Getting better and better...

I took Molly in today for more blood work, she is doing good.  They said she is on her way up! So they don't need to do anything else to her for now. 

Here are a couple of cute pictures we took recently.  Freezing fog, freezes in an interesting way

And then here is Marcus and Molly.  My mom brought back a walker to our house.  Molly seems to like it and I find her all over the place. This picture reminds me of an Austin Powers moment...

Stuck in the hall way.

Marcus giving Molly a brotherly push...

Love my new walker!

Low platelets...

I took Molly in for lab work today.  Her platelets were really low.  She was then admitted and given some platelets. Then we went home.  We will have more blood work on monday to follow up.  The kids are in bed for the night and Matt and I rented a movie.   It has been so long since I rented a movie, they had to give me a new card. Happy Saturday!

recovering...

Hello everyone!  Molly is doing fantastic.  She has a big appetite and is off the n/v medicine.  Now we are doing all the blood work to make sure she is coming up.  Her first lab work was on Thursday and that was ok. Now we go in tomorrow morning, to see if she is up or down from Thursday.   She seems like she feels great.  I can't wait till this is done and we can go do some fun things. 

Some pictures from before Christmas

Here are a couple cute pictures we had done just before the holidays.  A local lady did them.  I think she did a great job.

Round 6 Complete...

According to the docter in Philly, Molly is done with chemo unless something crazy happens.  Only like 2 kids in the last 15 years have had to have another round of chemo.  Molly's tumors looked good.  Dr. Shields said that she lasered them just for luck.  She had 3 new seeds in her right eye.  She had cryo therapy on those, and they are dead.  She will have a eye appointment here in 1 month, then back to Philly in February or March.  We are walking on thin ice for a while yet.  We need to make sure that the new seeds that might develop are destroyed and that the main tumors don't come back.  They will follow her closely for a while.  I am hopeful that everything will go well, but nervous about it all, too.  I keep praying for a miracle, that one day Molly will wake up and there would be no trace of any kind of cancer and her vision is perfect.  Is that too much to pray for?
-Kalee

Valkommen!

So last week sometime I changed the layout of the blog a little bit. I added a "followers" widget section (I think it emails you or something when there's an update, not sure, cousin Dan really wanted it or something). I also changed the "Welcome" to the "Valkommen!" text. If you've been just skipping past it, take a look and see if you can read it. It's English I swear. But... it's more like how my 2^nd generation great grandmother spoke it, than the book-learned accent-less* pronunciation that most of us in Nebraska speak.


* So like in-action is actually an action, I suppose lack of an accent is actually an accent as well. I think some people call it a corn-rasp, without the pizazz and relocated consonants of the North East, the drawn out purposeful speech of the South, or the transposed J-Y's and hard O's of the Great Lakes region. Next time y'all come out he-a, whether in your cah by da plane, ja can looos your accents doo-ent ja knooow.

Early, Late, Ontime and a Taxi to New Jersey

So I just can't figure it out. Where does that cord go, besides the obvious (into the ceiling). Apparently it's a little paranoid, as shown by the tin-foil wrapping keeping out The Man's mind reading brain wave device. Well I suppose it's what happens when you try and retrofit a 120 stone, plaster and lath house out east.

Ronnie let us crash at his place again (maybe it's those big red shoes that keeps him from gettin' proper 'lectral work). This time we're in the main house, third floor. Beauty of a stone house with radiant heat is that it's rarely cold. Bad part is that it's usually pretty hot, and for some strange reason there's less of a draft with the windows open than closed (the air actuallys goes out the window so fast that no cold air comes in).

We hitched a ride via our buds in Milwaukee, it was an early 5:45 am flight but that put us in Philly by 11:00 AM. Not bad for a 1300 mile trip. Our return trip doesn't start till 8:30 PM so it'll be a bunch of early mornings and late nights this week. Hopefully the evening flights get thouse warm chocolate chip cookies too.

Molly had an eye exam this morning. They found 3 (three) seeds. That's what they call new, previously unseen tumors. The doctor said not to worry about them, because they just froze them and they're dead, lickety-split. She said they are pretty common whenever the kiddos have retinoblastoma that's big enough to have the "blisters" around the out side edges of the tumors. Apparently little pieces can break off and spread. So no worries, with today and tomorrow's chemo, that will be the last.

So we had to take a cab home from the oncology clinic today, and the cabby accidentally started to take us to the Ronald McDonald's House in New Jersey. Not the one we want (Philly is in Pennsylvania). Fortunately he was pretty cool, and turned off his meter, and just charged us a couple of bucks.