{SQT} Checking Chemotherapy Progress with Third MIBG Scan

Scroll down to the bottom if you want to get straight to Thomas's medical updates!

1. Weekend

Chris was gone for four days last weekend, so we made our own fun at home. My 13-year-old big son and I went to the nursery--where we always have a delightful time over our shared interest in plants--and bought fall decorations for the front porch. Normally I don't decorate so early, but we have some plans in store for next weekend! We came home and also did some transplanting work.

2. Creativity

One of the children recently read a hagiography of St. Joan of Arc and thus Fort Orleans was erected in our back yard. The children have played there multiple times daily all week! There is a swept front path to a doorway in the fortress walls. Inside there is a soft carpet of green, a chair on which to sit, and a dining table where they take their meals. There is a holy chapel with pews. For those not practicing holiness, there is a nearby jail (lawn mower shed in background). Also, they have dug hidden caches in the ground and installed way too high in a tree a lookout seat.

We are planning a fun family event for the coming weekend which involved our practicing face painting!

3. Animal Antics

John's fish fry are still alive and growing! Meanwhile, Clara the finch has laid her third clutch of eggs, this time three! We won't find out until the end of 14 days whether they are fertilized or not, but it is wonderful to watch the male and female working as a mated pair, building a nest, keeping it warm, the male sitting on the eggs so that the female can go eat. You should see the animated excitement in Peter when he can bring his mate tiny strips of newspaper for her nest! Young ladies: men wooing you should behave as if you are the prize worthy of the equivalent of their "best strips of newspaper"!

In my husband's absence, we girls battled a still-alive, huge stinging thing in the pool as well as dodging a cicada killer in the garage. A mouse was found drowned in the pool, and it was given the honor of a handmade coffin and tombstone, as well as an originally written elegy read at his funeral.

I even experienced the thrill of rescuing a hummingbird trapped in our garage! The big garage door was wide open but the hummingbird could not figure out how to get out and was panicked, chirping loudly (when I did not even know they made noise), and occasionally finding respite by hanging on a chain. After giving the beautiful green fellow about an hour to try to get out himself, I got the pool skimmer to try to gently shoo him out. I ended up slowly and delicately putting the net of the skimmer right up to the hummingbird's belly and he stepped onto it! It took three different slow motion "rides" on the skimmer for me to transport him across the full length of the garage, at which point he flew free high up into an oak tree!

Zoom in to see hummingbird resting on chain.

4. School

I think Thomas is my first child to cleverly mark off
each item he is counting so as not to lose his place.

I designed what I think is a good, solid curriculum for this year, but it is also mostly independent and I've had to let go of my ideals of teaching everything directly and intensely myself. Meanwhile, in our first month, I'm slowly finding moments of being more creative and doing more joyful interaction than I've done since the early years. For example, one morning I was reading to the younger boys about life in ancient Ur when I volunteered spontaneously to walk right to the kitchen and cook the two recipes provided: a lentil soup and faux locust biscuits (using almonds instead of bugs!) so we could learn what Sarah and Abraham would have eaten.

The children were delighted and thrilled at my spontaneity! (Who are you, Mama?!) We had the best time and joyful memories were made. Cancer is a powerful daily reminder that we truly have no idea how many days we have with our spouse or any one of our children. How would you want to have lived them?

This week we learned about bioluminescent beetles and other creatures. For once, I actually stopped to go look up on the computer more about the chemical compound luciferase and the delightful Brazilian railroad worm (Phrixothrix) so the children could see pictures.

Also, we started what I hope is a new weekly family conversation: I purchased the San Juan Beginning Apologetics Set, which is designed for high-school, but I think makes a fabulous parent-guided conversation at younger ages. My goal is that on Sunday evenings, Mom and Dad gather with the 11- and 13-year-olds and go through a lesson (two to four pages). We had our first gathering on Sunday and we had the most invigorating, animated conversation with the children eagerly asking some pent-up questions about the faith. It was wonderful!

5. Orchestra Starting

Youth Orchestras of Charlotte is starting its new season with many changes to try to meet COVID restrictions. Margaret (9) has been accepted into the beginner orchestra while Mary (11) has been accepted newly into the middle-level orchestra. The girls had a meet-and-greet with fellow orchestra members of Zoom and begin in-person rehearsals next week.

No more sharing of music stands due to "social distancing," so they now each have a portable music stand and we girls stayed up one night decorating their carrying bags with puffy paints. Fun!

6. Reading

After a friend recommended this novel to me, I recently finished The Mass of Brother Michel (1942) by Michael Kent. I devoured this book in a week and it is a fine, rare story I recommend every adult Catholic read. The story itself is a catechism, truth written into the story without being preachy. It is full of adventure, shocking twists and turns, but nothing outlandish or impossible and, in fact, it all seems like exactly what would have happened.  The setting is southern France during the beginning of the Reformation. I never before thought of what it would have meant truly to live through that tumultuous time. I suggest the minimum ages for this book be 14-15, but probably late high-school is most appropriate (due to plot lines that require revealing sexual indiscretions/sins--nothing is graphic, but it is a sine qua non to the plot line). Adults will get the most of it because life experience brings the depth of this novel to life.

This week I finished reading God's Messenger: The Astounding Achievements of Mother Cabrini (2018) by Nicole Gregory. It was a gripping page-turner, which is a real find for a hagiography. While I enjoyed very much learning about a saint I knew nothing about, I read it hoping to be affirmed in the humbleness and invisibility of my life and homemaker vocation, but came away feeling more worthlessly unimportant than ever because Mother Cabrini was an incredibly accomplished little nun who established sixty-seven institutions, including schools, colleges, orphanages, hospitals, rest homes, and training homes for nurses; made twenty-three ocean voyages; and founded a worldwide order of nuns that persists to this day. (Written for high-school+ but I'd say anyone over 10 could read it, but keep in mind it briefly discusses illegitimacy.)

Almost at the end, we are now reading aloud the seventh book in the Narnia series to the little boys! (Okay, Joseph [7] is the only one listening.)

I'm currently racing through Outlaws of Ravenhurst (1923) by Sr. Imelda Wallace. This novel set in seventeenth century Scotland (also about the Reformation!) is a youth novel for middle school+ because of tense themes (e.g., an uncle severely beating and starving his nephew, a scene of attempted murder involving fire).

6. Medical Stuff

Thomas's COVID test on Monday went fine. Third time's a charm, so they say, and he finally was given the low-risk procedure for someone symptomless simply having a medical procedure (in which the Q-tip device only goes right inside the tip of the nostril).

On Wednesday, I headed back to the hospital for Thomas to have his port accessed and receive his nuclear MIBG injection. I'm telling you, it's a strange position to be a "frequent flier" (as they called kids like Thomas in the imaging department) for which getting an injection of RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL DELIVERED IN A LEAD SHIELDED CONTAINER is starting to feel routine.

On Thursday, Thomas had to fast and we realized a problem: Last time he missed one does of his blood pressure medication, his BP skyrocketed. How could we get his morning dose into him without grinding it up into peanut butter as per usual? He learned how to swallow his own pill, which we think is pretty great for a five-year-old! Then Chris took him to Anne Springs Close Greenway to distract him from fasting.

We had exceptionally good staff at each station within the hospital today. I was very pleased. Watching your child slip away into general anesthesia is never easy and walking away with an empty stroller does not feel good at all, but one does what one has to do.

Playing a geography game while waiting for general anesthesia

A lovely mother of eight babysat for me while I was gone, outshining me by far: the school and music got done, the house was immaculate, plus kids played Playdough and ran around outdoors, then they got to watch an afternoon movie, the girls did some sewing with the mama, and then she taught the group how to bake bread and baked seven loaves. Ha! My kids were so well cared for.

Another dear friend brought us a meal, a goodie bag for the children, plus her 14-year-old daughter baked a Brave Lion Cake for our Brave Boy. We were so touched!

Thursday evening, I had the respite of getting to leave the house to attend the Parents' Meeting for Confirmandi this year. Since the middle of March (6 months for those of us counting), I have: 

• attended Mass a handful of times,
• gone to the hair salon with my daughters once, 
• walked with neighborhood women twice, 
• taken the children to nature areas maybe twice, 
• taken my son to the plant nursery twice, and 
• I don't think I can think of anything else. 

I don't even go to the grocery store. What I do is go to the hospital. This evening, I got to attend a 45-minute meeting in a room full of adults, and then sit and chat animatedly with two girlfriends for 45 more minutes which was the best medicine.

Unfortunately, overnight I experienced a night of insomnia and then falling asleep at 4:30 a.m. only to have a huge anxiety nightmare: the family made every room in our home messy, I discovered scary hidden rooms in my house that I did not know existed, someone was endangering one of my children who had a severe allergy, Make a Wish Foundation showed up for a photo shoot while we were in our pajamas, there were violent riots one block from our home, and I was so late I was going to miss Thomas's next doctor's appointment. Who knew my subconscious could fit so many of my fears in one dream?

On Friday, Thomas and I departed bright and early at 7:15 a.m. for his echocardiogram. It has been about 10 weeks since he had his baseline ECHO, so we watched this fun Ask Hermin video on YouTube to remind him what the test would be like. An echocardiogram and audiology exam will be done regularly to check Thomas for permanent heart damage and hearing loss from the chemotherapy.

And now, we all wait to hear from our oncologist today by phone about the results of Thomas's tests and to decide about a treatment plan! Jesus, I trust in you!

Thomas's scan results can be found by clicking here.

For more 7 Quick Takes Friday, check out This Ain't the Lyceum.