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!

Merry Christmas!

We had a nice time Christmas Eve sitting in church with my family, a tradition that I have had since childhood...After we returned home we all opened up our Christmas Eve PJs, a tradition Joe and I started the first Christmas we were married...Christmas morning after the kids opened presents from Santa, Joe's parents and my parents along with my Nana came over for brunch and another extremely large round of gift giving began, a tradition that started just two years ago after we finally moved into a house.

Since Christmas day we have pretty much laid low. Owen has had a nasty cold so we have stayed home and rested. Days spent playing Wii, reading Tale of Desperaux with Joey, finishing Twilight which my 6th grade girls insisted I read (it was good), knitting, playing Thomas, riding bikes (I don't think what Joey is doing is even close to being called riding, but at least he is trying...thanks Dad). Saturday night I did get to go to a rocking concert with my friend Alex. We saw the Robert Randolph Family band at the Electric Factory and it was pretty amazing. Joe also got to go watch the Eagles crush Dallas on Sunday so we both got a chance to "get out." Hopefully we'll get a chance to "get out" together soon. Last night we had a fun visit with Rick, Becky and the kids; Erin, Bryan and Alannah, playing games at Dave and Busters and catching up. So nice to spend time with them...always wishing we lived closer.

Pics from the last two weeks

Owen's treatment went well Monday...definitely not home by dinner...best part of the whole day was Owen's "growl off" with his buddy Kevin. Kevin gets treatments most Mondays. He is 5 and loves Sponge Bob. He usually sits across from us in the Day Hospital. He has always pretty much ignored Owen until last week when he found out Owen can growl...a low, loud gutteral growl...and here started the growling contest that has been held while both boys are hooked up to their IVs getting chemo treatment. It is funny to watch how people in the Oncology unit react to these two funny little boys. Mostly everyone- nurses, parents,patients - get a kick out of them. I think they lighten things up.

Pictures from the last couple weeks...

A Brief Update

Boy I am really behind... I will try and post some pictures in the next few days. Owen had chemo last week and everything went well. After waiting for nearly 2 hours to see the opthalmologist, Owen did very well and was finally "cooperative" and completed all of the vision tests. Everything looks good and Dr. Lui doesn't need to see us until June!! Woohoo!!

The past week was somewhat overwhelming...booked schedules and Owen was up sick three nights in a row. All of us very sleep deprived just trying to get through the week...spending this weekend just catching up.

Tomorrow Owen has physical therapy at 8am and we need to be at CHOP by 10:30. He just has to see the neuoroncologist and get his chemo treatment tomorrow so hopefully we'll be out of there before dinner :)

Today Joey danced around gleefully stating there are ten days left until Christmas. Joe and I just looked at eachother...guess we need to get on the ball.