good week and a new schedule

Anna's chemo schedule changed a bit this past week. She was supposed to have treatment on Monday and Thursday, but on both days her platelets were low. On Thursday, the doctor decided she should come back on Friday for a blood + platelet transfusion and chemo treatment. The transfusions helps to bring her platelets and other counts back to a "normal" range. Whenever they do the transfusion, it is a several hour process. So, her and her Aunt spent most of Friday morning over at the hospital with the blood transfusion and then chemo treatment. She is back over there next week for a couple days of chemo treatment. All of these changes to her are just par for the course. They set out with a schedule, but approach it with flexibility as the most important thing at this point is to have her feel comfortable and remain feeling pretty good. This past week, she was a little more tired and beat up than in previous weeks but nothing too alarming. It was just a good week for taking it easy and not doing too much. Her Aunt went home on Saturday. She did a great job of cleaning the house from top to bottom. Every time I came home, she was ripping through another room and getting all those hard to reach places that don't get a lot of attention. The house definitely needed a thorough cleaning like that.

TJ and Anna's parents came out on Saturday and I think he was excited to be back home. He's so smart... as they get on to the bridge to come out to NJ, he always says "home" and then says it a few more times on the ride and as they pull up out front. It's pretty crazy what kids learn and repeat. Her parents went back home last night, so it was just the three of us out here. We had this weird moment just before bedtime where TJ was running from room to room and everything felt kind of normal for a moment. It's been tough, but you really do appreciate those moments of normalcy. I was also able to go out for a couple drinks on Friday and it felt good to catch up with a few people that I hadn't seen in a while.

My parents are heading down today... my father will be here for a few days and my mom will spend the week. TJ's out here all week, so I'm pretty excited about getting to see him every night. He's definitely my boy... he follows me just about everywhere and wants to be part of everything I do.

I realize I've been a bit slow with the postings lately. I'm going to try to settle into a schedule of Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday... but will definitely post something if anything significant happens (positive or negative). You should always assume that no news is good news.

No word on Tino yet, so we remain optimistic that things will work out in his new home. We should know for sure in another week or so.