UPS AND DOWNS ...

Hi Friends!

I didn't get to blogging on Wednesday or Thursday, but I've been keeping busy. Wednesday was Molly's 13th birthday, so we had our special girls' day at DisneyLand. Annie, Molly, and I had a great time. We did lots of fun things -- many rides and shows, a lot of great food, and even had face-painting done. The highlight for Molly was the parade "Dance Party" done at 7 p.m. We had a spot right where the performers stopped for 12 minutes to do a show. And since Molly was wearing her "Happy Birthday" pin and is not shy, especially about dancing and singing -- she was brought out for dancing in the middle of the street several times. She was thrilled, and we took a ton of photos. We will try to download them soon, so that we can share them with you. Anyway -- we spent the whole day at DisneyLand, which didn't close until 10 p.m. And then by the time we left the park, got to our car, and went out to dinner (We met Allan, Annie's boyfriend, who lives in Anaheim.) -- we didn't make it home until almost 2 a.m.

So, I decided to let Molly stay home from school on Thursday as well. I felt she needed the day to recover. I slept in a little bit -- but had to get up in time to home-school the boys before going to the doctor in the afternoon. On Wednesday, Bill took them into work with him, and then they went on a field trip to the beach to study ocean life.

After homeschooling for the morning (with Molly as my teaching assistant, which came in handy!) on Wednesday -- I had the fun of having a camera put in my bladder. It's called a cystoscopy, and it is not one of my favorite things to have done. I thought they could have at least given me a framed picture of my bladder after all these tests, but I was unsuccessful in that request. The good new is that all my tests showed a healthy bladder and kidneys. The doctor thought I was very "lucky" -- I would word it as "blessed" -- to not have any permanent damage after all the bladder/kidney infections of the last year. So, he feels that the infections were caused by the high-dose steroids, and as long as I'm on Prednisone -- I'll continue to take antibiotics to protect me from UTIs. And the blood in my urine was a side effect of the chemo -- gotta love Cytoxan or any other drug with the name toxin as part of it!

So, the bladder camera fun was in the afternoon. Annie came and hung out with the kids. I was done in time to pick up Cam from school. Then I rested in bed for a bit, took some pain medication, etc. -- it hurt a lot to pee after the procedure. But after the pain meds and lots of cranberry juice, I was fine by the morning.

Today was pretty much a normal day. I just finished home-shooling the boys. And Bill is off work for the day, because this weekend is Camporee for Boy Scouts. So, he had a lot of prep work to do. Cam will leave for Camporee after school tonight. It's not very far away. Bill is not going along for the whole weekend, but he will be helping out for several shifts.

I'm going to sign off now, and I will take a quick shower before it's time to pick up Cameron and Molly from school at 3 p.m. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Much Love,
Michele