Good morning everyone!
I got out of the house extra early this morning in an
attempt to write this blog post before I engage in some extra geeky fun.
I’m sitting typing this in a Biggby coffee that just happens
to be the first store ever. It’s directly
across the street from the apartment I had in East Lansing in the summer of
1992 through the Spring of 1993, just past where Michigan and Grand River split
apart. Makin’ me all kinds of nostalgic,
to be honest.
Our brains are funny and strange things. Did you ever think about the power of
expectations? If someone says to you
that in 10 days, you’re going to have to work at 20 hour shift, you can get
yourself ready for that. You’ll have a
certain kind of sick pride that you can get through it with grace and wit…or
maybe just grace. After a 20 hour shift
you’re mostly brain dead. But I
digress. My point was that if you have
the warning, you can do it. Get asked to
stay 30 minutes past where you thought you were going to leave on a normal
day? Total breakdown, massive pain in
the butt.
The hospital is a lot like that. You have a general expectation that any time
you walk into the building, it’s going to be a 6-hour ordeal. Some days are much less, some days are
longer.
Shelley walked into Mott on Tuesday expecting a normal 6-ish
hour day, and found herself in a nightmarish 11-hour extravaganza. We had been told that our next chemo drop
was going to be on Thursday, and the visit on Tuesday was just to get blood
counts to make sure Amie was ready for the next round. When she got there, however, she found out
that the protocols for the insurance company had changed, and the specific
chemo that she was receiving was now only authorized for outpatient care, with
IV Mesna (to protect her bladder) and fluids to continue for 5 hours. 6 hours turns into 11 hours (with traffic),
and normal becomes nightmarish. Good
times.
Amie is doing alright.
Her hair loss from last blog post seems to have plateaued for the
moment.
You know what’s the saddest thing about it for me right
now? Her stoicism. She isn’t yelling, crying, screaming, or any
other antics, about her hair loss. She’s
taking it in stride, like everything else.
She said to Shelley the other day, “Mumma, I don’t think I
can do a braid across or sprouts today.”
As you can see, she has this fine, wispy cap of hair left…and almost
nothing else. She can have no hairstyle
at all. It might look better
shaved. But what is she thinking
about? Letting Mom know that she doesn’t
think she can manage a hairstyle, as though she’s notifying her that she doesn’t
want to wear a dress today. So
impressive on so many levels. So worthy
of teaching all the adults in her life what’s the proper way to deal with
adversity.
As you can see here, Shelley can make anything look good, as these girls make it super easy to make things look good. Keep me out of the picture though...
So the week of September 12th brings us two things I wanted to spent a little time talking about...
The first of which is the two year anniversary of Amie's diagnosis. How in the heck have we done this for 2 years? I remember meeting some people in clinic and hearing them talk about how they had been in treatment for 2 years and thought that there was no way we could ever do that. Well, we are. We have no idea about when treatment for Amie might ever be done as we're in seriously uncharted territory with her specific diagnosis.... but we're going to keep plugging along. 2 years. Yikes. Will we hit 4?
Next, on Saturday September 13th is the 10th Annual Tim Watson Golf Tournament and fundraiser. We are one of the two families they have chosen to donate towards, as I've spoken about here previously. I spoke to Kim Dybicki yesterday, and she said that anyone who wishes to donate gift certificates, baskets, or anything of the like for their charity raffle would be greatly appreciated. Email her here to get in touch with her about that.
I originally posted this on Facebook, and wanted to close out the post with my pre-school preparations. Anya is helping me garner the proper ferocity to be a Viking (the mascot of my middle school). I plan on wearing the hat the first day of school to help get me into character.
Have a great day, y'all!
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