Love these pictures...

On our way home from the gym on Saturday, after my mon had given the boys hershey kisses for the car ride home...this is what I was watching in my rear view mirror. Joey does not have a hoodie on he is "Cornholio" (if anyone out there admits to having ever watched Bevis and Butthead) and Owen was happily letting the kiss melt in his hand and trying to lick all the chocolate up.

On Sunday we went skiing at Camelback. It is amazing that Joey jumps right back into the sport even though he hasn't been on skiis since last season. By mid-day he was a bit of a jelly-legged mess.

Monday was a snow day so Joey got to go with us to CHOP. The roads were covered on the way down, traffic moving slowly so it took about 2 hours to get into the city. Owen made it 3/4 the way through treatment before he broke out in hives again. Treatment was stopped and Owen's vital signs were monitored for about at hour. You can tell how much Joey loves his brother because he is always sitting as close to him as he can get. In the car, Joey sits in the middle seat...at the hospital he will sit on the side of the chair until Owen pushes him out of his space :) Joey is so good with his little brother...even feeding him ice cream after his treatment to help him "feel better." I was actually really glad for the snow day...a selfish part of me feels like taking Joey out of school each Monday to go with us because he always lightens the mood of the day.

Shower Time

Silly Boys...both ended up in the shower together

Gearing up for a big day tomorrow. Should be

interesting with the pending snow storm.

A fun weekend...went too quick...finally got skiing with Joey, Me-Ma and Great-Dad (my mom and dad). Conditions were cruddy...what can you expect from the poconos but the company was wonderful...will post pictures tomorrow.

ROCK STARS

while I have a million and one other things I should definitely be doing right now this post is for you Michele B!

Recently my sweet little boys have morphed into ROCK STARS! How we love rock band! The biggest problem now is taking turns on favorite instruments...joey and I both love the guitar so we take turns one of us singing one of us jamming while Owen backs us up on the drums.

Fun Times!

Update on Owen... He has had "off" from chemo treatments for the past two weeks. We were at CHOP last Monday but Owen just needed his dose of antiobiotic to ward off pneumonia. Next week we are back "on" and he will get his normal chemo doses. During the last few treatments

Owen has had reactions to the carboplatin and they have gotten progressively worse. The team of doctors met and decided that with this next treatment, Owen will be given four pre-medications to help ward off any reaction. They briefly went over the "what ifs" depending on how he responds next week but I will think about that after we see how he reacts. I promise (Michele) that I will be better about my updates!!

Last week since Joey had off for President's Day, Joey and Joe went with Owen and I down to CHOP. Owen was so excited to have them both there. Joey was thrilled that he would get to play the video games and have soup (we usually take him to AuBon Pain at the hospital...he loves their soup...funny kid). I love this shot of the two of them together. If Owen would let him, I am sure Joey would be right in that chair with him. Owen on the other hand loves to have his own space!

Monday = CHOP day

Our little man decided to wake up at 4:30 this morning and was on the go all day long. All went well at CHOP. His blood counts were good, even though he has been fighting this wicked cold. He zonked out about 30 minutes into treatment (after getting Zofran and Vincristine) but woke up extremely aggitated when the Carboplatin started. The nurses immediately stopped the drug, gave him some Benadryl and he settled right back to sleep. After checking his vitals they started the Carbo again but instead of administering it over 1 hour they slowed it down to 90 minutes. This was the third time Owen had this type of reaction...completely uncomfortable, aggitated and difficult to soothe. So I am sure that they will slow down the rate in which he recieves his chemo and continue to give him benadryl with each treatment. So other than that, things went smoothly.

He loves to show his belly button :)

January Pictures

A quick week

Boy did that week just fly by! I am sooo glad it is Friday night. I just put Owen to bed, checked in on facebook (which after much persuasion from some friends and my brother I have decided against better judgment to try it out) and I am getting ready for a long session of Rock Band with Joey. Joey is really good on vocals and I am having a hard time deciding which I like better the drums or guitar. We really need a third member of our band but Owen stinks :) and Joe has still not succumb to Joey and my pleadings to join us. We need to get better to duel the Porco family now that they are also addicted. Personally I would like to get better at the guitar because I know my buddy Alex sometimes needs a fill in and her band rocks! blogging...facebook and rock band I am starting to feel uber-geeky and need to get out of the house more!

On Monday I took the boys to the high school for the MLK community service project. Such a great experience especially for Joey. He gets involved right away and just starts working alongside the sixth graders. So nice that when we leave the first thing he asks me is if we'll do it again next year.

Tuesday Owen had chemo and we got the test results back from the MRI. Chemo went as usual although Owen is now receiving a slightly higher dosage of Carboplatin since he has maintained the necessary weight for the past few weeks. We were warned that he might be more nauseous this week but other than an awful cold, he has reacted as he normally does. The MRI results showed that the tumors remained stable. The doctors view this as positive which can be somewhat frustrating and hard to understand because by now one would hope the tumors would start to shrink. I was told since optic gliomas are slow growing tumors they expect them to also slowly shrink. Owen goes back for his next treatment on Monday. I am really hoping he shakes this cold so that we don't end up in a three night stay at CHOP. So we are planning to lay low this weekend and get through it.
Happy Weekend... Oh, I am still having technical problems so still no new pictures. I must say seeing the boys faces up on this page is my favorite part of blogging so I am hoping my wonderfully tech-savvy husband will fix the problem soon...that is not sarcasm Joe.

Computer issues

We have been having some major computer issues which is why I haven't blogged recently. At the moment I am surprisingly able to get on the web but not able to access any pictures, so I will give everyone a quick update before I start to have issues again.

Owen has had two weeks off from chemo. He is really moving around...yesterday he skooched on his butt from the sunroom to Joey's room (which is up three steps and across the length of our house.) It is pretty interesting because he is just starting to try some crawling along with his skooching and cruising. The cool thing is that he is independently getting where he wants to go which completely pleases him. He definitely gets stronger on the weeks he has off. His next round of chemo starts Tuesday. We will also get back the MRI results from last week's scan. It ends up being a very long week when you have to wait for such results.

Everything else has pretty much been the same...playing outside in the very little bit of snow we have (I'll post pics when I can)...watching the Eagles bomb...looking forward to MLK day and a few hours of community service with the boys at the high school. Happy weekend!