...and this is a Scrunchy Face so scrunchy that it seems as though it has swallowed her face.

Amie's numbers were good enough that they didn't need to transfuse today, so we're on track for a Wednesday admit to Mott for Round 5 of Chemo.  That puts us into the hospital on Wednesday and out (in theory) on Saturday night.

One last thing...with this post we'll probably cross 75,000 pageviews.  That is so beyond crazy to me.  For all of you who are still hanging in there and interested in finding out about this crazy adventure we're on, I say thanks.  You're a great audience, and I love sending out these little bottles full of messages.  Thanks for helping me process, helping me inform, and wanting to know about this little bundle of awesome.

night!