June 2023 in Review . . . trying to catch up on three months of Facebook posts for my blog-only followers!

Keeping track just because this is our life . . . Thomas had four medical appointments in June.

Diagnosis Day Anniversary

Today marked the three-year anniversary of Thomas’s Diagnosis Day. We spent the day hustling and bustling, not thinking about his cancer journey, as we attended Mass, a potluck (Thomas played chess and climbed trees), and a graduation party, all back to back. Being out and about so long would probably still have been unthinkable even last summer at his two-year D-Day anniversary, but Thomas has good energy now and for the time being. That said, I was feeling philosophical even last night about how Thomas is now among the many Americans who is dependent on medication basically to live. We had been seated at a restaurant with Pop-Pops where I realized I had forgotten Thomas’s two medications necessary to eat food. I drove all the way home to retrieve the medication and it felt heavy to know that without them, Thomas would be suffering wretchedly and be mostly housebound, like he was when he first got home from 132 days in the hospital, and he would essentially starve to death. It makes a mama feel pretty vulnerable because I can’t be a “prepper” to somehow hoard or learn to manufacture these meds in case of societal collapse. So, Thomas is making big strides these three years later thanks to God, ten specialist physicians, 24+ appointments annually, tube feeding, and nine prescriptions.

Nature Class at Freedom Park

Festival for the Feast of St. Anthony!

Opera singer

Famous artist performer

Chris and Joseph set off a rocket for the kids.

Earlier scenes of building the rocket . . .

School Planning

The 2022-23 year is closed out and materials put away. I purchased each student’s master binder for the new year, so you know what that means! Let lesson planning for 2023-24 begin!

Father's Day 2023

We had a wonderful Father’s Day with Chris Lauer! His main goal in life is to get his kids to Heaven and that goal informs everything he does. Happy Father’s Day, honey!

Riding bicycles with my boys in between rainstorms

Gardening with Mom

Weekly Rocket and Engineering Club (we participated over the summer)

Dino Dig

This morning Thomas taught David how to play Dino Dig. Thomas and I played with this exact set of cards endlessly through his six rounds of chemotherapy. This deck of cards will definitely be staying in my box of memorabilia.

Margaret's New Job

Margaret (age 12) riding off on her first day of her two-hour daily babysitting job in the neighborhood. (Edited to add that she still has this job four months later!)

Sacred Heart Art Contest at a Local Parish

Our lovely artist Margaret got an honorable mention! (light blue ribbon, middle row, third from left)

John and Mary Swing Dancing

Ages 14 and 16

Three Silly Brothers

Ages 5, 7, and 10

Chris's Health Challenges

June 25

Hello friends,

Would you please pray for my husband Chris? He is scheduled to have emergent spinal fusion surgery Monday morning after sustaining a cervical-spinal injury when he dived into the pool instantly to save our five-year-old David from drowning. (David is fine now!) This is all happening very rapidly, with the injury around 2:00 this Sunday afternoon and being told by Neurosurgery at 11:00 at night that he'll be having surgery in the morning.

Thank you so much.

June 26

MONDAY UPDATE: Your prayers worked! In an unexpected turn (based on doctors' interpretation of the MRI last night), Chris's spinal cord compression is responding well enough to steroids this morning that Neurosurgery says that his surgery does NOT need to be "emergent." He will stay in the hospital for another 24 hours, but the plan at this point is to schedule surgery within a month or so. Thank you!