Long time no blog.

I'm behind, I know. Things have been a bit busy, well that was an understatement.

On the Mom front, she has been home for a week from the hospital. She's feels pretty well in terms of sickness stuff, just gets drained easily. Her infections are in check and she was able to come home on two oral antibiotics for just a couple of weeks longer. She is getting her first IV chemo infusion as I type this, so pray she doesn't have too many nasty side effects. From what I've read, the meds they use for colon cancer treatment are generally pretty well tolerated. She sure could use a break. She also begins her second round of oral chemo meds today. She wasn't able to start the IV infusions because of the infection, but the oral doesn't effect the immune system so she's had one round of those. I guess the plan is IV infusion every three weeks, starts the oral for two weeks, nothing for a week and the cycle starts over again. Just keep the prayers going that she tolerates the treatment well and she has a good outcome. She is also being proactive and decided to get placed on the waiting list for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. They have some patented treatments for colon cancer and have a pretty high remission rate.

Me...well, about the same. I still get tired, still achy, still having belly pain..but it's nothing I can't handle. I have a GI appointment March 9th, but sooner if they get a cancellation. I've taken a little Saturday job just to get out of the house. I'm working in a little store that sells scrubs as well as some purses, candles...ect. I'm on my own for the whole day and it's pretty nice.

Emily. My precious albeit mysterious little girl. She's still darn puny these days. I'm not sure weaning her from the tube completely is going to work out. She just doesn't have the extra weight to spare, but I'm sticking with it for now. She has a very distinct inability to drink enough AND eat enough in the same day. She either drinks really well and eats very little, or eats like a little porker but drinks almost nothing. She's been very "pukey" lately and even has us a little on edge at night. She's never had a terrible time at night with reflux. It happened of course, but her's has always seemed more aggravated by movement and being up and about during the day. Lately, she's having more issues at night. A few days ago, she had red jello at her Granny's house. She thoroughly enjoys both Granny and the jello and ate a container and a half early that evening-5 pm-ish? The few days prior, she was clearly off in the belly department and just not eating anything so we were glad to see her have the jello. Anyway, she went to bed and a few hours later I hear her typical "reflux choke-cough". This is nothing out of the ordinary, although I'll admit for at night it doesn't happen often. I peeked in on her and she was fine so I went back to bed. The next morning, I pulled the paci out of her mouth and she had caked bright red jello all around her mouth and on the paci. I guess she vomited a bit in her sleep. So, we are not feeling so good about this. Clearly her motility is not normal. What kind of kid can't digest jello? So, tight watch and I'm also getting ready to see a new ped. We had a wonderful pediatrician from the time Abby was about 2, until Emily was close to 2. She moved on to greener pastures and we were left looking for a new doctor. We tried it with her replacement at the same clinic but he was more concerned about when I was going to take her paci away from her than anything else. After having to defend my choice to allow an orally averted pukey kid keep her paci as long as she wants every single time we went for a visit, I decided it was time to find a new one. We've been seeing our current ped for several months now and though I can see he's very intelligent and has some great ideas about certain things, EVERY time we see him I have to retell the whole situation with Emily. He does not remember us from visit to visit, not even that she has a feeding tube. That's a HUGE issue. So, we've been told there is a very good doc in the same town that is not only a pediatrician but also an internal medicine specialist. So, I guess we'll give him a try for awhile. I miss our old pediatrician :(. We've also had major potty set back issues. She was what I would call completely trained for awhile and it's all become undone. She will pee on the potty 8 out of 10 times, but poop...ugh. She's just so inconsistent. She may go up to 5 times in a day and some days just once or twice and she almost never goes on the potty. She's in diapers again almost full time. I'm glad I hung on to her cloth dipes, cuz I think I'd really resent buying disposables for a 3 year old.

Abby. Same ole same ole. So darn smart and doing great in school. She's still the sweetest kid I've ever had the pleasure of knowing and she's growing like a weed. My 7 year old is in size 10 clothing! Where did my little girl go?

The hubby. I don't ever say much about him so I thought I would. He's doing fine. He always does the dishes and occasionally does laundry or sweeps the floor. He still looks hot to me in his uniform and I can't say I could come up with anything sexier than a man in a policeman's uniform doing the dishes!

Hope all is well in blog land, until we blog again....such is life, I suppose!

So, Emily is not the Gap casting call winner.

But, it's ok. It was definitely an amazing little ride. Our lives are so filled with stress and it seems we get a lot of hard knocks, so it was nice to to have a little break from reality with all the Gap stuff. It was certainly something we'd never be able to do it it weren't for our way being paid. Our big vacation dreams are 3 hours away in Gatlinburg, TN, LOL. We'd never dare of dreaming to go to San Francisco! So, it was fun, we have wonderful memories and a big fat scrapbook of things to share with Emily when she's older.

So thank you all who voted for her. This smalltown girl gave them a run for the money it seems. I don't know who the winner is yet, but the announcement will be up this Friday.