Looks like the first mistake of the New Year was not making any resolutions. A slightly late resolution looks like it needs to be to blog a little more so everyone knows what is happening with Karlee and the rest of us. It is hard to believe it has been 2 weeks since I last posted anything. This is going to be a big one since we have been busy!
Tuesday December 28th Dad and Ryley went for an afternoon swim at the Leisure Centre. As always Ryley had a great time swimming and playing on the slides, balls and play area. Afterwards we did a little shopping and picked up some of Mom’s scrapbooking.
Wednesday afternoon we went to the airport to meet Aunt Fay. She was flying in from Vancouver to meet Grandma, spend the night at the hotel and then fly to Las Vegas for New Year’s Eve. All of us were at the airport when Fay arrived. Once we got her luggage we headed over to their hotel to have supper at Moxie’s. Unfortunately they couldn’t accommodate all of us at one table so we got one table for 6 and another for 4, but they were not beside each other. We still had a good visit with Aunt Fay and then helped them get into their hotel room so they could be close to the airport for their early flight the next morning. On the way back from the airport we stopped and picked up Elmo from Grandma’s. He is going to be staying with us until the New Year when Grandma returns.
New Year’s Eve we headed over the Shelly and Steve’s place for some Chinese food and some good times. There were a number of various people involved in Scouts. We had a really good meal and lots of good conversation and spirits. The kids did great! Karlee hung into 11pm and then fell asleep in Shelly’s bed. Ryley was up to ring in the New Year and even made it until we went home at 1am. We had a great night with a bunch of great people.
Sunday morning Ryley had a hockey practice in High River. After a long drive it was a little disappointing to see that only 3 other kids had shown up from our team. Fortunately the Shaw Meadows team that was sharing the ice with us let us join with them and we had a great practice.
Monday morning was the first day back for some of us. Ryley was excited to head back to school. He was actually upset when Christmas break started because he wanted to keep going to school. Mom also started back driving bus again. At least she got to break in slowly with only one of her two schools being back on the first day.
Karlee was also back at it with a CBC (Complete Blood Count) at the South Calgary Lab. Today we had a lab tech who was concerned about a 4 year old giving blood so she wanted to call in everyone to help her. Dad assured her that Karlee was excellent and would make it very easy for her to take the blood. She then earned the stupid question of the year award when she asked, “Has she ever had blood taken before.” Dad was very, very close to saying, “No, we just shaved her head so she could look like Dad.” Seriously, how many cancer patients don’t have blood work on a weekly basis?
Tuesday evening was the first Beaver event of the year. We went roller skating at Lloyds Recreation. Ryley (and all the other kids) had a blast and many of the parents enjoyed reliving their youth. It was very surprising the number of parents that remember going to Lloyds for school patrol events and birthday parties.
Wednesday was Karlee’s first day in the clinic since December 21st. It was a nice break,but it was time to get back at treatment. Today was a full load day with Karlee having a procedure and then getting 4 different chemotherapy drugs. Because of the long weekend the clinic was particularly busy with 5 procedures. They always start with the youngest and this time Karlee was the 4th procedure. There are way too many young children getting cancer! Karlee made it through the procedure a little late, but not too bad then she started getting the chemo through her port. When she got to the last one (which took an hour to drip in) the nurses let Jennifer know that after the chemo was done Karlee needed another 4 hours of hydration before she could leave. This was about 2:30 so Jennifer was a little surprised that she wouldn’t be out for a long time. Fortunately Wednesday is KCFFA Pizza Night on the unit so she didn’t need to worry about supper. She had told Ryley that morning that she would try and pick him up after school; that obviously didn't;t work out too well. They got home around 8:15 so at least Ryley got to stay up to see them.
Thursday was another clinic day, but a very quick one. Karlee has 4 days in a row for the next 2 weeks to get Ara-C (another chemo drug). Mom and Karlee were in and out within 20 minutes. Friday Dad took both the kids up there after Ryley got out of school. Of course since Mom had the great day the day before something had to go wrong. It was another busy clinic day and there were lots of kids in the waiting room when we got there. The chemo was delayed today so we waiting in the waiting room for about 90 minutes. Fortunately the kids both played on the Nintendo nicely for most of the time while Dad chatted with the other parents. We were out of the clinic about 3:30 (2 hours after our appointment time) and one of the other kids, who had a 1pm appointment, was just heading in.
Saturday morning we had a very early hockey practice, but fortunately it was just down the hill. Dad went and spent a little time helping at the Scout bottle drive later Saturday morning and then we all headed up to the hospital for Karlee’s 4th day of treatment. Unfortunately we didn’t remember the freezie cream until we were almost at the hospital so everything was a little delayed while they waited for that to work before accessing her. All in all the visit went very well and we were out of there in just over an hour. Both Mom and Dad finally caught up with technology getting Blackberries to replace their aging cell phones. Email us if you want our PIN.
This round is a little harder on Karlee than some of the other ones (which we expected). One of the biggest things is she had chemo pees for 6 days out of the week. This means we have to wipe for her using gloves every time. She is also experiencing some discomfort on her bum. The chemo has to come out of her body somewhere and it can cause irritation (and even physical burns) when it exits the body. Her legs were bugging her on Thursday and Friday and then her mouth got sore. Today she was drooling a little and talking a bit funny.
Sunday Ryley had a hockey game. It was a very close game with Ryley’s team losing by one goal. Sunday evening was another great dinner with the family at Grandma’s house.
Monday was a big day for Karlee even though she didn’t realize it. Grandma came over at 7am and waited for the kids to get up while Dad went and stood in line to register Karlee for kindergarten. Dad was there just after 7:15am and the next person arrived at about 7:20. The caretaker of the school was nice enough to let us wait inside in the warmth of the vestibule. We had a nice chat with the retiring principal and then quickly registered for kindergarten. There was a very small line when the started taking registrations at 8am. The year we registered Ryley there were dozens of us there whereas this year there was only about 15 people registered by 8:30. Looks like this might be a smaller year for kindergarten.
Tomorrow is day off for Karlee and then we are back at it Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. After these 4 days we get 2 weeks off with only a few CBC blood tests.
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