Sunday, August 16, 2009

Intro. Part 2

So I set this blog up to have my first post, the introduction read first by post dating it. When I glance at my own blog I read over this post each time because it appears at the top. it is amazing, so much has changed since I declared the state of my union. We sold that house in Louisiana, my husband is not working, and I have a full time job. My own day to day life is very different from a year ago, and my husband's is different in an equally different way. I must say I am more focused on myself because I am with myself for the majority of my waking hours.
I have two kids, one and three who grow and challenge me daily and reward me with their amazing growth. My daughter's comprehension and language is amazing and she is inquisitive and sharp. She is potty trained and seems to reap the most enjoyment from surrounding herself with her friends at school. Marc is walking and talking so many many words and phrases too. He doesn't rely on my quite as much and enjoys his dad and his time at school also. I am pleased with the home-based child care program that I chose.
I enjoy my work and I have a passion for what I do and a compassion for my purpose. Long-term care is not an elegant job setting for those in health care but I am beginning to think it really is for me. I have made quite a few friends where I work and I am happy for that. I have continued to be a part of one of the mommy groups when was a stay-at-home-mom and and building friendships there also.
Tommaso has cancer. And it may very well remain a chronic disease without a clear cure. This is a hard adjustment to live with in many respects. He just had a round of treatment that was pretty darn successful so we are happy for now. I feel bad for him that he cant work like he would like to but I have faith that he will find his purpose and satisfaction as life unravels opportunities to him. He is a very intelligent level minded person and he will know the wisest decision to make.
1 year later. Same people, very different settings, but same strong love and commitment to our family...

Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Node and the Night Club

We understood that the cancer would most likely come back but there is always a twinge of hope in the back of your mind saying that maybe he will be one of those miracles. It's been known to happen. It's funny, with things like that we think we could be the against-all-odds exception, but with other behaviors we always think "that wont happen to me".
Either way, my husband had a positive scan and will require some treatment. Our smooth ride on Cancer Boulevard has hit some traffic. I feel bad Tom has to endure treatment again, but I am hopeful. From the ideas the doctor presented, he selected a chemo regime in a pill form, with an infusion drug that is targeted to a specific antibody that is on the cancer cells. We are curious to see how this new therapy will help. Also, while his blood counts are normal he is unrestricted and can continue to mow the lawn and go out to sushi with his wife ;)
Tom has a lymph node that has grown recently and is causing him discomfort which led us to believe that this scan may very well be positive. I asked the doctor if they could take this damn thing out and he asked me if I had a vendetta for this node. Well maybe I do. I don't like it - it has been around for quite a while and it continues to remind him how he can't live his life. I'm sure that every time he sits down or turns a certain way he feels it. So yes, I don't like it I would like to put out a warrant for its demise. But apparently that is not a logical thing to do being that it is a blood cancer and it travels through the blood and is not isolated to the one specific node or area. So I came up with this analogy - let's say you have a sleazy night club with "sweaty young boys who trying to hook up with girls and experiment with recreational drugs" - you may want to drop a bomb on it one Friday night when it is crawling with these low-lives and dredge - but if you do, and you get rid of these STD-transferring, teenage-impregnating, drug-selling folks, there will still be those same dredge somewhere else, they don't all go to the club and leave the streets clean. So no, they wont remove the damn node. I do understand the reasoning, but it still doesn't appease me.

Updates and Potty-Trained Vacations


I haven't written lately because I guess working full-time and taking care of babies the other full time takes up the whole time! But my arms have been much more free lately because Marc has started to walk like a drunken Frankenstein and he is thrilled with that as well. Gabby was very difficult for a while, which is the nature of her age but she has gotten about 15% better. It is humorous and wonderful to hear the ideas and comprehension that comes out of her. And just as amazing and insatiably engrossing is hearing Marc speak - he is just a burst of vocabulary!
My job is going well - now that I have been there for about 4 months, I am able to do my work with more ease. I have a very heightened compassion for many of these older patients and for that, I have a purpose in what I do stretching far beyond nutrition.

We recently went away for the weekend to Newport, Rhode Island which is wrought with memories for Tom and I. It was great family time, but awful traffic. The one thing I am remembering about this trip that is standing out as different from any other is that I had a potty trained toddler. I had to cringe every time my clean little girl would grip the nasty dirty toilet bowl in a public bathroom as if there was no problem. I can't even bear to put my own hands on a clean toilet bowl but my kid is doing it with dirtiest of them. I just try to get through the yucky moments and scrub the heck out of her hands. I guess Tom didn't realize the exact logistics that go on when taking her to go pee pee in these gross bathrooms but I had to vent after one lovely experience.
We went into one super lovely bathroom and I proceeded to coat the throne with toilet paper as I always do, and this toilet was special because the lid wobbled around and didn't fit well on the bowl so I had to cover it up good so that she wouldn't end up holding onto or sitting on the actual man-bowl. (YUUUUCCCCCCKKKK as I am revisiting this memory). But then Ms. Independent-I'm-A-Three-Year-Old-Big-Girl now insists she doesn't need toilet paper on the potty and she can do it herself. So after I strategically placed the toilet paper on the seat, then strategically placed her on top of that, she then sways back and forth in order to allow all the toilet paper to fall off the bowl because she can't bear to do her business on a pot not completely set up herself. She refused to get off and paper the pot herself, so I just turned away and let her fester in a pool of hepatitis and E.coli.....
MAN that is gross! You have to let her pee though, either that or I get into an all out arguement in a 3 x 3 stall with about 20 people waiting to have their chance at the germ thrown.
So I told Tom this story prefaced by my understanding that there are toddler gloves that are made to be put on when going into public bathrooms for scenarios just like this. He said that's disgusting and she is going to get Hepatitis. I guess I just have to wallow in my ignorance and assume that she will not get any yucky diseases...and go get the gloves so I can foster her new found obsessive compulsive disorder.