Elan's Blog: December 2012

So I finally loaded up the photos from our Canon onto our computer from the past few weeks so be forewarned - photo overload below! Family happy, friends annoyed :).

Erik had fun Thursday watching the boys a few minutes while I snuck away and took a shower. The outcome was a full on photo shoot of them goofing around - the ones with Elan just in his diapers, I think too precious! Posting all b/c I have the cutest kids ever :). If you look through the photos in this post you can really see Elan's smile getting better too.

By the way, WE have 2 dinosaurs as well in the house. All day every day they roar like dinosaurs. They are also really playing like real brothers again... Elan is back to Elan and full of jokes and fun! he is saying all sorts of new words and using words all of the time vs grunts and such.

Saturday afternoon we went to a kids' party thrown by friends from our old congergation - soooo fun! It was at a place that is called Sports Connection and they had the kids do flag football for 1/2 hr, bowling for 1/2 hr and then a pizza party then free play with the games - all part of the party! What a cool idea! The flag football was too funny! They figured out 1/ 2 understood football and the others didn't, needless to say my boys were in the later. They basically ran around playing tag.

The food was fun! Elan had a ball eating the cupcake. It was the first thing like that he has had in a lonnnng time. I think the last time was at the pool party we threw in Indiana! Poor kid! Well deserved though! Something is working so we don't want to change a thing!

So how are we? Beyond amazing, obviously! I couldn't be on the phone when given the results by our doctor. I just couldn't do it emotionally and told Erik to just call me with the results as he was working. Our oncologist, Jessica Bell, is on vacation this week so our back up was Dr. Hock - who we LOVE too! I was uber nervous because I like him so much so was this God's way of letting us down easily? I was totally freaked out to get the results and actually had my first panic attack. I was home on Friday by myself with the kids and kept psyching myself out. I took the photos of the boys outside thinking "are these the last photos of Elan and Finn together thinking Elan will live a full life?" I let them get away with all sorts of naughty behavior - digging where they shouldn't, draw with chalk on the brick etc they had sooo much fun! All I can say is I am soooo glad and soooo happy to hear the good news! Elan has been amazing but so many others do the same to only have AT/RT come back fast. Thankfully we hit the 6 month mark and now are in no man's land statistically speaking - a great place to be in this regard (not so great in WWI :))

We kind of live in 2 month cycles now at the Miller house as MRIs are 2 months between right now. So for one month we are totally ecstatic from the results and live a "normal" life then the second month freaked out for the next one coming up. I hate the expression "new normal" but it kind of is that now.

Finn asked us today if the cancer is gone for good. What 4 year old should ever have to ask a parent this question? Well Finn does and we just do our best to be normal about it. He really tries so hard to be brave and good! He says things though that really shows he knows what is going on. Thankfully he talks with us about it and isn't acting up more than an average 4 year old in our option. Did I mention he wants to be a doctor now? He would be a good one, that is for sure. that or a firefighter :). Too cute! he thinks firefighters walk on holy ground. We have one in our congregation - we call him "Fireman Plunkett" and he is so bashful around him!

I do think this will change us all - obviously. I personally have no idea how any doctor does their job, esp. oncologists. I just think about Dr. Hock having to call someone with such bad news and then him having to go home that night and be a person. With my job I only have to worry about undergrads being able to log into a stinkin' website and I worry at night!

Another AT/RT mommy who lives in Australia who has an absolutely BEAUTIFUL boy who was in Chicago doing Proton Beam therapy the same time Elan did - they even finished the same day! So obviously these two are destined to be survivors together!!! Anyway, they did a video during his treatment and it really shows why we did what we did. Here is the link. It is only 3 minutes long and really explains things well:

http://vimeo.com/50631659

So here are the photos. a few have captions.

xo!

Finn asleep - notice the animals tucked in his PJ's :)

When I had the flu a few weeks ago - Finn made up my bed when I took a shower so I wouldn't be lonely. :)

His prized ones next to my bed

all lined up for me!

The boys creating a town to ride bikes etc through

people of their town

just playing

one of the many Roars.

Physical therapy time! Jennifer brought a cool scooter toy.

fun times with two of our friends! Shelby and Sofia

boys woke up early and watched cartoons for a full hour while Erik and I slept in. you can see Elan's mouth a bit in this photo - they were so proud of themselves!

My parents went to Kingston AZ where some of Cars inspiration was from including Mader - they had a postcard signed by the guy who inspired Tow Mader - so cute!