The M&M Story

Let's see....I'm still recovering from the lung damage caused by pneumonia. I'm finished with the antibiotics (thank goodness--I was tired of hooking up an IV five times a day!), but I'm still dealing with some coughing and shortness of breath, combined with weakness and fatigue. But I'm moving around a little more each day. I start a new chemo regimen on Tuesday. We visited the doctor this week, and he thought we should avoid the original drug. There were some liver issues, along with the fact that the cancer has progressed a bit. So the new regimen includes the drugs Adriamycin and Taxol, and should be a little more toxic than the original drug, but I've got heavy duty nausea drugs ($100 per pill!! paid for by insurance) and should deal mainly with fatigue. I'm tired of fatigue. I'll also lose my hair in a couple weeks, which should be an odd experience. SEND HATS. I could use this time to purchase some wigs and try out different hairstyles. See if I w

Recently, when a country or folk song comes on the stereo, M says, "That's a farmer singing that song."

Today, on the front page of the metro section, there's an account of his scooter adventures. At 70 miles to the gallon, it's a good thing he got it back! Click here for the story.

september'05 086 Originally uploaded by Melanie Maynor . Three-year-old cousins at the balloon races last week. This photo and the butterfly cake courtesy of Aunt Mimi's flickr photostream....

Lillian's 3rd birthday cake. Originally uploaded by Melanie Maynor . We're heading over to a Bugstravaganza after naptime. It's a bug party. What else could you want at three?

M: Mommy, have you ever had chocolate in cranberry juice? Mommy: No, I haven't. M: I have. It's yummy, yummy. Mommy: Really? Where did you have it? M: In a restaurant.

M: "Dear Jesus, thank you for my chocolate milk. It's really yummy."

This morning M looked at me and said, "You need a hair trim," and then went back to eating his cereal.

Sorry about the lapse in blogation. After another week in the hospital, I've been back home a week, but haven't been up to much. I'm self-administering IV antibiotics, and seem to be gettting a little better everyday. Keep praying for recovery from this pneumonia/lung damage. Kiddos are doing well. M has almost figured out the whole potty thing. Number 2 is about 90% there. So I guess that makes it about Number 1.8. Meanwhile, we reaced a particular goal (six successful poopers) and celebrated with a Potty Party. Cousin L came over and we had popcorn and pizza and watched a movie. We had rented A Bug's Life , which turned aout to be a mite scary for L and B. We turned it off and watched Peter Rabbit. M, however, watched the rest of A Bug's Life the next day and LOVED the scary parts. He keeps telling us his "favowite parts are the scary parts with the gwasshoppers!!" Still, we'll try to keep such fare to a minimum. I've been reading John Eldredge&

Brian was hospitalized on Tuesday for dehydration, following five days of fever related to pneumonia. I'll let him write his story when he returns home, but he did make a big production in the waiting room and passed out, causing the bigwig doctor to come running to revive him. So they put him back in the hospital. The doctors have spent the last couple of days figuring out why Brian's recovery has been so slow going. They found an abscess (not absolutely confirmed yet, but most probable - apparently it takes hours, sometimes days to get CT reports) in the right lung near the pneumonia. An abscess is a pocket of fluid caused by infection. The pulmonary specialist explained his theory on the slow recovery. He suspects that tumor is blocking a normal blood flow, which limits the amount of antibiotic that reaches the infection. Their first strategy is to up the anitbiotic to a high dose, hoping that enough will get to the infection and clear it up. They will watch it until

I was trimming my eyebrows this morning when M walked in to tell me breakfast was ready. He turned around and yelled to Susan: "Daddy can't eat breakfast! He's cutting off his eyebrows!!"