Mother's Day at the Lake House

Table Rock Lake has recently had historic floods, so things are a little different around the family lake house

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The guys were still able to spend some time on the lake fishing, but the dock will be inaccessible most of the summer.

The weather was really nice and surprisingly warm, so it turned into a really nice weekend.

Here is the back of the house.

 The water now comes up to the backyard.  The water is usually out past the farthest trees. 

 We spent much of Saturday playing out in front of the house.  

One benefit of the floods... we can now fish in the back yard...

Joey and I took a walk to see the boat dock.  The water is up so high, we can't get to it and can barely even see it through the trees. 

Expert Night 2011

Katherine's gifted program at school has an expert night each year.  This year, she did her project on blood.  She printed pictures of blood cells, interviewed Dr. Rosen, made blood cells out of clay, a brochure about leukemia ("When Good Blood Goes Bad"), and her favorite, blood soup.  

She did a really good job and she and I learned a lot. 

Notice her arm is wrapped.  Earlier that day in school, she was injured at recess while playing goalie in a soccer game and using a basketball instead of a soccer ball.  It turned out to be sprained so she had to keep it wrapped for a few days, but it's now as good as new. 

Easter 2011

We had a fun Easter weekend with family.  My cousin and her family came to town from Colorado Springs as they usually do for Easter. 

Joey was feeling pretty good.  He got a little tired on Sunday afternoon so he spent a lot of time in front of the TV watching movies, but he had an overall fun weekend. 

 Shark exhibit at Exploration Place

 Easter morning in their Easter clothes

 All the kids together

 An ok picture of us, but it was a little bright outside...

 Easter egg hunt

We made it through the chemo this week.  Joey was really proud of himself for learning to take all 7 pills with no drink.  He was up coughing late on Tuesday night, so he was still awake at midnight and didn't have to be woken up to take them.  The chemo doesn't seem to be bothering him.  His biggest problem is his allergies that won't quit.  

Here are more pictures of the fun stuff we've been doing.

Joey got to box with his daddy

We celebrated Jon's birthday by taking a trip to the Kansas Cosmosphere.  All of the kids loved it. 

 

 He wanted to pretend to hold it up. 

Sorry I haven't posted for a little while.  I've got some pictures that I'll post later of the fun stuff we've been doing the last few weeks.

Joey has felt ok, but he's got a cough that just won't go away.  He's even been coughing so hard that he gets sick.  We've been working with his asthma and allergy doctor to try to get a handle on it and it seems better today.  I think it's caused from all his allergies.  We had him tested a couple of years ago and found that he's allergic to all kinds of pollen, which has been very high around here lately.  If he's not better in a couple of days, they'll add a steroid to his ever-growing list of medicines.

The good news is that his counts were up yesterday.  Because they are high enough, he started chemo at 6:00 tonight.  He'll take 7 pills every 6 hours.  He's also taking his inhaler every 4 hours right now.  The poor kid gets woken up a lot some nights.  His chemo pills are pretty small, and he was very proud of himself tonight when he realized he can swallow them without a drink.  I've been rewarding him each time with candy - probably not the best reward, but it helps get him to cooperate.

When I first started using the web to interact with other families dealing with leukemia, I connected with a handful through our Joseph's Journey Facebook page.  I knew I was taking a chance of making all of this harder on myself - instead of worrying about just Joey, I would worry about other kids fighting the same fight.  I just couldn't keep myself from getting emotionally involved with some of them.  I'm very sad to say that one little girl (in Australia) passed away this last Sunday.  She was 4 when diagnosed and had since turned 5.  She was diagnosed about 3 weeks after Joey. She made it to remission, but a month later, the cancer was back and the doctors knew it was too strong to fight it any longer.  Her mom posted on Joey's page about how she held her baby as she slipped away.  Joey has been doing so well that I sometimes forget how deadly this can be.  This was a difficult reminder of what we are dealing with and how fortunate we are that Joey's treatments are working.

Joey is feeling much better now that his sinus infection is gone. At his appointment with Dr Rosen this week, we got the details on the new treatment course that he starts in 2 weeks.  He will now get fewer spinals and he won't have to carry the bag around for 48 hours anymore.  He'll be getting the same type of chemo but in pill form.  Every other week he'll take 6-8 pills every 4 hours for 24 hours.  This means we'll have to wake him up for some of the doses.  He'll also get another medicine the day after - 2 doses, 12 hours apart.  

I assumed this would be easier for him, but the doctor said that the chemo in pill form is usually harder on the body than the fluid because it stays in the body longer and has more time to be toxic.  I'm hoping he gets through this as well as he did the last 5 months.  

We are spending this weekend at my parents lake house on Table Rock.  We got to spend some time with my cousins family.  They live in Minnesota and we don't get to see them much, so it was really good.  Joey and Cody got along and had fun playing together.

Here are some pictures of some fun things we've been doing:

Jon and I ready for a night out

 Bowling with the family for Mom/Grandma's birthday

 

Joey and Brea (Daughter of my cousin, Jeremy)

All the kids at the lake house

Cody, Katherine, Brea & Joey

We had a little photo-shoot down by the water 

 

 

Friday morning, I took Joey to the doctor.  They did a few tests, including a sinus x-ray that showed infection in 2 sinuses.  I was actually relieved.  A couple of days on antibiotics and he's fine.

We go in for labs tomorrow, but he has no major treatments this week!