Another weekend over and out

Here it is Sunday night, the next week looming ahead of me. The last week of October. Where, oh where, does the time go? I was talking with some friends this afternoon. My friend Liz said, "It feels like what used to be full minutes are now only 45 seconds." I feel the same way.

We had a good weekend. The boys had soccer games on Saturday morning. Joseph and Brigham had a Halloween piano recital and party, and had to leave at half-time. But actually their game started late. They were supposed to have pictures taken before the game-- our boys got there 45 minutes before their game for this purpose, but everything was already behind schedule, and at 10:25 their game finally started, without ever getting around to pictures. So the boys played for 5 minutes, and then had to leave for the recital, and they missed the team pictures. Oh well. Last year they missed the Halloween recital for a soccer game, and they really wanted to play in the recital this year.

Mosey is coming along in his soccer. The first couple of games he hasn't been too engaged. He just doesn't care enough about kicking the ball to want to try to break through the throng of little kids following the ball around the field. But last week and this week we asked him how many times he was going to kick the ball, and that seemed to motivate him. So yesterday he would kick the ball, and then come running across the field to the sideline to yell, "Mom, did you see me kick the ball?!" "Yes, Mosey, that was great, now run back over to try to kick it again!" He is cute. There are a couple of little boys on his team that are very good, so I think the score ended up being 7 or 8 to 1, or even worse. Good thing they don't keep score for these little kids, it would be pretty discouraging to the other kids. As it is, I'm not sure Mosey even cares that much if his team wins, he's just excited when he gets to kick the ball.

Yesterday evening we drove to the Stake Center to audition for a Stake talent show in a couple of weeks. Brigham learned (by ear! two hands!) "We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet," and I played an accompanying part on the violin and Ben played along on the 3 chords he knows on the guitar. :-) Mosey beat his homemade oatmeal container drum. We tried mightily to get Joseph to play chords on the piano as well, but he was having NONE OF THAT. If they accept us (I have not the slightest idea what our chances are), I'm going to really try to convince him to join us. I think he would really enjoy performing, if he would give it a chance.

Earlier in the afternoon I talked with a woman from California (I think) who has been accepted into the HALT-MS trial in Houston, although has not gotten insurance approval yet. She had a bunch of questions and it was good to talk to her. It was kind of weird going through all of that stuff again in my mind, though. I think it is good that more than a year has passed. This time last year I'm not sure I would have responded in exactly the same way to some of her questions.
I am a little hesitant to really offer advice anyway, because each person's experience will be different from anyone else's. The things I found most intolerable about the stem cell transplant might not be a big problem for someone else.
My sister sent me a link to a really great NY Times article on MD Anderson (where I had my transplant), and in one place the author wrote, "Anti-nausea drugs have all but eliminated the constant vomiting that once accompanied chemotherapy." Well, not for me. The difficult recovery I had would have been much easier if I hadn't been so sick.
I'm very glad I had the transplant, and I would still make the same decision. However, I'm not sure I would ever choose to go through that experience again.
It was interesting to hear the concerns and worries this woman has pre-transplant. I was worried about those same things. But now looking back, those were not the things I should have been worried about. There were other things that ended up being way worse. I didn't tell her that, though, because like many things, there are some aspects of the transplant experience that are best left unknown before-hand.
Physically, she is a lot better off than I am. Her EDSS score is a lot lower than mine. I wonder how that will affect her experience. I knew going into it that I didn't have much of a choice. If my MS continued to progress as it was, I would be in extremely bad shape. But she's had MS for 10 years and has not experienced a rapid progression. I hope that in the dark days of the transplant process she doesn't have deep regrets.
Anyway, I hope she gets insurance approval soon. I feel bad that it has been so difficult for Dr. Hutton and Dr. Popat to get patients for this study.