November 30, 2006

Reeve- 3 months old!

Chloe and her new sweater (It is my first knitting project - with a bit of help from Grandma Kathy)

Leah - dangerous with the scissors


AFP= 3.5

Things went well today in Iowa City. Once we arrived in Iowa City we checked in at the Peds. Clinic and saw Tom right away. He visited with us and then on his way by, Dr. Rahdi stopped in, too. He chatted for a while as well, and apparently that was the whole check-up as far as poking around on Leah. Since she was dancing around, poking Tom in the butt, stealing his name tag and giggling a lot, she must have looked pretty healthy. She now has blood drawn from a vein as opposed to her port. This is done in the phlebotomy lab there in the clinic. That was a bit scary at first and some tears were shed. I had put emla cream on both arms to numb them since I was not sure which one they would use, so I would like to think the tears were more over the new experience than anything else. Tom even came along to hold Leah's hand and got her a sticker when it was over. We also had a chest x-ray and a hearing test, too. Leah managed to flunk the hearing exam at school yesterday (we knew she would because she has high frequency hearing loss) and Iowa City ended up rechecking things. She still has the same hearing loss. There is one level that is better and another that is worse. The one that is worse they are attributing to her having fluid in her ears--which they checked by taking a picture of her ear while we were there. So we will have the ears checked again in three months. By the time we got back to the clinic from our two stops they had the lab results back. The whole time we were walking back from the audiology test (which is located in outer Mongolia, or so it seems) I felt like I was marching to my doom because I knew the lab results would probably be back and every possible scenario goes through my mind. Usually the ones I imagine are the not so happy ones. Everyone in clinic was happy with the AFP-- Dr. Rahdi made a point of telling me that it had gone down. I told him that I considered the move from 3.6 to 3.5 to be stable, but he assured me it was a move DOWN! And, with that we were off to the Olive Garden. Leah had an icecream sandwich (her new favorite) on the way down as her breakfast so she was starving. I had skipped breakfast because at that point I really did not feel like eating, so Olive Garden was sounding pretty good. Before leaving we did manage to run into some people we have come to know over the past year. Steph and her dad were there for a check-up and she is doing well- she had a stem cell transplant for a recurrence of Ewing's Sarcoma in February. We also ran into Megan and her mom. They are going to Disney World next week and staying at Give Kids the World. They will have so much fun!

Olive Garden was good and we had to stop at Puddlejumpers, our consignment shop and load up on some really cute clothes. Chloe scored big with a velvety black dress with sparkles all over and a rim of black and silver fur around the wrist band. Quite frou-frou.

A few days ago Leah was busy telling me that she is going to be a teacher and librarian when she grows up--just like Mom. (This is taken with a grain of salt. My mom's former kdg. students always wanted to be what their moms were, too. The year we taught next to each other I remember chuckling when Cheyenne told everyone that she was going to grow up and work at IBP and kill pigs just like her mom. Plus, we all know that when Leah is a teen ager she will want to be nothing like me, so I should appreciate this now). Anyway, Chloe was telling us what she wants to be when she grows up.... an icecream worker at Dairy Queen. That pretty much sums up Chloe.

We continue to be grateful for all the people who pray for Leah's complete healing here on earth. And, we continue to give God the glory for Leah's continued good health. (A year ago today we were in Iowa City for Leah's first surgery - port placement and liver biopsy. This past year has been a blur in many ways but we are so thankful for all that has transpired and hope we can report next year on November 30th with good news still).

So, now on to December- a dance program, church program, school program (for Leah) and lots of Christmas festivities. The next Iowa City trip is in five weeks- a CT and blood work, so we continue to offer up prayers for a low AFP and clean CT. That trip is the six month marker of the end of treatment- a major hurdle for us to cross.