Haylie update - June 26
We are in the final stretch of our induction phase! Everything is still looking good for us to head home on Friday! We can’t wait. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a month since we started this process and our world flipped upside down. I’m so excited at the thought of being a family again under the same roof. It has been hard on all of us having to be apart. Brennen is our man of few words, but I think I realized he is internalizing things more than I thought when he ran up to give me a hug after I made it to one of his baseball games on Sunday. He was very disappointed that I had to head back to the hospital again after his first game. He has been such a trooper. It does help that we have had so many incredible friends and family members pick him up and take him to do fun things so he can maintain as normal of a schedule as possible. Thanks again to all of you who have helped out.
Haylie had a pretty good day. She didn’t have as much energy and strength today as yesterday but sometimes it just goes up and down. She absolutely amazes me with her new Michael Phelps breakfast of champions eating appetite. Doctors told us she would be hungry on the steroids she would be on, but wow, I don’t know how its possible for her to eat this much. Yesterday for breakfast she ate 2 eggs, 6 pieces of bacon, a blueberry muffin, yogurt, a dinner roll and then had a cup of macaroni and popcorn and was still hungry.
😳.
Her cravings crack me up too. Today she was wanting Olive Garden
Chicken Alfredo so bad when a commercial came on she couldn’t stand it
and had to turn the TV off to resist the urge to eat. Doctors said
Friday will be the last day on those steroids so her hungry pains should
subsidize. Thank goodness, I’m not sure I would be able to afford her
weekly grocery bill at this pace. Lol.
I’ve made great progress in getting around today also. I actually walked Haylie down to a playroom event they were having and was walking the same speed as Haylie today. The event was a neat surprise because it was sponsored by the Carson Leslie foundation. That is a foundation that Michael has sponsored for several years now. He actually has worked with Craig Leslie for about 15 years in business transactions. They lost their son several years ago to childhood cancer and have set up the foundation to help fight childhood cancer and have just done an amazing job. It was nice to meet them. They turned their tragedy into something positive and I hope we will be able to someday help others from our experience also.
I did have one hiccup in my progress when I accidentally inhaled a popcorn piece down my windpipe. Y’all I seriously thought it might be better to choke than cough it up at one point. A nurse gave me great advise yesterday and told me to lay down and squeeze a pillow against my tummy to relieve some of the pain. I’m pretty sure she saved my life today. I was concerned that Haylie was about to hit the emergency call button on her bed at one point. I’m thinking I’ll stay away from popcorn for the next few days and all will be alright. As long as I don’t cough, laugh or sneeze I do just fine.
Today has been difficult in the fact that Haylie has just about lost all her hair. She had planned to donate her long hair this summer, before she was diagnosed with cancer herself. The plan was to cut it and still donate it before it all fell out. That has proven to be a more difficult task than we thought. Everyday we planned to cut it, we would then decide to keep it just a little longer because it is hard to part with. Then I got sick and was gone for 6 days. She wanted me to be there when she cut it so we waited. We were trying to cut it the morning before my surgery but didn’t have a chance. While I was recovering and my sister was here, it began to really fall out in massive amounts. It is so thin now that it is both hard to keep, but still hard to cut off what little is left. She has done remarkably well in dealing with it. Looking in the mirror can be difficult because it is not the reflection she remembers from last week. She has still found something positive in deciding that she thinks she wants to be Gru from Despicable Me and to dress our dog up like a minion as a costume. Even through everything she is going through she has still kept her humor and still can make me laugh. I have prayed for years over her that the joy of the Lord would fill her and overflow out of her to be a blessing to others. I can see that now as she interacts with the nurses. The hair thing will be a challenge for us to overcome for the foreseeable future, but I know we will get through this also.
I read Philippians 4:13 this mornings and am reminded of where our strength comes from, so I know we will overcome the hair obstacle, but more importantly we will overcome cancer too.
I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13.
#HealingForHaylie
We are in the final stretch of our induction phase! Everything is still looking good for us to head home on Friday! We can’t wait. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a month since we started this process and our world flipped upside down. I’m so excited at the thought of being a family again under the same roof. It has been hard on all of us having to be apart. Brennen is our man of few words, but I think I realized he is internalizing things more than I thought when he ran up to give me a hug after I made it to one of his baseball games on Sunday. He was very disappointed that I had to head back to the hospital again after his first game. He has been such a trooper. It does help that we have had so many incredible friends and family members pick him up and take him to do fun things so he can maintain as normal of a schedule as possible. Thanks again to all of you who have helped out.
Haylie had a pretty good day. She didn’t have as much energy and strength today as yesterday but sometimes it just goes up and down. She absolutely amazes me with her new Michael Phelps breakfast of champions eating appetite. Doctors told us she would be hungry on the steroids she would be on, but wow, I don’t know how its possible for her to eat this much. Yesterday for breakfast she ate 2 eggs, 6 pieces of bacon, a blueberry muffin, yogurt, a dinner roll and then had a cup of macaroni and popcorn and was still hungry.
😳.
Her cravings crack me up too. Today she was wanting Olive Garden
Chicken Alfredo so bad when a commercial came on she couldn’t stand it
and had to turn the TV off to resist the urge to eat. Doctors said
Friday will be the last day on those steroids so her hungry pains should
subsidize. Thank goodness, I’m not sure I would be able to afford her
weekly grocery bill at this pace. Lol.I’ve made great progress in getting around today also. I actually walked Haylie down to a playroom event they were having and was walking the same speed as Haylie today. The event was a neat surprise because it was sponsored by the Carson Leslie foundation. That is a foundation that Michael has sponsored for several years now. He actually has worked with Craig Leslie for about 15 years in business transactions. They lost their son several years ago to childhood cancer and have set up the foundation to help fight childhood cancer and have just done an amazing job. It was nice to meet them. They turned their tragedy into something positive and I hope we will be able to someday help others from our experience also.
I did have one hiccup in my progress when I accidentally inhaled a popcorn piece down my windpipe. Y’all I seriously thought it might be better to choke than cough it up at one point. A nurse gave me great advise yesterday and told me to lay down and squeeze a pillow against my tummy to relieve some of the pain. I’m pretty sure she saved my life today. I was concerned that Haylie was about to hit the emergency call button on her bed at one point. I’m thinking I’ll stay away from popcorn for the next few days and all will be alright. As long as I don’t cough, laugh or sneeze I do just fine.
Today has been difficult in the fact that Haylie has just about lost all her hair. She had planned to donate her long hair this summer, before she was diagnosed with cancer herself. The plan was to cut it and still donate it before it all fell out. That has proven to be a more difficult task than we thought. Everyday we planned to cut it, we would then decide to keep it just a little longer because it is hard to part with. Then I got sick and was gone for 6 days. She wanted me to be there when she cut it so we waited. We were trying to cut it the morning before my surgery but didn’t have a chance. While I was recovering and my sister was here, it began to really fall out in massive amounts. It is so thin now that it is both hard to keep, but still hard to cut off what little is left. She has done remarkably well in dealing with it. Looking in the mirror can be difficult because it is not the reflection she remembers from last week. She has still found something positive in deciding that she thinks she wants to be Gru from Despicable Me and to dress our dog up like a minion as a costume. Even through everything she is going through she has still kept her humor and still can make me laugh. I have prayed for years over her that the joy of the Lord would fill her and overflow out of her to be a blessing to others. I can see that now as she interacts with the nurses. The hair thing will be a challenge for us to overcome for the foreseeable future, but I know we will get through this also.
I read Philippians 4:13 this mornings and am reminded of where our strength comes from, so I know we will overcome the hair obstacle, but more importantly we will overcome cancer too.
I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13.
#HealingForHaylie
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment