Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008

Superbowl Sunday is in progress, so far could be worse for the Giants, not so bad. Wish I could say as much for the weekend. Hannah started off Saturday by waking up running into the bathroom to throw up. She continued to feel badly during the day, which resulted in an almost total lack of eating. She missed horseback riding, but we were able to go over to the annual Parrish Art Festival-where all the schools in the area showcase their work at the Southampton Parrish Art Museum. We go every year, and it's just incredible to see the artwork of the kids from all over. Some of it is really impressive. Last year Hannah didn't feel well enough to go, and this year she was crying that she didn't feel well again. We did make it there, just didn't stay very long.
Here is Hannah with her friend Alya and their "Head of a Woman" Picasso replica (by the way Hannah is a penguin and Alya is a frog.) This was something special that Hannah was working on with her teacher, Mrs. Grossman, mostly during the time she was out of school for low counts. We would go into school sometimes in the afternoon, trying to steer clear of most of the kids. We would sneak right into the art room, and head right back out to the car.

It's really been a struggle to get her to eat at all this weekend. Right now she's here on the couch where she has been nursing her shake for over an hour. It tastes just like a vanilla milkshake, she just has it in her mind that it's bad and she doesn't want to drink it. It's very frustrating and very difficult each night to try and force this down over the course of hours. Tonight I drug her kicking and screaming and biting me into her room because I had had enough and told her I didn't care if she drank it or not, it was time for bed. So now we're all calmed down and she's trying it again (even though bedtime was nearly an hour ago and now we're in the vicious cycle of staying up too late, which will make it hard to get up in the morning.)

Anyway, thank you all for your wonderful comments on the blog. We love to read them, and do so each night. You all give us inspiration each and every day. It helps especially on days like today to get through it and keep on going. You may have seen the comment here from the Larsons-little Coleman is preparing now for his stem cell transplant, so please keep him in your prayers also. It's a very difficult thing to go through, it's about a year's worth of chemo in 5 days, in an effort to kill off all of the cancer, then a few days of recovery, then previously harvested stem cells (from Coleman's own body) are put back in to help his body recover. The hardest part is that after the high dose chemo, the body has no protection from infection, even infection from the bacteria normally inside our own bodies, so it's a very risky time. He will be in isolation, and you can imagine how taxing it will be on his body (and his parents.) For several months afterwards, he will need to be kept at home, with no pets, no fresh vegetables, no fast food, no visitors, and very strict home precautions. Coleman has to undergo all of this because his cancer came back after his first round of treatment. We know he'll do great, and pray that it is 100% successful!

I'll leave you with this video. It's a slightly extended version of the commercial that Hannah did with the Songs of Love Foundation. It shows a bit more footage of Hannah, click HERE to view it. The more times the video is viewed, the better placement Songs of Love gets on YouTube, so go check it out when you have a chance. Also, if you are reading this and your child has no yet received their Song of Love, it's free, it's so easy and they just love hearing it over and over. I would highly recommend it!

GIANTS WIN!!

xoxo Kim