Sunday, August 31, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Last hospital bracelet?
I had to drive to Houston one more time on Thursday morning. The HALT-MS study period (5 years) ended a year ago, but my oncologist, Dr. Popat wanted to see me again. So after taking Brigham back from cross country practice, I got back in the van and headed out on 290 toward Houston.
I've come to associate that drive into Houston with major anxiety, and I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I was able to keep myself mostly distracted, and it wasn't too bad. It helped that the only evaluation I would undergo was a blood test.
And it was fine. The only difficulty was driving through a blinding rainstorm a few miles before Brenham, and then the usual horrendous traffic getting out of Houston in the afternoon. Houston has the worst traffic of any city I've lived in.
After getting my blood drawn at the fast track lab, my blood counts came back all mostly normal. All the important ones were in the normal range, anyway. I got to wait for an hour and 20 minutes past my appointment time to see Dr. Popat, which is pretty normal for his office, but he is such a nice person, it's hard to hold it against him.
I still do not like going to that hospital. It is too sad and I hate the aura of "patient" that immediately descends upon me when I go through those doors. Maybe this will be the last time I ever have to go there? I guess I'll see if Dr. Popat wants to see me again next year. It is pretty nice that he wants to keep track of me even after the study is done. And he mentioned my Christmas cards, so I guess I'll keep sending those.
It's hard to believe that all of that happened 6 years ago. At the time, I remember thinking how unbelievable it would be to have 12 year olds by the end of the study. And now I have 13 year olds! Time marches on, I guess, and I'm mostly glad about that. .
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
first day of school
Today was the first day of school! A new start for a new school year and another shot to revive my blog a bit.
I spent almost the entire summer in Utah, going to physical therapy at a clinic called Neuroworx. It was great fun being in Utah and spending time with family up there. The boys all spent some time up there with me as well, so I was never alone. In fact I contemplated staying up there through Christmas and having Brigham and Moses go to part-days of school there (Utah has a dual enrollment policy for homeschoolers). But ultimately I decided to come home. Joseph is going to Canyon Vista and I would miss him and Ben too much, and they would miss us. :-) Plus I kind of missed the 99 degree weather that is Austin in August.
Anyway, today was the first day of school.
It sort of started last night with a last-minute Walmart trip to exchange Joseph's school notebook for one without a warped ring. He was putting together all his school supplies when we discovered the problem. So I sent him to bed and went to walmart and then came home and assembled his supplies into his notebook and backpack. I'll miss him this year. I think it's a good decision for him to go to Canyon Vista, and I know he will do well, but I'll miss having him around.
So this morning Brigham had cross country practice so I woke him up, got dressed, woke Joseph up, drove Brigham to cross country, came back and drove Joseph to school (just for the first day, he'll take the bus from here on out), went back to pick up Brigham, and came home again after 2 solid hours of driving. Whew! The first day of school for Brigham and Mosey and I was fairly laid back as I haven't totally finalized exactly what we're doing. I'm trying to stay flexible. We are studying physics and Renaissance-modern world history. The other stuff is coming together as I decide finally on a writing program and make some decisions about logic/language/grammar.
I thought the day went just fine. Mosey wasn't too thrilled about starting school again, but I'm hoping to win him over.
I picked up Joseph at 3:45 and from what he said his first day of school was just fine. No homework, just million papers for me to sign. He came home and played really well with Mosey and Brigham. I can see this might be an unexpected benefit to him being at school-- being with his brothers will be more of a novelty and thus more fun with less bickering. He was challenged by his cousin Jack to participate in the "ice bucket challenge," so he did that this afternoon. The ice bucket challenge is a funny facebook fad right now to raise money and awareness for ALS. If you are challenged, you have to video yourself pouring a bucket of ice water over your head, donate $10 to ALS research, and then nominate someone else for the challenge. Apparently ALS has raised like 100 million dollars just in the past few weeks because of this internet phenomenon. It's pretty fun. Mosey poured the water on Joseph's head, and it was pretty much the funniest thing EVER for him. :-)
Brigham and Joseph had a back-to-school pool party for mutual tonight, and I spent the evening working on curriculum for this year. When Joseph got back and saw all my school stuff spread out on the table he said, "Why did I decide to do public school right when you're doing all this awesome stuff for homeschool?" Well, that made me feel better about my homeschooling, but worse about him going to public school. I really would love to have him at home.
Well, that's it for tonight. Here are a few cell phone pictures from the last few months. I have lots of pictures left to go through (most of them) from the summer, but here are a few at least.
I spent almost the entire summer in Utah, going to physical therapy at a clinic called Neuroworx. It was great fun being in Utah and spending time with family up there. The boys all spent some time up there with me as well, so I was never alone. In fact I contemplated staying up there through Christmas and having Brigham and Moses go to part-days of school there (Utah has a dual enrollment policy for homeschoolers). But ultimately I decided to come home. Joseph is going to Canyon Vista and I would miss him and Ben too much, and they would miss us. :-) Plus I kind of missed the 99 degree weather that is Austin in August.
Anyway, today was the first day of school.
It sort of started last night with a last-minute Walmart trip to exchange Joseph's school notebook for one without a warped ring. He was putting together all his school supplies when we discovered the problem. So I sent him to bed and went to walmart and then came home and assembled his supplies into his notebook and backpack. I'll miss him this year. I think it's a good decision for him to go to Canyon Vista, and I know he will do well, but I'll miss having him around.
So this morning Brigham had cross country practice so I woke him up, got dressed, woke Joseph up, drove Brigham to cross country, came back and drove Joseph to school (just for the first day, he'll take the bus from here on out), went back to pick up Brigham, and came home again after 2 solid hours of driving. Whew! The first day of school for Brigham and Mosey and I was fairly laid back as I haven't totally finalized exactly what we're doing. I'm trying to stay flexible. We are studying physics and Renaissance-modern world history. The other stuff is coming together as I decide finally on a writing program and make some decisions about logic/language/grammar.
I thought the day went just fine. Mosey wasn't too thrilled about starting school again, but I'm hoping to win him over.
I picked up Joseph at 3:45 and from what he said his first day of school was just fine. No homework, just million papers for me to sign. He came home and played really well with Mosey and Brigham. I can see this might be an unexpected benefit to him being at school-- being with his brothers will be more of a novelty and thus more fun with less bickering. He was challenged by his cousin Jack to participate in the "ice bucket challenge," so he did that this afternoon. The ice bucket challenge is a funny facebook fad right now to raise money and awareness for ALS. If you are challenged, you have to video yourself pouring a bucket of ice water over your head, donate $10 to ALS research, and then nominate someone else for the challenge. Apparently ALS has raised like 100 million dollars just in the past few weeks because of this internet phenomenon. It's pretty fun. Mosey poured the water on Joseph's head, and it was pretty much the funniest thing EVER for him. :-)
Brigham and Joseph had a back-to-school pool party for mutual tonight, and I spent the evening working on curriculum for this year. When Joseph got back and saw all my school stuff spread out on the table he said, "Why did I decide to do public school right when you're doing all this awesome stuff for homeschool?" Well, that made me feel better about my homeschooling, but worse about him going to public school. I really would love to have him at home.
Well, that's it for tonight. Here are a few cell phone pictures from the last few months. I have lots of pictures left to go through (most of them) from the summer, but here are a few at least.
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