April Fools

This is what Sylvie's favorite nurse, Katie, wears when administering chemotherapy treatments. Sylvie's third round of chemotherapy is going pretty swiftly. She's finally feeling well enough to be bored, want to leave the hospital and finally, be nice.
Whereas Dr. Harris did not get the same warm reception yesterday as he did the prior day, Sylvie is very chatty with the hospital staff. Her movies of choice during this particular hospital say are a rotation of 101 Dalmations, Enchanted (Uncle Garrett knew just what movies to get Sylvie!) and Barbie Nutcracker.

Michael slept at the hospital last night and I went home around 7:30 to get some sleep. I was so tired that after settling into bowl of tomato bisque and this week's Gossip Girl (my guilty pleasure!!!) I fell fast asleep. I woke up at 3:30 since it was the most uninterrupted sleep I'd had in days and saw a text from Michael that said, "Now we know what major vomiting looks like. Yikes." Sylvie did her Linda Blair interpretation while the nurse ran in to administer Zofran and Michael tried to remove Sylvie's pink polka dot dress despite Sylvie's protests "Mom wouldn't do this!!!"

Michael gave me my [late] birthday card yesterday that is comprised of a really sweet note written on the "Big Ups" hip hop trading card that I once gave him as a part of a set. There is a picture of a figure skating pair that says beneath, "Big Ups on landing that triple axel." Well big ups for Michael cleaning up vomit last night while I slept.

I'm waiting for Dr. Harris and the team to make their rounds. Of course Sylvie is fast asleep which means they'll stampede in and piss her off. They're so excited with her prognosis that they don't really mind. After 5 minutes of Psycho Sylvie, she calms down and returns to her normal self. Yesterday Dr. Harris said he wanted to check with Dr. Valda to see if there was a chance that they could do a "simple" (his word, not mine) liver resect which to means seems to be on the complete opposite end of a liver transplant. I know they sent the CT images and reports to Dr. Dunn in Delaware but I'm going to ask him if they can also send to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who have one of the biggest pediatric liver surgical teams.

To go from "L I V E R T R A N S P L A N T" to "simple liver resection" in 7 weeks is, as my college roommate Heather said, a medical miracle and quite an achievement. Let's wait to see what the doctors say because I don't want to raise my hopes. Then Heather asked me if I still sleep on my back with my hands folded across my chest. I told her for the most part, yes, but in the hospital or on Sylvie's floor, I put a pillow beneath my knees and sometimes a lavender pillow over my eyes to block out the lights.

Sylvie has her third day of inpatient chemotherapy at 5 this evening and we can go home after.

Michael and I are determined to get back to some 'normal things' together and if the weather is nice this weekend, we're going to take Lucky for a hike.

Obviously it's been very difficult managing all our household stuffs for here and Vermont but I have good news to report: After two weeks, our friend Lee in Stowe finally [humanely] trapped the giant skunk that made a home beneath the mud room causing havoc and stench with the family who rented the house. Last summer we called it a "cute baby skunk." Au contraire mon frere! Lee had been planning to release Pepe Le Pieu behind the police department which we all agreed was a bad idea. Pepe is now happily roaming around the von Trapp's so the hills will be alive with the smell of Mephitidae Carnivora.