The After

Although I have many more pictures and stories to share about our recent time with Nathan, today is Sarah’s day.

Today marks Sarah’s ninth anniversary of being a survivor of Stage IV Neuroblastoma, the cancer with one of the lowest survival rates of all pediatric cancers. I’ve posted a photo retrospective over on her site today, so be sure to stop by there to help her celebrate.

Sarah is a young lady who has gone through some truly horrific experiences in her young life. One which comes quickly to mind is the preparation process for her bone marrow transplant when she was given doses of chemo strong enough to have killed an adult. (Her doctor said that children’s bodies can handle more chemo than adults can.)

When the (miraculous, poisonous) chemo killed off her immune system, she developed horrible open sores-from her mouth all the way down through her entire digestive system. She went for several weeks without being able to take anything by mouth because the pain was so intense.

But she endured with grace.

She found a core of strength inside that frail seven year old body that surprised us all.

And she lived to become the “after” in this before and after photo.

We are so very, very thankful that our child survived, so grateful that she has been given the chance to blossom into loveliness--loveliness of face and loveliness of heart.

Happy anniversary, baby girl.

Sarah and Mrs. Sew Sew.

Sarah

Sarah made it to school today and since I haven’t gotten any phone calls from the school, it seems like she may actually make it through the day. She still had a tough day yesterday but by bedtime, she had gotten some of her pizzazz back. This morning, she her lips and face were very pale again, but the color came back a little after she’d been up a while. She said she felt strong enough to try and make it through the day so off she went! (Leaving a forlorn Nurse Snowy behind.)

Here she is taking her temp yesterday. (Which is why she is sitting sort of funny, waiting to take the thermometer out from under her am.)

Thanks for all your kind-n-happy wishes for her in the comments section; we’re blessed that you’re part of our Smithellaneous Family!

Mrs. Sew Sew

Mrs. Sew Sew? Yep, that would be me.

Because the longer I live the more I discover that my sewing skills are rather, um, sew sew.

To illustrate, here is my Facebook post from yesterday:

I just sewed a button on Steve's pajama's and another button on my pants and I am exhausted. Sewing is so not my gig. My limit is two buttons a year so I guess I'm done for 2011! (Just don't tell Steve.)

After I wrote that entry and read some of the responses, I got to thinking about the whole sewing/mending deal and wondering how many people even do that sort of stuff any more.

Would I be correct in thinking that women over fifty are more prone to mend things and even (wonder of wonders) sew stuff from scratch then the under fifty crowd?

And since my brain has been mulling over this for a few hours now, I thought I’d ask you all to jump in with your studied and inimitable opinions.

First of all, rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 concerning your level of sewing skill. A one means that you run screaming the other direction at the very thought of picking up a needle; a ten means that you are capable of sewing and/or mending just about anything.

You can even back up your number with an example or two which would be quite informative and entertaining for the rest of us.

And then (if you don’t mind), let us know what decade you’re in—30’s, 40’s, 50’s, etc. I have a sneaking suspicion that this particular skill may be disappearing a little more with each generation and it’s really sort of sad because mending something is a pretty cool thing to do if you actually know how to do it.

Which I don’t.

I can (sort of) sew on buttons and (sort of) hem a pair of pants. And that’s why I would rate my skills as sorta “sew sew.”

So I’ll go first and say that I’m about a 3 on the Sewing Scale. And I’m in my 40’s.

Your turn!

Sick Girl. Worried Mom. Devoted Dog.

When Sarah and I walked into the doctor’s office yesterday, I had the kind of niggling concern in the back of my mind that every cancer mom deals with when her child gets sick.

One of Sarah's main symptoms when she was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma was extreme paleness and, the past few mornings, Sarah’s face and lips have been so white it looked as though she could pass out on the spot. Also, she’d had that strange, out-of-the-blue fever last Thursday night which never came back; in fact, instead of going high again, her temp dropped to 94.6 yesterday. (Another symptom at diagnosis was fevers that would come and go.)

So that worried me, too. However, I wanted to be able to express my cancer mom concerns to the doctor without getting into a big long discussion that might worry Sarah.

After he had finished examining her he said, “The paleness and the odd temperature variations do concern me. Does she have any other medical problems?”

I replied, “Well, she is a cancer survivor.” And then I tried to think of how to express my worry without alerting Sarah. I finally added in a casual tone, “One of her original symptoms at diagnosis was extreme paleness.”

That’s all I said.

But thankfully, this doctor's years of wisdom and experience had given him the gift of a sixth sense for moms trying to keep certain information from younger ears. He caught my eye, nodded, and let me know immediately he understood what I was saying.

Then he stood and said nonchalantly, “Let me just go check on something.”

Two minutes later his nurse appeared in the doorway with her blood drawing equipment. Since a blood draw isn’t usually part of a child’s cold/flu check up, I was reassured that the doctor had read my S.O.S. loud and clear.

A few minutes later, he returned and said the preliminary blood work was back and everything looked good. He said that the white blood count and the neutrophil count wouldn’t be back until the next day and then added, “If the neutrophil count is off, well, then we’ll start looking in a different direction.”

Which was diplomatic doctor-speak for, “At that point, cancer would definitely be on our radar.”

Throughout the entire conversation, Sarah (who is usually very tuned in to doctor-speak) never had a clue as to what we were talking about and so thankfully, her little heart was spared any needless worries.

The doctor said he thought her main issue right now is a Type B flu which is not as severe as Type A but can still produce odd symptoms, like the body being unable to regulate its temperature.

Sarah did a little better throughout the evening but then last night she had a bad reaction to some medication. Her heart was racing, she was anxious and emotional, she hallucinated, she was shaky and her body temp dropped way low again.

I called the doctor as soon as his office opened and the first thing he told me was that the rest of her blood work had come back and everything was perfectly and wonderfully normal. (Big sigh of relief.)

As for the other symptoms (it was a 24-hour medication she reacted to) he said she would just have to wait it out; as long as her heart rate didn’t get over 130 (the highest it went was 120) she wouldn’t need to be brought back in.

And so let me just sum up this whole medical missive by saying that Snowy has had a busy morning nursing his girl . . .

. . . and praying for her, too.

There is no Giver of Comfort any better than our resident canine nurse.

And today he’ll have his work cut out for him.

But he’s good with that.