12/31/07...

New Year's Eve 2007... one of the hardest times of our lives. The year that had brought so much joy, so much promise had turned on us. The year ahead was swimming in the murky depths of the unknown. We were no longer able to say that it was "baby time", to close our eyes so tight that tomorrow didn't exist.

So we cried. We cried, Alex wailed, and it snowed. The rest of the world toasted the New Year, and we toasted the unfairness of it all with a sad little bottle of champagne in a tiny little recovery room.

And then tomorrow came. 2008 came. Doctors came, diagnosis came... chemo, radiation, and poopy diapers.

Now here we are. We moved past the treachery of 2007. We kicked the shit out of all that 2008 could muster. Rock n' Roll! We are a family and we are whole...

I have said it and written it enough times that I am already embarrassed, but we could not have done it without our families, our friends, and the random six degree people who anonymously read this blog. So thank you, thank you, thank you. We could not have made it through the murky water without you...

Happy New Year... life, as we know it, has a bright future.

12/30/07...

One year ago we spent the day in hospital trying to recover and scared out of our gourds. What in the bloody hell are we going to do with this little thing? Do these people really think we can keep it alive? Where is the off switch?

12/30/07 was a learning experience to say the least. Lots of visitors... and lots of new experiences. The first few newborn poops... an experience. Dressing the tiny, fragile little thing... an experience. Learning that c-section babies still have fluid in their lungs and need to be quickly flipped over and patted on the back when they randomly start to choke... an experience.

Other than that, and trying to get some sleep, I don't remember much about that day... but I did find a couple pics that made me say, "Awwwww...",and will you too unless you are a robot...

12/29/07... What a difference a year makes...

So we rested... Michele better than me because she was dosed. A couple hours, and then it was back at it. The doctor on duty (I think our third at this point) said that she was making good progress. Dilated to 8cm. 10 is the goal. The doctor almost just pulled the trigger on the C-section, but the nurse who had been with us, fighting, the whole night convinced her to give us a couple more hours to do it naturally.

Nurses change shifts.
The sun rises.
Doctors change shifts.

New doctor checks Michele's progress. Dilated 7cm. What? Huh? We are moving in the wrong direction. He suggests that we just go for the Caesarean and be through it. We take a few minutes to discuss it and decide to just get the baby out and finally meet him/her. I ask the doctor when this will all happen... and he says, "Umm, now. We have already started prepping her." I run to the waiting room to tell everybody and run back. Michele is locked and loaded and I am suddenly putting on scrubs.

I'll spare some of the details.

Operating room. The doctor asks us for the twentieth time if we already know the sex... nope. "Well we're about to find out." We tell him that everybody thinks it's a girl. "Well... everybody is right!"

Brief pause and then... "Waaaaaaa!!!!" We see her quickly before she goes for tests across the room. So happy. So happy. Oh crap, what is her name going to be? We weren't 100% decided. The doctor suggests that I go and take a few photos with the digital camera so that Michele (still trussed up and being worked on) can see her. And then it is so obvious...

Alexandra Sabina.

This story continues tomorrow... but...

Fast forward to yesterday... what a difference. She walks. She says mama. She's working on some signing. And she'll eat most anything you put in front of her... apparently even birthday cake:



It took her a little while, but eventually she dove right in and make a mess just like we wanted.

Happy birthday baby!!

12/28/07...

So while labor technically started at 6pm, things didn't really start rocking till after midnight. The contractions started coming and our training kicked in. Breath... breath... breath. A minute of pain (for Michele of course) and then a few minutes of frivolity. Everybody was in good spirit and the nursing staff was fantastic.

That's pretty much how the night passed... light contractions, visitors, bleep-bleep-bleep. Michele was not allowed to eat anything other than ice chips and started to get pretty hungry as morning came... but it shouldn't be much longer (dun, dun, dun). Nurses changed shifts. Doctors changed shifts. We got comfortable with the layout. Contraction... laughter... contraction.

Around noon, with little progress in the last 18 hours of labor, the doctor decided to break Michele's water. The good news was that she was allowed to eat a sandwich and take a shower, which made her feel a bit more human. The bad news was that the breaking of the sack of water was, umm, reality slapping us in the face, and kicked the contractions in to high gear. I will not describe this actual procedure, but rest assured it was an experience. Then labor really started to ramp up... especially in the pain department. Michele changed positions a lot. Bed. Chair. Yoga ball. Walk. The contractions got longer and more intense. She had to focus to make it through them. I felt helpless. But it shouldn't be long now (dun, dun, dun).

Around 7pm we started discussing the epidural. Our plan going in was to go natural until it no longer seemed like a reasonable idea... reason was out the window. Michele had been up for two and a half days and in active labor for almost a day. Finally around 9pm she got the epidural and, now that she was comfortable, we settled in to try and get some rest.

to be continued...

12/27/07...

One year ago today was a busy day. I would say that we woke up early, but I don't think that either of us slept at all. We went to the bookstore and bought some new Moleskin notebooks... one would be for baby notes, one would be for boobie notes. Then we were home to pack some things up... a change of clothes, PJs, toiletries... because we would have to stay over night once the baby came ("ominous music here).

It was snowy, so we headed off a bit early for our first meeting with the Oncologist. She is a specialist and takes mostly high risk or abnormal cases... her slate was full, but was convince by Michele's OBGYN (a breast cancer survivor), Michele's surgeon (who was nice enough to wait until after Christmas to tell us), and Michele's very, very pregnant state to squeeze us in to her schedule. We met with her and got the big picture, since the smaller picture couldn't be known until test were done post-baby. She was very straight forward and pulled no punches and was still somehow quite comforting. We knew more, felt a little better, and decided that it was baby time and we needed to set the rest aside for now...

Drive back across town, pick up our things that we paked for overnight (here), and right back to the hospital... same building as the Cancer Care Center. We checked in to start the induction process at 6pm and were shown to a very nice, big birthing room. Met the nurses and settled in for what might be a long night (here). They started the Pitocin, which kickstarts labor, and hooked all kinds of wires to Michele's arm, leg, and belly...

"Try to get comfortable, this might take a few hours... maybe even more." (here)

To be continued...

12/26/07...

Almost exactly one year ago this moment, Michele was extremely pregnant and on the phone with a doctor finding out that she had breast cancer. It was, easily, the most devastating day of our lives. The doctor wanted us to induce labor that very night so that we could get going on fully diagnosing and treating the cancer. Thankfully we chose to wait a day to gather ourselves. Instead we spent the day with family moping, crying, and worrying about things we had no idea about and no control over.

When I look back on that day it makes me quite sad. But when I think about it a little more I realize it's fine... we made it... she made it. So I have chosen to be happy today and to take Michele out tonight and try my damnedest to make her happy. Life is everything that I could ask for because she is here to live it with me.

Happy Holidays from the Harringtons...

2007 ended a little rough for the Harrington family. 2008 was ushered in with a new baby and a long list of new doctors to keep track of… both pediatric and oncologic. Now that the Holidays and the end of 2008 are approaching, we feel like we have weathered the storm. Alexandra is healthy and happy. Michele is cancer-free and focused on the future. Wes is done with school and madly in love with both of his girls.

Since we were the recipients of so much goodwill this year, we have decided to take the $100 that we would have spent on paper cards and postage and donate it to Food Gatherers. Hopefully this electronic message can sufficiently convey our holiday spirit.

We never could have made it through this year without the love and assistance of our friends and families. Our thanks, along with our holiday wishes and hopes for a happy new year, go out to all of you. Thanks you for being a part of our lives.

No time like the present...

Are we the only ones who have yet to make significant progress on the gift buying? It turns out that working, celebrating living, and smooching babies takes up almost all of our time. We need to buckle down and get some stuff purchased.

So if you are looking for us this weekend, we will be one of the 14 bagillion people at the mall... desperately looking for the perfect presents for our perfect families while only find things for ourselves. Starbucks is going to make a killing on us in the next week!

Our daughter is a goat...

Sure, she's a Capricorn... symbolized by the goat... practical, ambitious, self-reliant. But more to the point, the kid will eat anything (see what I did there? Kid? Ha!).

I know that all babies put stuff in their mouths. Teething, exploring, learning... I get it. But this one? She eats shoes. Wets them to the point of necessitating wringing. She eats books. Literally gnaws chunks off them and tears the pages from the binders with her powerful jaws. Given the option, she would eat a cracker off the floor instead of the one on her tray 10 times out of 10.

Christmas is going to be a hoot... and a storm of wet, chewed, discarded wrapping paper. I love it...

Tha's all folks...

I have taken at least one class every semester, spring and summer included, since winter 2003. Last night I finished the last one. My first attempt to attain an undergraduate degree began in 1992 and was thwarted by work, life, or laziness... depending upon how honest/deprecating I want to be. But, thanks to tons of help from my friends and family, those demons of youthful indiscretion have been exercised... if only to help waylay the embarrassment of not having done it sooner. To everybody who pushed, encouraged, babysat, wifesat, cooked, studied, proofread, and just listened over the past few years I can't thank you enough. To Michele in particular, thank you for telling me every day that I can do it, and that it is worth it, and I'm worth it.

Alex is walking... UPDATED

So I have no video of it to post but there is video evidence. Yesterday, Alex decided that she could walk. I don't know if it because she was watching people at daycare or what but she just got it. She would take a couple steps, then take a couple more. She even stopped in the middle of her walk to smile really BIG- as if she was saying "look at me"!! Then she would start walking again. At the end of her walk, she would dive into Wes and my arms and smile. She totally gets that she is doing something awesome. It is such a trip that we are going to have a walker. So hopefully, my tech savvy husband will post the video to show her in action!!

Typical Thursday...

If you remove the time spent on naps, diaper changes, snacks, meals, bottles, and tantrums Alex and I spent about six hours together today. Roughly one hour was occupied by her using non-walker items (baskets, high chairs, boxes, me, chairs, etc) as a walker. Another hour or so was spent going up and down the stairs. One more hour split between reading (eating) books, dancing, yelling at each other and "one step... two step... dive". The rest of the day was filled with this:

Put it in, dump it out. Put it in, dump it out. How cute is she? It's like you can see her figuring it out.

Upon request...

Alex loves to climb into things. Buckets, baskets, boxes... it doesn't matter. If she can get her little leg up over the edge, she is in it. Apparently she spends most of her day at daycare in the toy box. The other kids come by and she hands out toys... of her choosing of course.

And then at home she climbs into these little wicker baskets that we use for her toys. Six out of ten times it just tips over and she falls... but the other four times are hilarious.

Walk-y-walk...

Alex is getting braver by the day. She can stand on her own for a few seconds... when she is so inclined. Yesterday she was, over and over again, letting go of the chair she was leaning against and "walking" to me. One step... two step... dive for papa. One step... two step... dive for papa. She is hilarious.

I assure you that I was there to catch her at the end of this video...

Birthday wishes, and caviar dreams...

Yesterday was Michele's birthday and I had intended to write a nice blog entry wishing her happiness. I sat down several times to bang out a short nod, and came away with nothing. This years birthday seems like something more...

We spent her last birthday pregnant out to here and with only thoughts of the impending birth on our minds. A month later we were in the hospital more worried than excited... more pensive than joyful. If you had asked me then if I thought Michele would see her next birthday, or Alex's first, I would have said "of course". But I don't know if I would have believed me...

Now here it is... another birthday. I never thought that I could reveille so profoundly in the mundane. Another year, another month, another day... every day that starts with Michele by my side is a blessing, every meal a celebration, every moment a pleasure...

So yesterday I wished her a "Happy Birthday". Today I say "Happy December". Tomorrow, Thursday, the Wednesday of next week... happy, happy, happy.

I love you Michele... thank you for being in my life.

Can't wait for 2009

This year has not been the best medical year for the family...and that may be the understatement of the year. That said, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel- successful cancer treatment, recovery from heart attack, diagnosis of heart syndromes, and surgery to eliminate ear infections. But prior to the end of the year, the powers that be keep dishing out medical hurdles. The latest have been kidney stones for Wes' brother and my brother. Seriously, they passed stones within weeks of each other and comparable sizes (gross that I know what sizes the stones were). Unfortunately, Michael was not able to make it down to Houston for Thanksgiving....the good news is that he will be in town for Thanksgiving and my birthday!!!

The medical visits keep coming...we are averaging at least 2 office co-pays a week. Last week I had my stress test which apparently went well because I did not hear from the cardiologist...next week it is radiation follow up and dental visits. So we continue to grow our medical expertise...hopefully that will be done soon.

In one ear...

Alex had her new hardware (tubes) installed yesterday, and everything went smoothly. She was a little hesitant when we got her up early and didn't allow her to eat anything (not because we're mean... doctors orders).
But, we got to the hospital nice and early and she was the first operation on deck... apparently they do the youngest first, which was great for us. They took her temp and checked her out and after only a few minutes and a couple discussions with docs and nurses they took her away (along with Mr. Dinosaur head for moral support). She didn't cry at all when the nurse took her which made it easier (although, a little crying would have been nice for my ego).

Less than ten minutes later the doc was in the waiting room telling us that everything went great and we could join her in recovery soon. A minute later Michele could hear a baby (we hadn't seen any other babies in the joint at that point) screaming bloody murder! A nurse came running out and told us that she really wanted her mommy! We ran back and scooped her up, and she calmed down pretty quickly. We hung out in recovery for about thirty minutes and we were on our way... wow.

Alex took a couple long naps but other than that seemed fine all day. She was happy and playing, and we're pretty sure she can already hear better. She was playing "hands up" and clapping on demand (her newest trick) all day!

Thanks to all for the well wishes. Hopefully this will be the end of the ear infections!!

Burden of proof...

We have not made much progress toward baby-proofing our house... and the list isn't getting any shorter. She flies up the stairs, tries to slide head-first down them, and has yet to meet an electrical outlet that she doesn't love. She knows how to open every drawer and cupboard, and manages to only close them at the exact moment that her little fingers are in position to get smashed. Somehow every knife, slicer, dicer, peeler, and clever is in the bottomest drawer in the kitchen.We have hardwood floors, fireplaces, and tons of low bookshelves overflowing with the heaviest tomes and textbooks available... not that it matters which shelf things are on because she can climb them with the ease of a Sherpa at the Arb.

I guess on some level it is good for her to be able to explore and learn on her own, but we are going to have to start to get serious soon...

Great time in Dallas

Alex and I had a great time in Dallas. It is not like we did a lot, but we were with great company. Alex loved hanging out with Zoe, Hudson and Bruno. Zoe is 19 months and it was really quite scary to see how much Alex is going to grow in the next year. Zoe referred to Alex as Baby and always was asking about her. Quite cute. Hudson is 3 and a half and he loved Alex. Jen pointed out that Hudson wasn't as loving with his sister as he was with Alex....not sure what that is about. But it was great that they all got along. I didn't get a picture of Hudson hugging Alex but he was all about her too. Wes and I were a bit concerned that Alex may freak out with the dog. She hasn't been exposed to dogs before and we didn't know what to expect. Turns out, she loves Bruno. I managed to get some shots of her tackling Bruno- seriously Bruno is super patient. He would follow us around the house and make sure he knew where we were. It was so nice to get away and we really loved being so welcomed. Jen has done so much for us this year, I can't imaging having a better friend. It was a relief to be able to go down there and just relax, not really do anything. I am a bit boring though- I realize that I have lost a bit of my fun this year, so that is my next mission- to get it back. But until then, the weekend couldn't have been more perfect....well maybe if Wes went it would have been.

Bittersweet weekend...

I haven't slept for two weeks. Flu, worry about a lump, and ear infections all piled on top of my usual case of frenetic insomnia. So having the house to myself this weekend should be a chance at possible slumber.

Of course, their plane hasn't even landed yet, and I already want to drive down there to see them.

Hopefully they will have a good time and I'll resist the urge to go find them.

Refreshed joy

I really am grateful to my sister for setting up this blog. I am able to go onto the blog and show off pictures of Alex at all times. But it also is pretty therapeutic. This post will be a release for me.

This week has been nuts. So far, between Alex and I, we have been to the doctor's office 4 times. The plan was to get an update on my heart. Well, life does not go according to plan. I did follow up on my heart and do have what is called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. Basically, it means that my wiring is not normal....I have extra cells. I have no symptoms so the doctor didn't recommend surgery. I will have a stress test next week to make sure at an elevated rate, my heart doesn't freak.

So all these extra cells in my body, what is up with that? Well, the other issue this week was I found a lump in my breast. Naturally, I freaked. It was the same breast that I had my lumpectomy on and in the same area as my previous tumor. I wasn't sure what it was. So I went to my primary and she felt the lump- now keep in mind, this is after I asked pretty much anyone that came over to my house to feel my breast!! So today, I had an appointment with my surgeon and she felt the lump but confirmed it was scar tissue. She stated that sometimes it grows in little balls and that I may never get rid of it. She followed up with an ultrasound which confirmed that there was nothing irregular. HUGE relief. So now my family can exhale after being worried for a couple days.

Speaking of exhale, Alex and I are planning a trip to Dallas this weekend. Alex went to the doctor yesterday to confirm if her ears would be ok to travel. She got the green light. So we are now focusing on spending some time with the Marr's in Dallas. It should be a great break for us and for Wes at home. He deserves a little time to himself!!!!

Stairway to... for heaven's sake...

Until recently the stairs from the basement/play area were a barrier. We could leave Alex down there for short spurts to play by herself, which she does very well.

This is no longer the case.
I think we need to start using the gates that we have!

Quantum Leap...

I know that children advance quickly. I get that Alex is going to grow by leaps and bounds. But it's difficult to believe how fast it happens. This morning she woke up and, from the first moment that I I saw her, she just got it a little more.

Thursday her newest thing was "hands up". I grabbed both of her hands and put them up in the air. "Hands up." By the afternoon she was doing it on her own every now and again. Friday it made her giggle. Saturday morning she was doing it on request (sometimes). Saturday afternoon she was signaling a touchdown for a room full of Michigan fans in desperate need of touchdowns...

Today when I picked her up from daycare the staff was laughing about her throwing up her hands all day and looking so proud. They couldn't figure out what she was doing. When I walked in the door she threw her hands up and I yelled "hands up", and they got it. She gets it.

I struggle with wanting so badly for her to continue to grow and learn, and just wanting her to stay the same for a week, a couple days, until bedtime. I feel like I need to take more pictures, more videos... to soak her in.

Autumn leaves...

Today has been the nicest day we've seen in a while, and likely the nicest we'll see for months (the forcast is for possible snow this weekend). So Alex and I took advantage of it as much as possible. We went for a long walk and then she played in the leaves while I plugged away on my laptop. You gotta love technology that let's me play with her and work at the same time.

She didn't crawl around a bunch... mostly just sat there and picked up leaves and tried to eat them. She did stand up on her own for a good thirty seconds. It was pretty cool.

Hopefully everyone gets a chance to enjoy the weather while they can.

Stand alone...

I'm frightened...

Piling on...

I am a bit worried that this blog is becoming a venue in which we simply list the latest ailments, injuries, and mysteries that we are all dealing with... so I will temporarily distract you with this video...



Okay, now more ailments. Alex fell and hit her mouth yesterday at daycare. There was some blood and some screaming. I picked her up and took her to a pediatric dentist (yay, another doctor!). No broken teeth, but one of them is very loose. The doctor didn't rule out the possibility that it might still fall out, but said it should tighten up in a couple weeks. We have to give her soft-ish food for a week or two and hope she doesn't bump it again. The good news is that despite this, her ear infections (tubes coming on November 20), and continuing diarrhea (do not click this link) she is still quite happy. The above video was taken last night post-tooth-loosening, so I think she will be OK.

At least she is keeping us on our toes...

I'm Alexandra Harrington, and I approve this message...

You people are old. Okay, some of you aren't that old, but compared to me? Come on. The choice that each of you have the opportunity to make tomorrow will impact greatly upon the world that I am left when you are all gone. Until babies are finally given the right to vote, we have to depend on you people. So please, think about it.

Why did so many people like The West Wing? More to the point, why did President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) seem to be such a fantastic President? Was it because he was a liberal Democrat? A conservative Republican? No. It was because he was smarter than us. He was more even tempered than us. He was serious, contemplative, and able to see issues with an eye on history and a finger on the pulse of the world. He was what we need in our leaders... he was better than Joe Sixpack.

Which current candidate do you think this describes?

Whomever you are going to vote for tomorrow please take the time to vote. And, if you are wavering at all, for crying out loud vote for Obama... I am going to have to live with your decision for a long time.

**The views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of Alexandra Harrington or her mother, but they are that of her crazy, liberal papa.

The ENT visit

We are way to familiar with doctor's appointments. This week between Alex and I we went to 4 appointments and I have another next week. Anyway, the ENT visit went well. He was super nice. He was very straightforward and gave us the risk of tubes. Wes and I had decided to have the surgery before the visit and nothing the doctor said changed our minds. We just want Alex to stop suffering...and she still has fluid in her left ear and some in the right even though she has been on antibiotics since Wednesday. Next step is for us to schedule surgery for her. The surgery sounds easy peasy. She won't be able to eat the day of the surgery but since she is young she will be one of the first appointments. The recovery will be about 30 minutes in the hospital and then we can take her home. So that is our plan...more surgery...

In spite of having these ear aches and diarrhea, Alex still is a pretty happy baby. This week, I had a co-worker come from South Africa and he brought this animal for her. She loves it. It makes noise and she just giggles. She is a trooper!!

Scariest costume ever...

Too scary...

Happy Halloween everybody!!

Back to the doctor again today... the little monster is dehydrated and super chapped after a couple days of scary diarrhea. Apparently if one is on a lot of antibiotics (and lord knows Alex has been on them a ton), eventually they start to kill off the good, healthy bacteria in your stomach and all hell breaks loose (and I mean loose). So today it's Pedialyte, probiotics, and lots of rest. Her red little bum is the scariest thing that I have seen this Halloween season...

When I called the doctor's office this morning they said they had a spot open right away. I always keep a diaper bag in my car so I bundled up the monster and ran out the door. By the time we got there she had a total blowout. Out the diaper, through the onesie, schmeared down the leg of the pants, and even on the socks. I undressed her in the exam room and cleaned her up only to find no diapers and no spare clothes in usually well appointed daddy bag. My scoutmaster would be so ashamed. I had to "borrow" a diaper from the staff and wrap the poor little thing in my jacket...

It's been a long week.

Déjà vu...

You may think that I am lazy and simply reusing old posts, but no... Alex has an ear infection. She was not herself yesterday morning so I took her to see the doc and her left ear is infected to the point of almost rupturing again. This has officially gone on long enough to prompt a trip to see an ear, nose, and throat surgeon on Saturday to discuss the necessity of tubes. We'll keep you posted...

On the plus side, we are now friendly enough with our pediatrician (given our frequent rendez vous), that she offered to let Alex borrow one of her daughters Halloween costumes. I'm don't think we will take her up on it, but seriously how nice is that?

It's a cold one out there today...

Tired of making lemonade...

It's been kind of a long year. Life keeps throwing lemons at us and we just keep trying to churn out the highest quality lemonade that we can muster. Normally we would have taken a couple vacations by this time of year. The baby was certainly goning to slow that pace, but we have pretty much been stuck in Ann Arbor... so we decided to take a short weekender to the left side of the mitten.

We rented a tiny little cottage in Saugatuck and just wanted to spend the weekend meandering, sleeping, and hanging out. It was slated to rain all weekend but we didn't care. We got there Friday night, dropped our bags, and headed out to get some grub. We had a good time, as did Alex (banging a spoon on a table at a busy restaurant is more fun than you can imagine!). Two hours later I was in the bathroom... sick, sick, sick.

I thought for sure I had food poisoning. I cursed the Wild Dog Grille and the damnable Manhattan Clam Chowder. It was a long night.

Saturday dawned cold and wet, and we managed to go out to breakfast. I didn't feel great but we were determined to enjoy the trip. We walked around a bit, we napped, we watch some football, we got some pizza. I felt crappy but we had fun. Two hours later Michele was in the bathroom... sick, sick, sick.

I was wrong about the food poisoning. I apologized to the Wild Dog Grille and the delectable Manhattan Clam Chowder. It was a long night.

We got up early and headed home. White rice, white bread, chicken soup. Thankfully the Lion's were blacked out... I don't think my stomach could have taken it. We are both still a bit out of sorts, but Alex seems fine.

Lemonade anyone?

One heart episode recorded

Update on the heart monitor- I had an episode on Tuesday on my way home from work. I had some difficulty taking a deep breath and pushed the button to record my heart beat. I called in the information when I returned home. The lady was super nice and said that she had no issues receiving the information and no need to call the ambulance. So I am happy...because I didn't have to go to emergency and I have a least one recording to talk about with the electro-cardiologist next month!!

On Fields O'er Which the Reaper's Hand has Passed...

No child's autumn is complete without a trip to the apple orchard/pumpkin patch, so how could we deprive Alexandra? Alright... we wanted fresh donuts and cider, sue us.

Either way, we went to a local family owned farm this weekend to pick out some pumpkins, have some cider and donuts, and enjoy the warm sun and cool breeze. Robin and Bob came with, and we had a blast. Though we were attacked by what may have been a swarm of killer bees. Donuts and cider make great bee bait.

Michele and Alex picked out a couple pumpkins to adorn our front porch. We all had fun wandering through the pumpkin patch. Next year we will pick some apples too... when Alex can appreciate it more. We also picked up a few pie pumpkins which I roasted and pureed... I set some aside to feed to Alex and froze the rest so that Michele could use it to make pies at Thanksgiving... and I made pepitas!

If it isn't cancer...it is my heart

Recently my echo cardiograms have shown a deterioration in my ejection fraction. That is basically the measure of how efficient your heart pumps out blood. This deterioration is believed to be a result of my chemotherapy. Okay, I am willing to have some heart impact as long as the cancer is gone. Well, my oncologist wanted me to follow up with a cardiologist to confirm the results and see what their recommendation was in regards to starting up on the Herceptin for the remaining 6 months. The cardiologist said that the current ejection fraction is manageable...no major impact to my life but it is not in the normal range. His recommendation was to not start on the drug again because who knows what my heart's reaction would be. While I was there, he found another heart issue. That is right, I go in for one thing and come out with another issue. Apparently my electrical wiring in my heart may be mis-wired. Sometimes I have a shortness of breath but thought it was all related to this ejection fraction thing. Well apparently I have some cells that are functioning as a pathway for the electric information in my heart that isn't supposed to. The cardiologist said that some people faint from this or feel lightheaded. I don't have any of that. But he wants me to be monitored for the next month and follow up with an electro-cardiologist. Great, more doctors. So I was set up last week with this 30 day monitor- it is like a pager with electric nodes. I do not have to wear it while sleeping or showering, but pretty much the rest of the day I am wired up. It was really annoying day one. It has become less annoying as the days progress.

The one major concern I have is what if I don't have any episodes while wearing this damn thing!! Then it was all for not. If I do have an episode, this thing records my heart beat and then I am to call the Lifewatch people and download the info via the phone. They basically have 4 possible responses:
1. Recording not received, please resend
2. Recording received, thank you
3. Recording received, abnormal heartbeat detected, proceed immediately to emergency
4. Recording received, abnormal heartbeat detected, an ambulance is on its way!!!
A little scary. They claim that this heart issue is not due to the chemotherapy. That this is something that I have had all my life...I think they are wrong. I am pretty sure that I never had these shortness of breath issues before BC but could be wrong. Anyway, that is the latest doctor's info from me...stay tuned, as I will give updates of an actual episode.

Alex seems to be feeling much better and even managed to sleep (with some coaxing) for 12 hours last night. A few observations to catch everyone up:

She might be thinking about letting go...

The only thing she likes better than looking out the window...

...is looking out the door...

How cute is she in her new clothes? I think she would rather eat the shoes than wear them but...

It's getting harder and harder to distract her long enough to change her diaper without a wrestling match so we introduced a new friend to the changing table... please meet Mr. Monster Man...
Suddenly she wants to take things with her as she moves around so she either has to crawl on one hand and one elbow...

...or just carry things in her mouth... you know, like socks...
Apparently 12 hours wasn't enough, because she is out...

The Rupture: End Times...

The end of days is upon us...

Ear infections in the little ones are horrendous. Miserable. Can't sleep. Grumpy, pissy, screamy. This poor baby. And, apparently when ear infections get bad enough, the pressure builds up until the ear drum ruptures. How terrible does that sound? The pressure builds up (that's the cause of the pain; the pressure) until it just pops. The fluid that has built up oozes out. Horrendous-er.

The good news is that when the ear drum ruptures, even though it hurts pretty bad in the moment, the pressure is relieved. All better. Not better. Because, even though she was already in the middle of her second course of antibiotics, the other ear got infected... keeping the pressure on. So she had to get new antibiotics in the form of a shot. Horrendous-est.

Of course she's still Alex. When she isn't waking up in the middle of the night or screaming in pain, she's a trooper. She's mostly happy and at worst cuddly. She seems to be feeling a bunch better and will probably go to daycare tomorrow.

Tubes may be on the horizon... but so might be the Apocalypse. Maybe we just need to let her eat more dirt.

Daddy Haiku...

Not Again, Again

her ear infection
clinging, wanting mama
heart break with a smile

For Michele at work...

Sound asleep... bum in the air.