Hair Fairy

Okay, so this has been some blogging hiatus ...! I will chalk it up to post-treatment bliss/stress. This Tuesday will be 3 weeks, 21 days since Gianni has been to clinic - no owies, no pokes, no nothing! The entire past 10 months is already cloaked in a surreal fog (what happened?!?!?). She still has the NG tube; we give her nightly feeds (but no regime of water) and meds 3 times a day... Although her meds consist only of a few supplements now (Potassium Chloride, K Phos, and Magnesium Gluconoate - most items that could be bought OTC). Her appetite is slowly but surely returning - once she starts to maintain her mass on her own we will be able to remove the NG.

Last day of chemo

The 'hair fairy' is working double time - every morning I swear she wakes up with a few more millimeters of fuzz. It is coming in blond so it is difficult to see, but it feels really soft! I read that hair grows about 1.25 cm (~1/2 in) a month - at that rate I'll be pulling her bangs out of her eyes again in no time!

We have been easing into some semblance of normality at the Gheno residence. We've made our weekly trips to the cabin - shorter for me and the kids now that Bruno is in "real" school - but complete family time. Gianni has had a few play dates at Miss Martha's, a great way to ease her back into "the rules". I even treated the kids to a movie last night, something we have not done since last October.

I've been dreading the call from the clinic to schedule her next labs, check-in with Trish, and the always looming MRI...BUT, since it kept popping up in my mind - I called them today ("Oh, good morning Mrs. Gheno, I was just about to call you"). Not a big deal its just that (even with all that has happened, and the ever present reminder of the NG) every once in a while - usually while I'm listening to the kids playing in the background while I'm occupied with an everyday task or chore - I think I forget or regress to a place where none of this ever happened. I don't come crashing back to reality or anything like that, it's just good to be living with a more even cadence.

Her labs will be on Tues, 23 Sep, she'll have another visit near the end of October and then her 2nd post-treatment MRI on 21 Nov.

The LPCH neuro-oncology service's annual picnic will be the 1st weekend in October - I'm looking forward to bringing the kids.

First trip back to G'Ma and G'Pa Walker's (we had 3 birthday parties!)

Daredevil

Batman

Just one nickel for every one of these pics...just one...!