Oh yeah and as of last PET scan, I am still N.E.D. (No Evidence of Disease)

click on the kitty for the all important happy dance

See, I am  NOT dead. Just in the midst of a move. 

Which is very similar to death. 


 Can you tell I hate moving? I had a ton of help though so the packing and the actual hauling of the household crap wasn't too bad. I did get kinda worn out the actual move day and had to hang out in a friends car while the last of the heavy stuff got hauled away. But hey, I figured it would be better to be thought of as lazy than to fall down and embarrass myself again.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the apartment we moved into. It is actually more like a condo cause of the attached garage as well as the upstairs and downstairs thing going on, but more importantly, I can actually handle keeping this clean, we don't have to worry about maintenance or yard work, we have a POOL, and Oh Thank The LORD Above, we don't have to worry about landlords going bankrupt or the big bad banks coming to tell us the house is in foreclosure even though we have been paying our rent religiously, and we gotta get our booties out. ( *happy little sigh)

And the icing on the cake is that the neighbors are WONDERFUL!  All of them seem to be, but imagine this--- we live 3 doors down from a mom with 2 Jedi kids (Translation: autistic, for those of you unfamiliar with my side bar favs) So hopefully we won't have the nice policey mans call on us when a child goes giggling into the night clad only in underwear and a batman cape... And yes that has happened. (In all fairness to us as parents, that was before we discovered those little alarm thingys you can tape on your doors to screech at little wanna be escape artists and thereby preventing the neighborhood from thinking that you are the worlds worst guardians - bar none).

So here I am struggling to get everything organized and unpacked - but not doing too bad actually. Yes I get worn out,and yes I am slower than molasses in January and yes, I sure do wish for that super speed bit, but slowly and steadily we are getting thing together. And if I have to move again in the next ten years I swear I might just... welllll lets not temp fate shall we?

Well first off let me start by saying I am doing great. Sure I have unforeseen health issues mainly involving those pesky calories and passing out and such but I don't hurt (except when I do something stupid) and I feel really grateful to be here to complain about the small stuff, hug my kids, and enjoy life.

OK, now the news.

Daniel won first place in the science fair! He did his project on the effects of electromagnetic waves on plant life, specifically Venus Flytraps. He used a function generator to force the plants into being receptors!
I am always proud of that boy, but I think I kinda embarrassed myself(OK and him too) whooping it up for him during the award ceremony.

Nathan is still working getting parts for his robot, and the amazing thing is be hasn't gotten distracted! Saving 300 bucks is a tough thing to do for a nine year old. Also the poor kid broke his arm - again. We now have a new rule at our house.

Because it HURTS to set broken arms!!!

And Believe You Me, getting an arm set with a neuro-typical kid is hard enough,My poor baby was more worried about the beeping monitors than anything else. The staff was amazing though and they soon discovered a TV with Sponge Bob on it was the perfect anesthesia for him.

Jonah and Ben are doing wonderfully. They find stuff to do and explore no matter what is going on! Their favorite thing is playing in the sprinklers. They have discovered that the old irrigation syringes from Dolores' days are killer squirt guns!

The last day of school came and went and the kids have totally enjoyed having sleep overs, brownies and pop corn pretty much every single night!

I just passed my year mark anniversary of being cancer free! I celebrated by getting a PET scan done and attending a cancer survivors luncheon Cedars sponsored.

Oh and one of the coolest things I have discovered is that I don't have to sleep in an upright position as much! That is a direct result of Dr Soukiasian injecting Botox into my stomach sphincter instead of cutting it like most surgeons do. I will most likely have no more lasting side effects from that and no dumping!!!! ( for those of you just joining us, that means I will not be tossing my cookies or passing my food too quickly every time I eat and the part about being able to sleep laying down means that I will not have the stuff I ate come back to haunt me no matter what the stage of digestion!)

All good stuff.

I will let you all know when I get the the PET scan results back, but I am feeling so good I can't help but venture to guess that all will be well.

Huh, who would guessed? I found out I am not lactose intolerant. I am actually anything-that-is-hard-to-digest intolerant. I popped a jelly bean in my mouth right after Easter and apparently those things are made from plaster, small rocks and glue because I was in pain for 2 days. Things really high in fats, heavy meats, high sugar items and anything with the word gummy in it are no-nos for me now. Believe it or not one thing I found that really helps me is that Activia yogurt stuff. You know, the stuff that you can't help but sing their little jingle every time you says its name. Try it, it's kinda fun.  "Ac ti vee aaahhhh"   OK so maybe its just me. Just stop snickering OK?

I had a lovely mothers day weekend complete with the requisite homemade tissue flowers and other such wonderful treasures mommies love.  Cary gave me moola to go clothes shopping (I am pretty much swimming in my clothes now) and took me to see the new movie Thor with the boys on Saturday.

I even splurged and ate a piece of chocolate even after hubby reminded me I would be hurting later if I did. I am such a rebel. And yes, my tummy did later object strenuously to that bit of Mothers Day defiance. Oh but  it was worth it. 

I am just so happy to be here to enjoy that decadent no-no, drool over pretty fine eye candy at the movies while holding my hubby's hand, and snuggle with my boys. I wouldn't want to make this journey through the wilds of cancer again mind you, but these moments make everything I fought so hard for so worth it.

I have to be honest here people, as I am getting better and better, I am not writing as much on here. Truth be told ~ it is wonderfully mundane around my house right now and I am relishing each moment. Just everyday normal stuff like say... taking kids to school, volunteering at the book fair, helping kids with homework and therapies, making dinner, doing mountains of laundry, never quite getting caught up with the dishes or folding clothes. That kind of thing.

If I could have known than even 18 months ago I would catch myself in the middle of doing said chores and suddenly feel like I just had to stop and thank God in a silent but fervent prayer for being able to do them, I would have been stunned to silence. And believe me, that is hard to do. The stunned silence thing not the laundry. The laundry is pretty easy ever since all the boys have passed that stage of putting bugs and worms into their pockets and I didn't find them until their dead carcasses floated up to the top of the washer.

Oh I still have those  eye-twitching-plastered-on-grin-through-the-teeth-cause-if-I-don't-I-am-afraid-I-might-beat-my-children nights where I swear they are testing the hypothesis that even the most loving mommies can go loony if said experimenting kids whine enough. But afterwords, when all the threats of bodily harm have subsided and they have fallen into that angelic sleep moms love to just look at and get all weepy, I remember to say those prayers, thanking Him for the blessings of raising these wonderful little hellions spirits and I remember how very much my soul loves my beautiful children.

And then there are those mornings I wake up and just lay in my bed enjoying the fact that I don't hurt and I thank Him again. I will repeat that in case you missed that... I DON'T HURT. HOW COOL IS THAT????

I have even stopped the free for all weight loss! I will probably loose a few more pounds but on purpose this time.

SO all in all, life is good. Nathan is excited about a real robot his teacher let him bring home, he is saving his money and buying the pieces bit by bit to make one himself (he already has 4 servos on order and that about used up every penny the kid had saved). Daniel is formulating his science project, getting ready to subject Venus Fly Traps to different radio frequencies.  Jonah's neck lump is still there, but it looks like we don't have to do surgery, thank the Lord.  And Ben made a "firebug" for a school project which promptly melted all over the bag he brought it to school in. He told me since it lived in a volcano and ate lava, melting was really OK, it was its camouflage. Cary made dinner tonight  (which is why I am here writing this instead fighting with my pots and pans).

I love the wonderfully mundane. And as I said, I thank God for it.

OK, I haven't written for an age, so I figured I would give you a multiple choice as to why. You get to choose. ( oooo that is so interactive, I feel so i-phone app-ish...)
a. I'm dead.
b. I have forgotten my password to this blog
c. I have been busy learning belly dancing moves to start my new career
d. life has been crazy hectic and I just haven't taken the time to do this

Did you choose? Cause I am really voting for c.
Really. Can I please vote for c?

* sigh*, oh all right you party poopers.

We all know which one you automatically assumed it was.  Either a. or d. and unless a zombie or an impersonator is sitting here typing this you logically have to go with d. Unless you are a fan of the x-files...

then you would go with c.

OK, as far as what has been going on. The kids and I went to the beach to see Grandma, I got so I couldn't swallow anything but liquids, Nathan is learning his times tables, I kept passing out because I couldn't get enough stupid calories in me, Daniel got grounded from his computer until he pulls his grades up, I had my balloon party/dilation with Dr Lo and got caught up on all the latest from his staff - WOO HOO and I can now swallow again and am bouncing back beautifully (after some unknown caused puking fit), Ben went on his field trip and ... Oh yeah, and Jonah scared the living  beejeebers out of us.

He woke up one morning with a goose egg on the side of his neck the size of a freaking apple. He wasn't sick, didn't have a fever, and other than just a little tenderness and a lump that looked like a weird case of one sided mumps, he was hunky dory. In taking him to the doctor, I expected antibiotics and a shoo out the door.After all, a swollen lymph node isn't THAT serious... right?

Now let me tell you all, the one thing you NEVER want to hear your kids doctor say is even the remotest possibility of the "c" word and your childs name together in the same sentence.

The world stops. you hear but you don't hear her explain that it could just be a bacterial infection from a recent teeth cleaning or that it might be Mono, or whatever.

You just hear that ever so slight chance of something so ugly, so insidious that all you want to do is yell and cry and scream and panic because of what you went through with all the chemo and radiation and pain and needles. And your heart nearly implodes with the terror of the idea that your childs name might be said in the same sentence as all those afore named horrors. Your hands clench and unclench and you realize that your mouth has bitten into your tounge and you can taste the blood.

But you keep it together because of your child. You go though all the tests with him, even having your own blood drawn at the same time he does so it won't be so scary for him. You hold his hand and you try to comfort him as he gets his 4th needle poke of the day.  All you want to do is break down, but you know you can't.

In the meantime, you have called the husband and he immediately gets to work getting on the internet finding all the best hospitals and doctors and treatments an tells you that we will get through this like we do every thing else, and maybe it is just one of the lesser diagnoses, but if it isn't we will handle this. He is a rock. But you know it is his protection mechanism. You know secretly he is terrified. But he is strong for you, like you are strong for your child. You wonder if he is tasting blood right now too.

You finally realize as your child is in the CAT scan, that you haven't eaten all day and you were only able to get 800 calories in the day before. You realize that because everything is starting to go black and all swimmy. You cling onto the scanner PRAYING to make it to the end of the scan so your child wont panic and move and have to redo the test. You make it. Barely. Then you get to lay on the cold floor while your baby asks why mommy is on the ground. Stupid of you not to have eaten. You determine grimly, that if, GOD and heaven forbid, that we have to do this again, you will pack an Ensure or Boost in your purse.

You don't sleep that night. At all. You are back in that doctors office at 7:30 a.m.. You get there even before the results make it back, so you sit there with your wonderfully oblivious child. He is only concerned if he will get more shots. Your heart is  bit more anxious. It seems like hours. Maybe it is.

This is where my story might differ from other mothers. Mine has a happy ending. The doctor came in smiling. An infected lymph node. The release was almost exhausting. And gratefully anticlimactic.


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I am watching Jonah sleep. He is sleeping in my bed tonight. I don't care I just want him near me. I realize I need sleep too.  I will sleep tonight. After I silently sob my relief as I watch his slumbering face.

I am so grateful for anticlimaxes.

One good thing about fighting cancer, I finally lost all the baby weight... I am 2 pounds away from what I weighed when I married my sweetheart 12 lifetimes and yesterday ago!  But I am no spring chicken anymore, and loosing all that weight, especially so fast has caused a bit more "saggage" than I would like. Remember that as I tell you what my children and I discussed over the weekend.

As some of you may know, 3 of my 4 kids have had speech issues and we have been doing speech therapy with them from since they were tiny. Well during one of these sessions with me, I was trying to get them to talk about "If you could have any super power in the world, what would it be?" I started it by saying I would like super speed so I could get all my chores done so I could go play. Oh they loved that one and I grinned huge as they all went nuts exploring their wildest imaginations. Super strength, invisibility (so they could raid the cookies before dinner without getting caught), shape shifting, you name it, they discussed it. It was wonderful.

Then they almost simultaneously were excited to tell me that super speed would not be a good super power for me. Flying would be much better. I was confused and asked them why. "Because Mom," they said as they lifted up my saggy arms, "You already have the wings!".  *deep sigh* Well, I kinda did see their point.

The raging debate now was all about what my superhero name would be. They couldn't call me "Bird-Mom".  Apparently I didn't have enough feathers to qualify. They came up with my superhero mantra together and introduced it to me by singing,  "Na Na Na Na Na Na NA NA ...BAT- MOM!"

 *crickets chirping* Wow kids. Thaaanks.

 Back to today:

Today Bat-Mom's gotta go do dishes and laundry and too many chores to count ... I am SO feeling gypped at that no super speed thing ...

Meeeee........

some OTHER lucky mom that is NOT me.

Well, I have been doing really well as of late, trying to get my house back under control (Its amazing what can happen if you are out of it for a year!) and just generally enjoying life. I have even debated about getting two matching belly button rings wherein my bonus daughter Carly suggested that I hook them together with a chain. Hubby said "EWWW!!!!!"and I just giggled evilly.

That was last week. This week Cary and I are a teensy bit worried. Not a bunch, just a tad. Scar tissue is building again and I am back on a soft foods diet (NO salad again dang it!) and am quickly heading to an all liquid one. That was fine and dandy when I had Dolores, I could just make up my extra calories via the tube. Before my surgery I had a bigger stomach and could keep my calories where I needed them just by volume. Now my tummy is basically a straw to my intestines and I don't have Dolores. I have NO reserves, so when I don't get enough calories I am wiped to say the least. I am fighting hard to keep them up and got to 1300 yesterday but only made 900 the day before. I tried to keep my energy up by drinking an energy drink, but that made it worse when I "crashed". Yes I am loosing weight, but I would NOT recommend the diet plan.

I lost about 36 pounds from June to now and could even loose about 30 more before I am in serious trouble,  But I would prefer to loose the weight on MY terms thank you very much.

I have a dilation scheduled for as soon as Dr. Lo can do it which isn't until March, but I am on the cancellation list just in case (if a person cancels, I can claim their spot).

Sigh, at least I don't have cancer anymore ...  *singing the old Monty Python tune "Always Loook on the Briiiight side of Life...fade out...

I have two belly buttons now. Just thought I would share...

Dolores has been evicted! No mooree feeeeeding tuuuuube... (that was me singing...) .

I am eating normally, and since Dr. Soukiasian didn't cut my pyloric valve ( injected it with botox thingy ~ remember?) I am having NO acid reflux unless I do something stupid like eat something really spicy or chocolaty. Since I can control that, I am good! I am loving the fact that I have no doctors in my life!  (no offense to all the wonderful medical staff  that has so amazingly saved my life).   A PET scan every six months AND that is it!!!! I do have to keep an eye on my swallowing abilities (when I put it like that it sounds like a super power doesn't it ~) and if that is ever compromised  I need to go in for another balloon party dilatation. But those are old hat by now.  

I am having a bit of drainage at the site of the eviction, but Dr. Soukiasian said that is pretty normal. I think it is making me a bit blah, but I am staying on top of this time and if anything seems "off" I am to call the doctor immediately.

As per my sister I am supposed to be a hypochondriac from now on.  *whispering out the side of my mouth* yeah, THAT'll happen.... Um ....  I mean suuuure sis , just for you, I will.