Chemo

Well, we made it through another chemo session. The side effects were much more mild this cycle. Now I am in the phase where I need to build my body back up so it is strong enough to handle the next session. I am now officially half way through the process. I can't wait to be finished with it. But being halfway is encouraging. My hair is starting to grow back. I thought I would have to wait until the whole thing is over to have hair again. But I have a thin layer of fuzz all over the top of my head. I can start to feel stubble on my legs as well. Yeah for hair. Although I have no idea what I will do with all the lovely hats I have made. Maybe I will just donate them to the other patients at the cancer center. If all goes well, by Halloween I will be well on the mend. How appropriate to be bringin all of this to an end just in time for the end of the witch's year. As I celebrate Samhain this year I will truely being putting all the bad things of this year behind me and be ready to start life fresh in the coming year.

Our New Recliner

I have been looking for a new recliner. The one we had, the arm was falling off. Well, this week I found one on Craig's List that was very inexpensive. It totally fit our budget, looked good in the picture and the color matched our living room. So I emailed the person to see if they still had it. She emailed back to say that it was still available. I then sent her an email for the location from my yahoo account that has an automatic signature line. The email I sent from Craig's List did not have the additional information that is in my yahoo signature. Anyway, she emailed me and told me where she lived. She also said that she had read my blog and that if I wanted the chair it was mine. She said that I needed a comfy place to recover more than she needed the money. I was so surprised and so thankful. Bob's company truck was being used to take some things to South Jersey the next day so we couldn't borrow it. Then we asked a friend if we could use his van. Guess what? He sold it last week to downsize. We finally decided to rent a UHaul. So I emailed the lady and told her we had rented a UHaul and would be there at 7:30 the next evening. The next morning Viv emailed me and said that UHauls were pretty expensive. She had a friend who would let her use his van to deliver the chair.

I couldn't believe it. Not only was she giving us the chair, she was delivering it as well. I couldn't believe the kindness of this total stranger. I now have a wonderful new chair to sit in with my feet up and relax.

As I have said before, people have been so wonderful to us during this entire experience. I can't wait until I am feeling better and can begin to pay it forward. I keep learning every day how kind and thoughtful people can be.

I'll never forget the kind lady who sat in the waiting room at the hospital with me holding my hand as I sat crying about starting my first treatment. She had been receiving chemo every week for many many months. She still has many months to go. But she took the time to comfort me at that moment. I look for her every time I go in. But she has chemo on Thursday and I go on Friday.

The other day I heard about a guy who paid for the coffee of the person behind him at the drive thru window. That person was so impressed that he decided to pay for the coffee of the person behind him. This has progressed to the point that there is now an unbroken chain of hundred's of people who have been paying for the coffee of the person behind them. Lets hope it continues forever.

People are kind in this world. People do still look out for other people. No matter how bad people tell you the world is today. It's just not true. Kindness exists all over the place. You have to be a part of it. Do a random act of kindness for someone today.

Blessings to all.

Homeschoolers Are Great

Well, I've posted a bit about how sick I have been with this chemo stuff. This week was really bad. They ended up having to give me whole blood this week because my blood counts were so bad. They chemo destroys possible cancer cells, but it also destroys healthy blood cells. Not a pleasant thing.

But that's not really the topic. Homeschoolers are great. That's what I want to talk about today. Our homeschool group has been so great to my family over the last few weeks. Every week someone is stopping by to bring food for my family. People that I have never met have brought food by. Many times, people have called and said, "I'm coming by to pick up Dakota." He gets so bored when I'm laying on the couch and don't have the energy to even read him a story. These wonderful Angels have picked him up, taken him to the lake, taken him to movies, taken him to the park, taken him to the library or to swim. It has been so great. I have felt so much love from this wonderful group of people.

I have had so many many doctor's appointments lately. During the last nine days I have had five appointments and I have another one on Friday. Women from our homeschool group have taken care of Dakota for almost every appointment that I've had. Many times they have kept him all day when the appointment was only an hour. Other times I have went in for a one hour appointment and ended up being there for five or six hours. Again these people have kept him without complant.

I don't know what I would have done over the last few months if I were not a member of the New Jersey Homeschool Hangout. Bless you all for all you have done for my family. We wouldn't have made it this far without you.

We still have another three months to go before the chemo is over. But I know I can count on all of you for your support.

Thank you all,
Kathi

It's been a while since I've posted anything on here. This chemo stuff is really kicking my butt. The first day or two after chemo I feel okay. But by the third day I can hardly get out of bed. Then all the bones in my body hurt. My mouth and other parts get very raw and it gets hard to eat. That goes on for about a week. Then slowly things get better and I feel okay again. I have about a week that I feel almost normal. Then it all starts over again. I have two treatments down and four more to go. I finished the radiation treatments this week. My doctor said I should go out and celebrate. I think I''m going to do that in November. When all this is done my family and I are going to Florida for a few days. Hopefully I will remain cancer free. I don't want to go through this again.

It seems like the summer is just passing me by this year. It's been so weird anyway. Cool July and so much rain. I seem to be sleeping my way through it.

Well, I think I've posted enough morbid stuff for now. Maybe in a few days I'll be up to posting something happy.

Dakota's Seventh Birthday

On July 1 Dakota turned seven years old. Seems like it was just yesterday when we brought this beautiful 5 month old baby home from Guatamala. But he is seven already.

We had his birthday party at the Lower Hudson Valley Challenger Center. We love this place. They have classes on space and rocket building and all kinds of cool things. The first thing they did was talk to the kids about the difference between a moon rock and an earth rock. The kids got to see and feel the two rockets and then play with magnets to see that the earth rock was not magnetic but the moon rock was. Then they made a vortex in water bottles and had races to see which bottle would drain the fastest. (I think it was rigged because the same bottle won every race.) the kids then made bracelets out of pipe cleaners and white beads. Then they went outside and looked at the sun with magic glasses. When they came back inside they looked at their bracelets. Guess what? The sun had turned the bracelets different colors.

The next activity was to go into the classroom and talk for a bit about outer space and the space shuttle. After completing this short class the kids were all dubbed astronauts. Then they actually went into a space shuttle room. They took a trip to the moon and back. Right after take off they discovered some aliens on board the space ship. When they put the aliens under the black light they saw that some of them were very homesick for Planet Z. They put these aliens in a special pod and sent them back to their planet. The little astronauts watched on a video camera to make sure they landed safely on Planet Z. The aliens who were not glowing with homesickness stayed on the space shuttle to enjoy the trip to the moon. After a successful moon orbit the little astronauts prepared to return to earth. Suddenly an alarm went off. Oh no! There is not enough oxygen left to make it back to earth. Special astronaut Dakota looked for the hidden oxygen cartridge. Once he found it he was able to replace the empty one and in minutes they had enough oxygen for the rest of the trip.

When the astronauts returned to the Challenger Center, they found birthday cake waiting for them. After enjoying cake, ice cream, and juice, there was a frenzy of present unwrapping. Dakota was thrilled with all he presents he received. I think everyone had a great time.

Happy Birthday Dakota!

Back To Beczak Environmental Center

Today we went back to Beczak Environmental Center for a program called from Bud to Bloom. After a discussion about the Hudson River and a review for most of the children about the kinds of water in the river and the tides, we went on to projects. First the chidren colored a picture and labeled the parts of a flower. Then Doreen thought we would all be able to make origami flowers. I think all of the children gave up after the second fold of the paper. Most of the moms gave up by the fourth step. Mikeys dad was able to follow all the directions and made a perfect flower. Most of the rest of us lagged far behind.

The red flower is our poor result. I have determined that I do not like and will not pursue origami. They then made the tissue paper flower that is behind our poor little red flower. This worked out a bit better than the origami flowers. Everyone went outside for a discussion on composting. They viewed many different items and talked about why they could or could not be composted.

Finally the kids planted a gladiola bulb. I'll keep you posted as to how our little bulb survives, (or doesn't).

We Finished First Grade Today

Yeah!!!!! We finally finished first grade language today. Dakota had finished first grade Math in April. He also finished second grade science and social studies in April. I had planned to finish first grade language by the end of May. Then I got sick. We did almost no school work in the month of May since I was spending all my time running to doctor's appointments. We finally ot back on track a couple of weeks ago and today we finished. Dakota does an online program called Time4Learning. He loves playing the video games and comes out of it learning so much. I like the way I can go back at the end of the day and look over what he has worked on. I printed out his report for first grade language. He got 91% for an overall grade. Now we can move on to secodn and third grade work. YEAH!!! I'm so happy to make yet another milestone in his life.