August 27, 2008
I never have a video camera when I need it, and that's why I haven't won the grand prize on America's Funniest Home Videos.
Most of the time I have to walk Willie on a leash to keep him from bolting across the fence into the "rifleman's" property. [NOTE: The "rifleman" shot our neighbor's 12-year-old golden retriever at 3:00 in the morning a few months ago, stripped his collar, and dumped his body about two miles down Leonard Road towards the river. It made everyone in the neighborhood extremely angry, but I think we are all a bit intimidated by a nut who would kill a family pet in the middle of the night with a deer rifle.] Parts of our walk he can roam free, but the closer we return to home the more urgent my desire to have him on the end of the leash.
Last weekend it seemed especially unfair to leash him. Teddy and Uma were cavorting around freely (since they don't cross the fence), and we had picked up Willie's friend Tommy-Girl (who was also cavorting or perhaps more accurately parading her female wares) as we passed the far side of the lake. But I'm no softie. I clipped the leash on to his collar and proceeded up the road. It is one way I add to my fitness regimen: holding him in my grip as he lunges and throws his seventy pounds in various directions trying to play as with his friends and hie after Mrs. Bun. I soldiered forward, bent forward with the leash playing back over my shoulder. I tried to channel Ernest Hemingway bringing in a worthy fish. I struggled forward, not making much headway. I looked behind and figured out why Erin was laughing so hard. Willie and Tommy-Girl were having marital relations at the end of my leash, and I was dragging them both down the road. Talk about dead weight. It brought a whole new perspective to walking the dog.
Oh well, it's just a story to take your mind off of scans tomorrow. If luck is on our side, things will run smoothly. We'll hear good results on Friday, and start round six of irinotecan and temador next week. If not, then we will continue the process of fighting Erin's cancer in another direction. And so I tell myself, you can't control everything. Hell, you can't even control your dog when he's at the end of his leash. The best thing is to be still and open to the possibilities that you encounter.
Showing posts with label Personal Favorites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal Favorites. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
There Is No Finish Line
June 8, 2008
Erin and I just finished cleaning out the van so we can live in it this week. My job included stowing all the soccer gear: three sports bags (one for my equipment, one for the team that holds the precious information notebook and the even more precious first aid kit, and one with extra gear so that Mystic forgetfulness never becomes Emergency Forgetfulness), Walter's spectator chair, and from last week, all the tryout and registrar detritus. My shed no longer has room to turn around in, but the back of my van is blissfully empty (this happens twice a year. . .during the June and December hiatuses). Erin had a larger responsibility: clearing out all the stuff that she has left scattered about in every row and all of the more than generous storage compartments supplied by the Chrysler company over the last month when she has been too busy or too tired to clear the deck.
I've had a lot on my mind the last week. Summer school is in full force (and yes, I have essays to finish grading before tomorrow morning at 8:00). I spent from 5:00-9:00 at Central Park (not new York) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday discharging my interim registrar duties and laughing it up with a delightful group of volunteers that make youth competitive soccer in our community possible. Erin had Music Camp every morning, Credit by Exams, piano lessons, physical therapy, friends over, visit to friends houses, horseback riding, and of course two nights of soccer tryouts.
Sounds normal by Erin Buenger standards, doesn't it?
That's what's been on my mind. This week has seemed blissful. No constant checking about the need for ____________ (fill in the blank with imodium, tylenol, zofran, hydration or your own personal favorite). No monitoring of energy level or appetite. No wondering what's happening with counts (they're stable and good) or with hair (none falling out). We even think the chemo must have shrunk the tumor because of the relieved pain and pressure in her back. My worriometer has stopped clicking like a geiger counter in the nuclear medicine ward.
Will Lacey's dad wrote around this topic recently. Will's chemo regimen gives him fourteen good (blissful) days for every seven bad days. Here is how Pat put it on Friday when they began the 18th cycle of bad days in the last year:
He (Will) is suffering and he doesn't know why.
But I know why.
He suddenly feels awful because I just gave him 4ml of liquid in a syringe 45 minutes ago. And I didn't tell him what it was, what it was for, and that is the reason he feels terrible.
Because then he wouldn't take it.
These are all things that you accept because it takes place for 7 out of every 21 days and that is the price HE pays in order to stay alive.
That is the cost of having the 14 other days where he can enjoy life as himself.
The hard part for me is that he is unable to communicate to us what he is feeling simply because he is 3 years old.
He is alive.
He does not have to go inpatient, or even outpatient for his treatment.
His counts don't drop.
His hair doesn't fall out.
We don't have to give him shots every day.
As far as quality of life goes as it pertains to relapsed neuroblastoma we have it pretty good. It is just some days like today when the opposite ends of the spectrum are seen...so soon after making your son "take his medicine"....it can be a little bit jarring on your parental senses.
I have thought long and hard about this, and I have something to add. Just like Pat, I'm glad that The Rhino has been as easy as it has been. I'm glad that it seems to be working. I'm glad Erin has great days. It's a whole lot easier than at diagnosis when we would check her into the hospital and chemo drips would run twenty-four hours a day. We lived in the clean zone, protecting her from infections and other bugs that could lay her low. We signed informed consent forms virtually guaranteeing hearing loss, sterility, and organ failure. Everything we encountered was new and frightening.
But in some ways our situation now is much, much harder. When we started this game in July 2002 Erin's doctor handed us a road map that outlined the steps we would take to get Erin cancer free. We knew the process and approximately how long it would take. Because there was an endpoint, I could treat it like a project. I teach project management. Projects start. They end. They attempt to accomplish specific objectives. You manage them to completion. You may encounter set backs, but you re-group and keeping working towards the goal. That's what we did, and we did it well.
Now, here in relapseland, particularly in tumor progression relapseland, the bliss is all temporally finite. We start chemo again tomorrow. We hope to continue starting chemo every three weeks for a long time. The only obvious end points are set by more disease progression, unacceptable chemo toxicity, or a switch to some other treatment option (which we hope would be effective, but yield more good days).
We hope that the bad days aren't too bad and that the good ones are blissful. We hope to keep fooling ourselves that we have the energy and stamina and good luck to make it. That scientists can move fast enough to build the silver bullet that stops neuroblastoma in its tracks. That Erin's body and spirit stays strong. That Erin's tumor stays stupid and easily managed. That there enough good days to make the bad days tolerable.
We now live with more urgency and passion, and unexpectedly, much more calmness and certainty. I read it on a Nike poster in the gym: There Is No Finish Line.
Erin and I just finished cleaning out the van so we can live in it this week. My job included stowing all the soccer gear: three sports bags (one for my equipment, one for the team that holds the precious information notebook and the even more precious first aid kit, and one with extra gear so that Mystic forgetfulness never becomes Emergency Forgetfulness), Walter's spectator chair, and from last week, all the tryout and registrar detritus. My shed no longer has room to turn around in, but the back of my van is blissfully empty (this happens twice a year. . .during the June and December hiatuses). Erin had a larger responsibility: clearing out all the stuff that she has left scattered about in every row and all of the more than generous storage compartments supplied by the Chrysler company over the last month when she has been too busy or too tired to clear the deck.
I've had a lot on my mind the last week. Summer school is in full force (and yes, I have essays to finish grading before tomorrow morning at 8:00). I spent from 5:00-9:00 at Central Park (not new York) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday discharging my interim registrar duties and laughing it up with a delightful group of volunteers that make youth competitive soccer in our community possible. Erin had Music Camp every morning, Credit by Exams, piano lessons, physical therapy, friends over, visit to friends houses, horseback riding, and of course two nights of soccer tryouts.
Sounds normal by Erin Buenger standards, doesn't it?
That's what's been on my mind. This week has seemed blissful. No constant checking about the need for ____________ (fill in the blank with imodium, tylenol, zofran, hydration or your own personal favorite). No monitoring of energy level or appetite. No wondering what's happening with counts (they're stable and good) or with hair (none falling out). We even think the chemo must have shrunk the tumor because of the relieved pain and pressure in her back. My worriometer has stopped clicking like a geiger counter in the nuclear medicine ward.
Will Lacey's dad wrote around this topic recently. Will's chemo regimen gives him fourteen good (blissful) days for every seven bad days. Here is how Pat put it on Friday when they began the 18th cycle of bad days in the last year:
He (Will) is suffering and he doesn't know why.
But I know why.
He suddenly feels awful because I just gave him 4ml of liquid in a syringe 45 minutes ago. And I didn't tell him what it was, what it was for, and that is the reason he feels terrible.
Because then he wouldn't take it.
These are all things that you accept because it takes place for 7 out of every 21 days and that is the price HE pays in order to stay alive.
That is the cost of having the 14 other days where he can enjoy life as himself.
The hard part for me is that he is unable to communicate to us what he is feeling simply because he is 3 years old.
He is alive.
He does not have to go inpatient, or even outpatient for his treatment.
His counts don't drop.
His hair doesn't fall out.
We don't have to give him shots every day.
As far as quality of life goes as it pertains to relapsed neuroblastoma we have it pretty good. It is just some days like today when the opposite ends of the spectrum are seen...so soon after making your son "take his medicine"....it can be a little bit jarring on your parental senses.
I have thought long and hard about this, and I have something to add. Just like Pat, I'm glad that The Rhino has been as easy as it has been. I'm glad that it seems to be working. I'm glad Erin has great days. It's a whole lot easier than at diagnosis when we would check her into the hospital and chemo drips would run twenty-four hours a day. We lived in the clean zone, protecting her from infections and other bugs that could lay her low. We signed informed consent forms virtually guaranteeing hearing loss, sterility, and organ failure. Everything we encountered was new and frightening.
But in some ways our situation now is much, much harder. When we started this game in July 2002 Erin's doctor handed us a road map that outlined the steps we would take to get Erin cancer free. We knew the process and approximately how long it would take. Because there was an endpoint, I could treat it like a project. I teach project management. Projects start. They end. They attempt to accomplish specific objectives. You manage them to completion. You may encounter set backs, but you re-group and keeping working towards the goal. That's what we did, and we did it well.
Now, here in relapseland, particularly in tumor progression relapseland, the bliss is all temporally finite. We start chemo again tomorrow. We hope to continue starting chemo every three weeks for a long time. The only obvious end points are set by more disease progression, unacceptable chemo toxicity, or a switch to some other treatment option (which we hope would be effective, but yield more good days).
We hope that the bad days aren't too bad and that the good ones are blissful. We hope to keep fooling ourselves that we have the energy and stamina and good luck to make it. That scientists can move fast enough to build the silver bullet that stops neuroblastoma in its tracks. That Erin's body and spirit stays strong. That Erin's tumor stays stupid and easily managed. That there enough good days to make the bad days tolerable.
We now live with more urgency and passion, and unexpectedly, much more calmness and certainty. I read it on a Nike poster in the gym: There Is No Finish Line.
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Audacity of Mrs. Bun
May 12, 2008
During those weeks when Willie wore his E-collar and felt miserable, the neighborhood bunnies ran amok. Baby Bun ventured far from his home under the house near the end of the road to set up a fort under the Cook's propane gas tank, oblivious that he had ventured onto Jade and Buster's turf. Luckily, Erin and my mom rescued the naive Baby Bun and returned him to his nest. Not that he was the only bunny who had taken advantage of Willie's downtime. Mrs. Bun must have missed Willie's attentions during those dark days, because in his recovery she has taken up some wild and wanton ways. At dusk last night, as we made the curve near the pond and headed towards home, I noticed her first. She was sitting in the middle of the road coquettishly looking back over her right shoulder. There she remained, batting her eyelids, flaunting her bosom, and flouting the all the rules of the animal kingdom. Clearly, she was waiting for Willie to notice her. She has done this multiple times lately. She wants him. She's willing to vie for him. When he finally notices, the seduction begins. Willie doesn't exactly understand how to play her game, but he's willing to try. In the end, after much chasing and snuffling, Willie is left dreaming of the possibilities and admiring the audacity of Mrs. Bun.
I wish I could tell you unequivocally that Erin has recovered from what set her low last week (just like Willie most assuredly has), but her energy level and aches and pains have ebbed and flowed. She felt well enough to practice soccer on Friday night and lasted about 70 minutes (which is about the best her back allows these days). She took an easy start to the day on Saturday, then helped her coach Lisa Villalobos with Hot Shots (pre-school soccer players) for a few hours. She didn't feel like doing much the rest of the day. The quiet time gave her an opportunity to retire to her room and work on her top-secret Mother's Day project, while listening to The Beatles ad naseum.
Sunday she woke up felling reasonably perky and presented me with a new, beaded chain to hold my eye-glasses [NOTE BENE: I have reached the age where I have not yet moved into bifocals, but can't read with my glasses on or drive with my glasses off. Needless to say, I spend the greater portion of the day donning and doffing my eye wear. Keeping my specs in chains helps me immensely. Otherwise, I would waste an even larger portion of the day wondering where I left them when I took them off. Now I'm so accustomed to wearing them on a chain that when I take them off, I just drop them. Definitely a bad habit, if you forget to wear a chain!]. When we headed off to church, I thought we had turned the corner on the virus and its debilitating effect on Erin's outlook and comfort. The next time I saw her (an hour and a half later) in the choir area at the front of the chancel waiting to sing, I could tell she hurt. She made it through both pieces her choir sang, but when she joined Walter and me in the pew, she just slumped for the rest of the service. We got stuck in a big Mother's Day lunch crowd at Gina's, and eventually the wait got too long and my mom took her home. She just couldn't get comfortable at the table waiting.
I prepared myself to hang out quietly with her the rest of the afternoon, but she rallied. I broke one of the rules of good mothering and suggest we take a walk around the lake. . .BAREFOOTED. We had a jolly time--only a few burs and nothing really icky stuck to our soles--and it warmed us up enough that Erin made it through all of her home exercises except "the birddog" with no complaint. Tomorrow's scans will tell us a lot about whether these back issues arise from tumor pressure or from something else. We're hoping for something else, but even that is not a free pass. Somehow, we have to find a way to shoot the gap between the Scylla of too much activity and the Charybdis of too much sloth. Overdoing and underdoing seem to trigger the same discomfort cycle.
During those weeks when Willie wore his E-collar and felt miserable, the neighborhood bunnies ran amok. Baby Bun ventured far from his home under the house near the end of the road to set up a fort under the Cook's propane gas tank, oblivious that he had ventured onto Jade and Buster's turf. Luckily, Erin and my mom rescued the naive Baby Bun and returned him to his nest. Not that he was the only bunny who had taken advantage of Willie's downtime. Mrs. Bun must have missed Willie's attentions during those dark days, because in his recovery she has taken up some wild and wanton ways. At dusk last night, as we made the curve near the pond and headed towards home, I noticed her first. She was sitting in the middle of the road coquettishly looking back over her right shoulder. There she remained, batting her eyelids, flaunting her bosom, and flouting the all the rules of the animal kingdom. Clearly, she was waiting for Willie to notice her. She has done this multiple times lately. She wants him. She's willing to vie for him. When he finally notices, the seduction begins. Willie doesn't exactly understand how to play her game, but he's willing to try. In the end, after much chasing and snuffling, Willie is left dreaming of the possibilities and admiring the audacity of Mrs. Bun.
I wish I could tell you unequivocally that Erin has recovered from what set her low last week (just like Willie most assuredly has), but her energy level and aches and pains have ebbed and flowed. She felt well enough to practice soccer on Friday night and lasted about 70 minutes (which is about the best her back allows these days). She took an easy start to the day on Saturday, then helped her coach Lisa Villalobos with Hot Shots (pre-school soccer players) for a few hours. She didn't feel like doing much the rest of the day. The quiet time gave her an opportunity to retire to her room and work on her top-secret Mother's Day project, while listening to The Beatles ad naseum.
Sunday she woke up felling reasonably perky and presented me with a new, beaded chain to hold my eye-glasses [NOTE BENE: I have reached the age where I have not yet moved into bifocals, but can't read with my glasses on or drive with my glasses off. Needless to say, I spend the greater portion of the day donning and doffing my eye wear. Keeping my specs in chains helps me immensely. Otherwise, I would waste an even larger portion of the day wondering where I left them when I took them off. Now I'm so accustomed to wearing them on a chain that when I take them off, I just drop them. Definitely a bad habit, if you forget to wear a chain!]. When we headed off to church, I thought we had turned the corner on the virus and its debilitating effect on Erin's outlook and comfort. The next time I saw her (an hour and a half later) in the choir area at the front of the chancel waiting to sing, I could tell she hurt. She made it through both pieces her choir sang, but when she joined Walter and me in the pew, she just slumped for the rest of the service. We got stuck in a big Mother's Day lunch crowd at Gina's, and eventually the wait got too long and my mom took her home. She just couldn't get comfortable at the table waiting.
I prepared myself to hang out quietly with her the rest of the afternoon, but she rallied. I broke one of the rules of good mothering and suggest we take a walk around the lake. . .BAREFOOTED. We had a jolly time--only a few burs and nothing really icky stuck to our soles--and it warmed us up enough that Erin made it through all of her home exercises except "the birddog" with no complaint. Tomorrow's scans will tell us a lot about whether these back issues arise from tumor pressure or from something else. We're hoping for something else, but even that is not a free pass. Somehow, we have to find a way to shoot the gap between the Scylla of too much activity and the Charybdis of too much sloth. Overdoing and underdoing seem to trigger the same discomfort cycle.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Gang
April 9, 2008
Do you remember Fat Albert and his Gang? Not the movie, released in 2004, which was live-action, but the original Saturday morning cartoon from the early 1970's.
If you watch this video clip of the show's opening theme song, you will get a little glimpse of how I have felt recently (note especially the images at the 18-20 second mark). No, I haven't reached the portly proportions of Fat Albert nor the comic genius of Bill Cosby. As a youngster, I would watch the cartoon of the Cosby gang (they were a gang, not a club, back when being a gang wasn't a life-threatening proposition) walking down the sidewalk and just marvel at their motley-ness. Their personalities showed through their gait, and even though they were each unique and also essentially flawed (think about it, their names were Weird Harold, Mush Mouth, and Dumb Donald, to name the ones I can remember), they had each other's backs and had a great time moving through life.
Fast forward to Vickie's life. Every day (usually several times a day) I head down the road with a collection of people and animals. Picture me, with Erin skipping rope, or dribbling a soccer ball, or adorning her hair and clothes with daisy chains and wildflowers she has collected from the road side. Add in Walter, usually wearing a fedora, but sometimes in a bucket hat and my mother, either nattily dressed for work or more casual in yard work duds. Now picture Willie, our two-year old Rhodesian Ridgeback, alternating between racing ahead, leaping after crickets and lizards in the tall grass, and trotting along with the group. Put Uma, our overweight Welsh corgi, into your mental image, short legs completely disproportional to her giant meatloaf shaped body, but always walking with a princess-like prance in her step. Don't forget Luke, our fifteen-year-old yellow lab, who has extreme arthritis and no cartilage left in his rear stifles (knees). He can barely get up and down the road, but he always has an eager look in his eyes and a smile on his face. Round out the picture with Teddy, who at 10 pounds with a shaved body, full-lion mane, and "C"-shaped gait, spends a great deal of time trying not to get stepped on. Sometimes we add the neighbors' weiner dog puppies for a few minutes, and sometimes a weimaraner, sleek but dumb, and her blind-in-one-eye golden retriever buddy join us.
Can you tell why I think of myself as Fat Albert or at least the leader of his gang? A motlier crew I can't imagine, nor can I imagine not having them and not loving them. It's a comic image, yet, it is that image that metaphorically captures the essence of Erin's cancer experience, and perhaps of humanity itself. None of us are perfect. None of us are whole. If we think we are, it's probably an illusion. Instead, we are made up of many others who surround us and support us. We are made up of those we share the road with. . .those willing to be in our gang. Today, I owe a thanks to all of you for being part of The Gang. Thanks for walking down the road with us, even if you're a little ahead or a little behind. . . even if you have your own pace and gait. Remember we're together, and I appreciate it.
Now, for other updates:
I wish I could tell you that Senator Hutchinson has seen the light and signed on to the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act. Not yet. I do appreciate your efforts and hope you are not too fatigued to fight on. Hans Weberling's mom, Lara, went to the effort to create a touching and powerful powerpoint presentation, which I'm sure will be convincing to anyone who views it. I guess the trick is to get someone who matters to take the time (it's only 14 slides). If you have a chance, stop by Han's website. He has just started his sixth and last round of accutane and is nearing the end of treatment. We hope, like his family does, that this will be the final chapter in his face-off with neuroblastoma.
To continue with happy news: The long weekend with Davis and his buddy and co-math major Paul Munger from Portland, Oregon went great. They both got enough to eat and enough sleep. I even caught them working math problems a couple of times. (As a side note, I posted on The Davis Report that Davis had accepted a position as a math intern at the University of Pittsburgh medical school for the summer and wondered if I had any readers from that general area who might be willing to be an emergency contact for him this summer, May 19-July 25. I'm also looking for a similar person or persons in Budapest, Hungary for the fall when he studies abroad, but I'm guessing that's a long shot.)
Erin kept it pretty low key all weekend (forced into a lower key than desired, by her mother, who is trying to create ideal conditions for back healing. This included nixed plans for ice skating at her friend Andy's birthday party. Drat!) She did some rather impressive art for Davis and Paul to take back to their dorms. When I say impressive what I mean is that she used every single marker she owns in each of the 2 ft X 2 ft pieces. I didn't count how many markers she used, but when she laid them out (side by side, not end to end), they stretched across her entire room (I'm guessing about ten feet, maybe twelve).
We culminated the weekend with an outing to the Texas A&M baseball game, where Erin and the other members of the Bryan Honor Choir sang the national anthem. We didn't stay the whole game because we also wanted to take Davis out to dinner for his birthday. We momentarily thought we had made a bad logistical choice of restaurants, since A&M's biggest formal was Saturday night and a generous portion of the couples appeared to have chosen Cenare's as their pre-dance eatery. Luckily, we had a great server, who got our orders through and we didn't end up starving while we waited for our food to clear the kitchen congestion.
Unfortunately, whatever gain we made on Erin's back by avoiding ice skating were undone yesterday, when Erin had to stay seated at her desk most of the day for TAKS testing. No PE. No recess. By the time she got home her back was cramping and grabbing. Kelli, the physical therapist, gave her some pain relief with wet heat, a deep message, and some light stretches, but not enough to clear her for soccer practice last night. With South Texas Cup play approaching on the first weekend of May, Erin rues every moment that she has to sit out (and Erin's parents rue every moment, even the simplest soccer practice, that cancer robs her of).
This weekend promises to be an upbeat one. Aunt Kat and Emma are coming back, even though they just visited. Our mom is hosting a party for her master naturalist group. On Sunday, Erin has her spring piano recital.
Do you remember Fat Albert and his Gang? Not the movie, released in 2004, which was live-action, but the original Saturday morning cartoon from the early 1970's.
If you watch this video clip of the show's opening theme song, you will get a little glimpse of how I have felt recently (note especially the images at the 18-20 second mark). No, I haven't reached the portly proportions of Fat Albert nor the comic genius of Bill Cosby. As a youngster, I would watch the cartoon of the Cosby gang (they were a gang, not a club, back when being a gang wasn't a life-threatening proposition) walking down the sidewalk and just marvel at their motley-ness. Their personalities showed through their gait, and even though they were each unique and also essentially flawed (think about it, their names were Weird Harold, Mush Mouth, and Dumb Donald, to name the ones I can remember), they had each other's backs and had a great time moving through life.
Fast forward to Vickie's life. Every day (usually several times a day) I head down the road with a collection of people and animals. Picture me, with Erin skipping rope, or dribbling a soccer ball, or adorning her hair and clothes with daisy chains and wildflowers she has collected from the road side. Add in Walter, usually wearing a fedora, but sometimes in a bucket hat and my mother, either nattily dressed for work or more casual in yard work duds. Now picture Willie, our two-year old Rhodesian Ridgeback, alternating between racing ahead, leaping after crickets and lizards in the tall grass, and trotting along with the group. Put Uma, our overweight Welsh corgi, into your mental image, short legs completely disproportional to her giant meatloaf shaped body, but always walking with a princess-like prance in her step. Don't forget Luke, our fifteen-year-old yellow lab, who has extreme arthritis and no cartilage left in his rear stifles (knees). He can barely get up and down the road, but he always has an eager look in his eyes and a smile on his face. Round out the picture with Teddy, who at 10 pounds with a shaved body, full-lion mane, and "C"-shaped gait, spends a great deal of time trying not to get stepped on. Sometimes we add the neighbors' weiner dog puppies for a few minutes, and sometimes a weimaraner, sleek but dumb, and her blind-in-one-eye golden retriever buddy join us.
Can you tell why I think of myself as Fat Albert or at least the leader of his gang? A motlier crew I can't imagine, nor can I imagine not having them and not loving them. It's a comic image, yet, it is that image that metaphorically captures the essence of Erin's cancer experience, and perhaps of humanity itself. None of us are perfect. None of us are whole. If we think we are, it's probably an illusion. Instead, we are made up of many others who surround us and support us. We are made up of those we share the road with. . .those willing to be in our gang. Today, I owe a thanks to all of you for being part of The Gang. Thanks for walking down the road with us, even if you're a little ahead or a little behind. . . even if you have your own pace and gait. Remember we're together, and I appreciate it.
Now, for other updates:
I wish I could tell you that Senator Hutchinson has seen the light and signed on to the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act. Not yet. I do appreciate your efforts and hope you are not too fatigued to fight on. Hans Weberling's mom, Lara, went to the effort to create a touching and powerful powerpoint presentation, which I'm sure will be convincing to anyone who views it. I guess the trick is to get someone who matters to take the time (it's only 14 slides). If you have a chance, stop by Han's website. He has just started his sixth and last round of accutane and is nearing the end of treatment. We hope, like his family does, that this will be the final chapter in his face-off with neuroblastoma.
To continue with happy news: The long weekend with Davis and his buddy and co-math major Paul Munger from Portland, Oregon went great. They both got enough to eat and enough sleep. I even caught them working math problems a couple of times. (As a side note, I posted on The Davis Report that Davis had accepted a position as a math intern at the University of Pittsburgh medical school for the summer and wondered if I had any readers from that general area who might be willing to be an emergency contact for him this summer, May 19-July 25. I'm also looking for a similar person or persons in Budapest, Hungary for the fall when he studies abroad, but I'm guessing that's a long shot.)
Erin kept it pretty low key all weekend (forced into a lower key than desired, by her mother, who is trying to create ideal conditions for back healing. This included nixed plans for ice skating at her friend Andy's birthday party. Drat!) She did some rather impressive art for Davis and Paul to take back to their dorms. When I say impressive what I mean is that she used every single marker she owns in each of the 2 ft X 2 ft pieces. I didn't count how many markers she used, but when she laid them out (side by side, not end to end), they stretched across her entire room (I'm guessing about ten feet, maybe twelve).
We culminated the weekend with an outing to the Texas A&M baseball game, where Erin and the other members of the Bryan Honor Choir sang the national anthem. We didn't stay the whole game because we also wanted to take Davis out to dinner for his birthday. We momentarily thought we had made a bad logistical choice of restaurants, since A&M's biggest formal was Saturday night and a generous portion of the couples appeared to have chosen Cenare's as their pre-dance eatery. Luckily, we had a great server, who got our orders through and we didn't end up starving while we waited for our food to clear the kitchen congestion.
Unfortunately, whatever gain we made on Erin's back by avoiding ice skating were undone yesterday, when Erin had to stay seated at her desk most of the day for TAKS testing. No PE. No recess. By the time she got home her back was cramping and grabbing. Kelli, the physical therapist, gave her some pain relief with wet heat, a deep message, and some light stretches, but not enough to clear her for soccer practice last night. With South Texas Cup play approaching on the first weekend of May, Erin rues every moment that she has to sit out (and Erin's parents rue every moment, even the simplest soccer practice, that cancer robs her of).
This weekend promises to be an upbeat one. Aunt Kat and Emma are coming back, even though they just visited. Our mom is hosting a party for her master naturalist group. On Sunday, Erin has her spring piano recital.
Friday, December 14, 2007
When You Least Expect It
December 14, 2007
Thank you for your patience while I finished grading all my final exams and dealt with the detritus the end of the semester inevitably delivers to my doorstep.
Thank you even more for sharing your Christmas memories, stories, and traditions. If you haven't made time, please add yours to the ones I already have. If you don't want to go into a long explanation, just leave me a comment, naming your favorite holiday food, hymn, or television special.
Thank you the most for growing Erin's Giving Tree to 304 ornaments. I can't tell you how proud it makes me, that after all of these years of watching Erin on this journey, you still have heart enough to support the research cause that matters so much to us.
I had to pause today and do some thinking. Typically, I am quick to criticize some aspects of college life and choices large universities, including my employer Texas A&M, make that just don't seem very educational. I have often spoken against our practice of stuffing 300, 400, even 500 students in an auditorium--lecturing to them with power point slides and asking them to bubble in scantrons to see if they remember anything. The way I see it, bubbling in isn't a skill that serves you that well in life after college.
Today, however, rather than railing about the stupidity of enormous classes, I want to tell you about the powerful impact they can have. I suspect, when you are sitting in a room with 549 other students who don't know you and don't care about you, it would be easy to feel disconnected and isolated. The Management 209 and Management 211 students, with the encouragement of their professor, decided they didn't want to feel this way. They made an mind-numbing effort to help children in Child Protective Services have a great Christmas by filling their Christmas wish lists. Using lists filled out by the children themselves, these students bought, wrapped, and delivered five presents each to 98 children in the area. . . and these were not just socks and toothbrushes. My office suite was gift-wrap central, and I saw at least twenty bikes, i-pods, playstations, and loads of fun (and specially requested) stuff. If you thought you had a lot of shopping to do, consider a wish list with 492 gifts. Here is a link to last year's gift drive:
http://maysbusiness.tamu.edu/old/2007/01/news-jan.html
The cool part is that this isn't a one off activity. It actually follows the classes' Thanksgiving food drive that started in October and ran through last month with students collecting canned goods and non-perishables for the local Food Bank. Those students also have a list-serve of students who send cards and notes of encouragement to people who have special needs. Sometimes, this list-serve gets so interested in the person with the special need they do even more. Besides wanting to warm your heart (and eat a little crow for being so critical of large classes), I can make even more of a connection.
Five years ago one of the people who needed something special was Erin. She was on the eighth floor of Texas Children's Hospital in the midst of her first of two stem cell transplants. This is how she looked on December 4, before she started her conditioning chemo. In a few days she looked much frailer, paler, and sicker.
A couple of weeks later two sisters, Kalli and Meagan, arrived, fresh from finals laden with stuffed animals and special gifts that their peers at A&M and Blinn had taken the time to buy for Erin. A visit from Santa hadn't cheered her much, Tara Lipinski was okay, but not enough to get out of bed for, the singing FBI agents struck my funny bone and perked me right up, but Erin didn't even budge. Kalli and Maegan with an armload of stuffed animals? That was a different matter to that five year old. She made a quick animal pyramid (note Rosie on the left joining in with her holiday outfit on), and didn't even leave enough room for herself in bed.
I guess we didn't expect it. Just like I don't expect much good to come from large, auditorium classes. Except, sometimes great things happen when we don't expect them.
I don't know why I have to keep learning this lesson. I visit websites everyday, written by parents with sick children. Neil, spends the small slice of free time he has keeping up with emerging research that may have possibilities for neuroblastoma kids. Pat, has rallied his small community to raise thousands of dollars for research, Band of Parents just baked and sold 96,000 cookies to raise money for research. At the same time, Mara and Becky are shaping their words and images through their daughters' websites to reveal the true love and caring that is possible, even in the face of a horrible disease like neuroblastoma.
This holiday season, cherish your loved ones and pay attention. Something life changing could happen when you least expect it. You might even be the one who changes someone else's life.
Thank you for your patience while I finished grading all my final exams and dealt with the detritus the end of the semester inevitably delivers to my doorstep.
Thank you even more for sharing your Christmas memories, stories, and traditions. If you haven't made time, please add yours to the ones I already have. If you don't want to go into a long explanation, just leave me a comment, naming your favorite holiday food, hymn, or television special.
Thank you the most for growing Erin's Giving Tree to 304 ornaments. I can't tell you how proud it makes me, that after all of these years of watching Erin on this journey, you still have heart enough to support the research cause that matters so much to us.
I had to pause today and do some thinking. Typically, I am quick to criticize some aspects of college life and choices large universities, including my employer Texas A&M, make that just don't seem very educational. I have often spoken against our practice of stuffing 300, 400, even 500 students in an auditorium--lecturing to them with power point slides and asking them to bubble in scantrons to see if they remember anything. The way I see it, bubbling in isn't a skill that serves you that well in life after college.
Today, however, rather than railing about the stupidity of enormous classes, I want to tell you about the powerful impact they can have. I suspect, when you are sitting in a room with 549 other students who don't know you and don't care about you, it would be easy to feel disconnected and isolated. The Management 209 and Management 211 students, with the encouragement of their professor, decided they didn't want to feel this way. They made an mind-numbing effort to help children in Child Protective Services have a great Christmas by filling their Christmas wish lists. Using lists filled out by the children themselves, these students bought, wrapped, and delivered five presents each to 98 children in the area. . . and these were not just socks and toothbrushes. My office suite was gift-wrap central, and I saw at least twenty bikes, i-pods, playstations, and loads of fun (and specially requested) stuff. If you thought you had a lot of shopping to do, consider a wish list with 492 gifts. Here is a link to last year's gift drive:
http://maysbusiness.tamu.e
The cool part is that this isn't a one off activity. It actually follows the classes' Thanksgiving food drive that started in October and ran through last month with students collecting canned goods and non-perishables for the local Food Bank. Those students also have a list-serve of students who send cards and notes of encouragement to people who have special needs. Sometimes, this list-serve gets so interested in the person with the special need they do even more. Besides wanting to warm your heart (and eat a little crow for being so critical of large classes), I can make even more of a connection.
Five years ago one of the people who needed something special was Erin. She was on the eighth floor of Texas Children's Hospital in the midst of her first of two stem cell transplants. This is how she looked on December 4, before she started her conditioning chemo. In a few days she looked much frailer, paler, and sicker.
A couple of weeks later two sisters, Kalli and Meagan, arrived, fresh from finals laden with stuffed animals and special gifts that their peers at A&M and Blinn had taken the time to buy for Erin. A visit from Santa hadn't cheered her much, Tara Lipinski was okay, but not enough to get out of bed for, the singing FBI agents struck my funny bone and perked me right up, but Erin didn't even budge. Kalli and Maegan with an armload of stuffed animals? That was a different matter to that five year old. She made a quick animal pyramid (note Rosie on the left joining in with her holiday outfit on), and didn't even leave enough room for herself in bed.
I guess we didn't expect it. Just like I don't expect much good to come from large, auditorium classes. Except, sometimes great things happen when we don't expect them.I don't know why I have to keep learning this lesson. I visit websites everyday, written by parents with sick children. Neil, spends the small slice of free time he has keeping up with emerging research that may have possibilities for neuroblastoma kids. Pat, has rallied his small community to raise thousands of dollars for research, Band of Parents just baked and sold 96,000 cookies to raise money for research. At the same time, Mara and Becky are shaping their words and images through their daughters' websites to reveal the true love and caring that is possible, even in the face of a horrible disease like neuroblastoma.
This holiday season, cherish your loved ones and pay attention. Something life changing could happen when you least expect it. You might even be the one who changes someone else's life.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Hope This Cheers You Up
November 28, 2007
You know how it is. Some mornings things don't unfold like you think they should. That happened to me today. I had put off something until the last minute that I need to do before my first class at 9:30, but of course, Erin was doing her impression of slow and slower. I drummed my fingers on the dining room table and re-read the paper, while she took ten minutes to eat two L'il Sizzlers. I went up and brushed my teeth a second time while she moseyed her way through her fruit bowl. I pulled the car next door to transfer the dozen boxes Erin's school needed for their food drive from my mom's car into my van, while she nibbled at her toast. Finally, I gave her the green light on taking her meds, so she could find her shoes and do her bathroom duties in preparation for departure.
I carried her backpack to the car and remembered that the sensor for one of my tires had been lighting up every morning since the cold front came through. I had the idea of topping it off with the air compressor while I waited for Erin. I took a reading with my handy digital air gauge: 30.0 lbs. which explained the electronic warning. Thirty pounds is right on the cusp of where the sensor is activated. I hauled out the air compressor, plugged it in, and gave the right, front tire a big drink of air (aiming at 35 lbs.) I took another reading: 26.5 lbs. Oops. I must not have gotten the device seated. Another try, another reading: 23.0. Once more: oh no, 18.0 lbs.
By now Erin was in the van making noises like, if you don't hurry, mom, I'm going to be late for school. I told her to move her stuff into Walter's car and left everything else just laying around, knowing that I would have to make the round trip, figure out something to do about my tire and how to get the boxes delivered, and race to campus.
By the time I made it home, Walter had found a way to suck seven more pounds of air out of the tire, and now he was running as late as I was. Eventually, we put all of our common sense together with all of our advanced degrees and figured out that someone (named Vickie) had set the regulator of the compressor down to 10 PSI (when she aired up a dozen soccer balls last month) and had not returned it to its regular setting. The physics majors among us knew what was going on as soon as I started the story, and the rest of you had quickly figured out that the air pressure inside the tire had to have been greater than in the compressor tube, or we wouldn't have lost so much air so quickly. We would have probably figured it out when the tire pressure fell below ten pounds and started taking air again.
I made it to school with the boxes and to work in time to finish my unfinished business, barely. I felt a little off all day until I came up to my desk to do this entry. I found the rough draft of the letter Erin recently wrote at school as a project to support the U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Here is the actual letter, but I will also translate it for you below so that you don't have to squint:
Dear Soldiers,
"Hello!" My name is Erin. I'm a 10 year old girl living in Bryan TX. I was told by my teacher that you needed cheering up. So I told myself I would write about my life which is pretty interesting. Let me begin. When I was 5 years old I was diagnost with a type of cancer cald neuroblastoma which is a solid tomer cancer that happens when one cell starts to not obeay your body. My tomer was about the size of a subway sandwitch [she draws an oval here and says "like this but life size"]. For many months I spent my time in the hospital. Sometimes I had to stay through Christmas. Then, when it seemed like everything was getting better, I relapsed (meaning another tomer had grown), so I went through the process again and a third time too, for yet another tomer had grown. Then on my 9th birthday I went to D.C. to lobby for pediatric cancer funding (meaning money for children's cancer) because the medicine I have to take right know is 30 years old and at first only adults could use it. When I got to D.C. I met our Congress man Chet Edwards and we were best friends immediately. The next time he came to Bryan he invited me to an Aggie football game. I met his family, and we went to the Presidential buffet. There we met former President Bush. Later Chet sent me a flag that flew over the capital on my birthday when I was there. I lobbied again this summer and this time my friend Nico came with me (He will be writing too). Now I am a happy girl, almost normal except for my memories. By the way I'm very interested in politics and when I grow up, I'm going to be the President of the U.S. I hope this cheered you up.
Your Friend,
I have to say that reading over that letter made small potatoes of my not-very-good start to my day. I, too, hope this cheered you up.
You know how it is. Some mornings things don't unfold like you think they should. That happened to me today. I had put off something until the last minute that I need to do before my first class at 9:30, but of course, Erin was doing her impression of slow and slower. I drummed my fingers on the dining room table and re-read the paper, while she took ten minutes to eat two L'il Sizzlers. I went up and brushed my teeth a second time while she moseyed her way through her fruit bowl. I pulled the car next door to transfer the dozen boxes Erin's school needed for their food drive from my mom's car into my van, while she nibbled at her toast. Finally, I gave her the green light on taking her meds, so she could find her shoes and do her bathroom duties in preparation for departure.
I carried her backpack to the car and remembered that the sensor for one of my tires had been lighting up every morning since the cold front came through. I had the idea of topping it off with the air compressor while I waited for Erin. I took a reading with my handy digital air gauge: 30.0 lbs. which explained the electronic warning. Thirty pounds is right on the cusp of where the sensor is activated. I hauled out the air compressor, plugged it in, and gave the right, front tire a big drink of air (aiming at 35 lbs.) I took another reading: 26.5 lbs. Oops. I must not have gotten the device seated. Another try, another reading: 23.0. Once more: oh no, 18.0 lbs.
By now Erin was in the van making noises like, if you don't hurry, mom, I'm going to be late for school. I told her to move her stuff into Walter's car and left everything else just laying around, knowing that I would have to make the round trip, figure out something to do about my tire and how to get the boxes delivered, and race to campus.
By the time I made it home, Walter had found a way to suck seven more pounds of air out of the tire, and now he was running as late as I was. Eventually, we put all of our common sense together with all of our advanced degrees and figured out that someone (named Vickie) had set the regulator of the compressor down to 10 PSI (when she aired up a dozen soccer balls last month) and had not returned it to its regular setting. The physics majors among us knew what was going on as soon as I started the story, and the rest of you had quickly figured out that the air pressure inside the tire had to have been greater than in the compressor tube, or we wouldn't have lost so much air so quickly. We would have probably figured it out when the tire pressure fell below ten pounds and started taking air again.
I made it to school with the boxes and to work in time to finish my unfinished business, barely. I felt a little off all day until I came up to my desk to do this entry. I found the rough draft of the letter Erin recently wrote at school as a project to support the U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Here is the actual letter, but I will also translate it for you below so that you don't have to squint:
Dear Soldiers,"Hello!" My name is Erin. I'm a 10 year old girl living in Bryan TX. I was told by my teacher that you needed cheering up. So I told myself I would write about my life which is pretty interesting. Let me begin. When I was 5 years old I was diagnost with a type of cancer cald neuroblastoma which is a solid tomer cancer that happens when one cell starts to not obeay your body. My tomer was about the size of a subway sandwitch [she draws an oval here and says "like this but life size"]. For many months I spent my time in the hospital. Sometimes I had to stay through Christmas. Then, when it seemed like everything was getting better, I relapsed (meaning another tomer had grown), so I went through the process again and a third time too, for yet another tomer had grown. Then on my 9th birthday I went to D.C. to lobby for pediatric cancer funding (meaning money for children's cancer) because the medicine I have to take right know is 30 years old and at first only adults could use it. When I got to D.C. I met our Congress man Chet Edwards and we were best friends immediately. The next time he came to Bryan he invited me to an Aggie football game. I met his family, and we went to the Presidential buffet. There we met former President Bush. Later Chet sent me a flag that flew over the capital on my birthday when I was there. I lobbied again this summer and this time my friend Nico came with me (He will be writing too). Now I am a happy girl, almost normal except for my memories. By the way I'm very interested in politics and when I grow up, I'm going to be the President of the U.S. I hope this cheered you up.
Your Friend,
I have to say that reading over that letter made small potatoes of my not-very-good start to my day. I, too, hope this cheered you up.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Great Visual Aid
November 24, 2007
I warned you. The free time flew out the window. I will now try to recall how this whole journaling thing works. I'll begin with three pics, representing some of the costume changes from 11/15: Erin and Jackson, with Ben Franklin (I couldn't convince the girl sitting behind me that this wasn't the original BF); Erin as ball girl, complete with tornado socks (and no, we are not sponsored by a barber shop); Erin and a bevy of Mystics bundled up at the Aggie game.
Hard to believe that Jackson and Erin are in the same grade with birthdays only months apart.
Erin was officially the first ball girl to handle a loose ball in the 2007 NCAA Women's Soccer tournament
I'm not sure what else to highlight of the last week and a half. Erin's IVIG went off without a hitch, if you don't count the slow start (arrival and scheduled start time: 9:00, actual start time: 11:50, total duration: ten hours). I guess you might say I was out of shape for the treatment world. I used to take ten hour (or longer) days in stride. I would certainly never run out of entertainment items. Last Friday's marathon at St. Joe's found me phoning Elaine at about 3:30, begging her to bring Nico by after his piano lesson because we were still facing another three hours of drip, followed by an hour observation, with not much left to hold Erin's attention.
Beyond that, things went fine. No allergic reaction. Hopefully, a more fully functional immune system.
I do have an unlikely Erin story to report. Erin's teacher asked her, Nico, and Farhan to teach a lesson about government some times in the next couple of weeks. Davis did the same thing when he went to Branch (although as I recall he taught his class about the concept of pi). What would you do if you had to do peer teaching? A little research, probably a poster, maybe a handout? Erin took a different tack. Last Sunday night she wrote her Congressman an email. Here's an excerpt:
I warned you. The free time flew out the window. I will now try to recall how this whole journaling thing works. I'll begin with three pics, representing some of the costume changes from 11/15: Erin and Jackson, with Ben Franklin (I couldn't convince the girl sitting behind me that this wasn't the original BF); Erin as ball girl, complete with tornado socks (and no, we are not sponsored by a barber shop); Erin and a bevy of Mystics bundled up at the Aggie game.
Hard to believe that Jackson and Erin are in the same grade with birthdays only months apart.
Erin was officially the first ball girl to handle a loose ball in the 2007 NCAA Women's Soccer tournament
I'm not sure what else to highlight of the last week and a half. Erin's IVIG went off without a hitch, if you don't count the slow start (arrival and scheduled start time: 9:00, actual start time: 11:50, total duration: ten hours). I guess you might say I was out of shape for the treatment world. I used to take ten hour (or longer) days in stride. I would certainly never run out of entertainment items. Last Friday's marathon at St. Joe's found me phoning Elaine at about 3:30, begging her to bring Nico by after his piano lesson because we were still facing another three hours of drip, followed by an hour observation, with not much left to hold Erin's attention.
Beyond that, things went fine. No allergic reaction. Hopefully, a more fully functional immune system.
I do have an unlikely Erin story to report. Erin's teacher asked her, Nico, and Farhan to teach a lesson about government some times in the next couple of weeks. Davis did the same thing when he went to Branch (although as I recall he taught his class about the concept of pi). What would you do if you had to do peer teaching? A little research, probably a poster, maybe a handout? Erin took a different tack. Last Sunday night she wrote her Congressman an email. Here's an excerpt:
Guess what? My teacher asked me and some of my friends to teach our class
about the government! (voting, the order of succession, how laws are made,
great documents, etc.) We have been looking up facts in the library and
on the internet. I plan to tell the class about the Conquer Childhood Cancer
Act. Did you know that the Senate version passed out of committee last
week. I think the House may get to it in January. My mom said that she
heard people say that President Bush may veto it. I think that may not
happen though, because he had a sister who died of leukemia.
Anyway, I thought to myself we will need a little help to do a good job
teaching the class, and I was going to write and ask your advice. This
morning, my mom told me that you were speaking in College Station on
November 30, so when my mom said you were going to be in town, I thought I
would invite you to come to my school. I know you have a busy schedule, but
I would love to see you and for you to meet more of my friends. Also, you
would be a great visual aid.
By 10:00 the next morning, she had a reply from Chet, and I had a message on my cell phone from his scheduler, Leah Cohen. After a couple of rounds of e-mail exchange between me, the teacher, and Leah, the deal was set. Erin will have her Congressman at her back when she teaches next week.
Since then, we have focused on what the rest of America has had on its play list this week. That's right. . . house cleaning. Partly because I had reports to grade hanging over my head, and partly because I had twenty people planned for Thanksgiving dinner, I spent the bulk of Tuesday cleaning. Much of it was mundane and not worth a mention, but I did clean both refrigerators and all three freezers, consolidating the good and throwing out the bad and ugly. Can you guess how many boxes of rectangular salmon I found niched in various frozen nooks?
If you answered twenty-two boxes, you would win the prize. I felt comforted knowing that if all else failed and we ran out of time to cook the turkey and the giant pork loin we had bought, we could issue each guest a box of rectangular salmon and still have leftovers on Friday.
Having put the cool storage devices in good shape, I ran to Houston (heavy traffic both ways--up hill, but no snow) to pick up Davis and Dillon (look for an update to The Report pretty soon). Since then, the Buengers have had a grand Thanksgiving with much food, relaxation, some games and movies, and of course incessant dish washer loading and unloading. Both Aunt Elisabeth and Aunt Katherine made it to town with their lovely daughters. I wish all of them could have stayed longer, but there is never enough time. Erin doesn't seem to have noticed that the daytime outdoor temperatures have bounced around from 85 to close to 40 over the last couple of days. She has romped it up with the visiting twins Mary Beth and Rachel next door, Clayton Sue from Fort Worth, and Nico, Adam, Samantha, and Pablo. She's made it to the movies twice, around the lake several times, to someone's barn in the country (Can you tell that she's not a first-born? I let her leave for parts unknown, just so that I can grab a couple of hours of unencumbered grading time.), and up and down the road a gazillion times. I have quite a bit more to tell you (along with some decent photos), but in the spirit of balancing grading with blogging, I'll stop now and give you some more later.
Since then, we have focused on what the rest of America has had on its play list this week. That's right. . . house cleaning. Partly because I had reports to grade hanging over my head, and partly because I had twenty people planned for Thanksgiving dinner, I spent the bulk of Tuesday cleaning. Much of it was mundane and not worth a mention, but I did clean both refrigerators and all three freezers, consolidating the good and throwing out the bad and ugly. Can you guess how many boxes of rectangular salmon I found niched in various frozen nooks?
If you answered twenty-two boxes, you would win the prize. I felt comforted knowing that if all else failed and we ran out of time to cook the turkey and the giant pork loin we had bought, we could issue each guest a box of rectangular salmon and still have leftovers on Friday.
Having put the cool storage devices in good shape, I ran to Houston (heavy traffic both ways--up hill, but no snow) to pick up Davis and Dillon (look for an update to The Report pretty soon). Since then, the Buengers have had a grand Thanksgiving with much food, relaxation, some games and movies, and of course incessant dish washer loading and unloading. Both Aunt Elisabeth and Aunt Katherine made it to town with their lovely daughters. I wish all of them could have stayed longer, but there is never enough time. Erin doesn't seem to have noticed that the daytime outdoor temperatures have bounced around from 85 to close to 40 over the last couple of days. She has romped it up with the visiting twins Mary Beth and Rachel next door, Clayton Sue from Fort Worth, and Nico, Adam, Samantha, and Pablo. She's made it to the movies twice, around the lake several times, to someone's barn in the country (Can you tell that she's not a first-born? I let her leave for parts unknown, just so that I can grab a couple of hours of unencumbered grading time.), and up and down the road a gazillion times. I have quite a bit more to tell you (along with some decent photos), but in the spirit of balancing grading with blogging, I'll stop now and give you some more later.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Plumbing the Depths of a Ten-Year-Old
October 22, 2007
Erin stayed home from school today. . .almost sick. She had vague symptoms: a little fatigue, slight body and joint aches, almost a headache. Last year's dance marathon with Mr. Virus and Mr. Infection led me to err on the side of caution. Furthermore, since Walter actually was sick on Friday and Saturday, I figured that the full blossom of symptoms would appear as soon as I left for work. By the time I returned from work in the middle of the afternoon, I discovered I was wrong. True, Erin was no better, but certainly she was no worse either.
She was, however, ready for some mom time. Which brings us to Halloween decorations. I can't really explain why we didn't get the decorations up over the (gorgeous) weekend. But here we were, less than two week, heck, less than ten days until the big holiday, and not a window or wall of our house had anything orange or black stuck to it. So I dragged them out of the attic and found the scotch tape. You see, our Halloween decorations are not the kind that come from the discount store, require electricity, and take up the front yard. When Davis was about two and a half, we started making construction paper monsters and other Halloween-y things and sticking them on the walls and windows. When they started looking a little raggedy from being taped up and pulled down year after year, I took the lot of them to the teacher's office supply store and had them all laminated. Each year, when Erin or Davis made a new creature at school, I added it to the collection. Now we look eerie, floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Here's a view of Erin's window (note bene: every window in the house looks like this, but with a different theme. The theme here is obviously home decorating tips by Peter, Pumpkin Eater.):
Erin also brought home the project she created for social studies last six weeks, where she had to create a continent. Might I introduce the eighth continent: Erionalista (no little ego here).
As long as I am exploring the talents and creations of Erin Buenger, you might as well hear how her thoughts unfolded this week.
Conversation 1 (between Erin and mom):
Erin: "Mom, how old was Davis when he got his own e-mail address?"
You can see where this is going can't you? Erin doesn't have her own e-mail address, and apparently is the only ten-year-old in America who us so dispossessed and cruelly punished.
Mom: "I think he got one when he got to Rice last fall."
Erin (not the answer she wanted to hear): "Oh, that's right back when Davis was a kid, kid's e-mail wasn't invented yet."
Conversation 2 (between Erin and Nico):
(Overheard from the backseat of the car on the way home from children's bells and choir last week. The two of them were discussing another choir member who always acts dramatically when she misses a note.)
Erin: "I don't know why she has to fall down and moan when she misses a note."
Nico: "Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't know why either."
Erin: "Look at me. I've hit so many wrong notes this year, that if you stacked them all up they would reach to Houston."
Conversation 3 (at the breakfast table):
Erin: "Do you remember in the Winnie-the-Pooh story when he eats too much at Rabbit's house and then gets stuck in the door as he's leaving?"
Mom: "Yes, what about it?"
Erin: "So, didn't he get stuck leaving, with his head and arms on the outside and his feet on the inside?"
Mom: "That's the way I remember it."
Erin: "And he had to stay there a long time until he thinned out?"
Mom: "Yes."
Erin: "Well if he was stuck there all that time, where did he go to the bathroom?"
Mom: "I don't think stuffed animals actually go to the bathroom."
Erin: "Then why do they call him Pooh?"
Remember, I'm not skilled enough to make this stuff up.
Erin stayed home from school today. . .almost sick. She had vague symptoms: a little fatigue, slight body and joint aches, almost a headache. Last year's dance marathon with Mr. Virus and Mr. Infection led me to err on the side of caution. Furthermore, since Walter actually was sick on Friday and Saturday, I figured that the full blossom of symptoms would appear as soon as I left for work. By the time I returned from work in the middle of the afternoon, I discovered I was wrong. True, Erin was no better, but certainly she was no worse either.
She was, however, ready for some mom time. Which brings us to Halloween decorations. I can't really explain why we didn't get the decorations up over the (gorgeous) weekend. But here we were, less than two week, heck, less than ten days until the big holiday, and not a window or wall of our house had anything orange or black stuck to it. So I dragged them out of the attic and found the scotch tape. You see, our Halloween decorations are not the kind that come from the discount store, require electricity, and take up the front yard. When Davis was about two and a half, we started making construction paper monsters and other Halloween-y things and sticking them on the walls and windows. When they started looking a little raggedy from being taped up and pulled down year after year, I took the lot of them to the teacher's office supply store and had them all laminated. Each year, when Erin or Davis made a new creature at school, I added it to the collection. Now we look eerie, floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Here's a view of Erin's window (note bene: every window in the house looks like this, but with a different theme. The theme here is obviously home decorating tips by Peter, Pumpkin Eater.):
Erin also brought home the project she created for social studies last six weeks, where she had to create a continent. Might I introduce the eighth continent: Erionalista (no little ego here).
As long as I am exploring the talents and creations of Erin Buenger, you might as well hear how her thoughts unfolded this week.Conversation 1 (between Erin and mom):
Erin: "Mom, how old was Davis when he got his own e-mail address?"
You can see where this is going can't you? Erin doesn't have her own e-mail address, and apparently is the only ten-year-old in America who us so dispossessed and cruelly punished.
Mom: "I think he got one when he got to Rice last fall."
Erin (not the answer she wanted to hear): "Oh, that's right back when Davis was a kid, kid's e-mail wasn't invented yet."
Conversation 2 (between Erin and Nico):
(Overheard from the backseat of the car on the way home from children's bells and choir last week. The two of them were discussing another choir member who always acts dramatically when she misses a note.)
Erin: "I don't know why she has to fall down and moan when she misses a note."
Nico: "Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't know why either."
Erin: "Look at me. I've hit so many wrong notes this year, that if you stacked them all up they would reach to Houston."
Conversation 3 (at the breakfast table):
Erin: "Do you remember in the Winnie-the-Pooh story when he eats too much at Rabbit's house and then gets stuck in the door as he's leaving?"
Mom: "Yes, what about it?"
Erin: "So, didn't he get stuck leaving, with his head and arms on the outside and his feet on the inside?"
Mom: "That's the way I remember it."
Erin: "And he had to stay there a long time until he thinned out?"
Mom: "Yes."
Erin: "Well if he was stuck there all that time, where did he go to the bathroom?"
Mom: "I don't think stuffed animals actually go to the bathroom."
Erin: "Then why do they call him Pooh?"
Remember, I'm not skilled enough to make this stuff up.
Friday, September 28, 2007
I Dumped the Sea Monkeys on My Head
September 28, 2007
Here's the burning question. If your mother walked up to you in the hall of your home, and said, "I dumped the sea monkeys on my head" would you have her committed?
That happened to me moments ago, and I'm going to hold off signing my mom's commitment papers for now. If she were locked away, I would have no one to clean Erin's BioSphere aquarium. Erin can't really keep the gourami tank clean herself, because it would require her to touch fish gunk that could contain bacteria or fungus (a no no for an immuno-compromised girl). Touching fish gunk is not high on my list either, and you can't get Walter to touch fish gunk with a ten-foot pole. Moo (that's my mom) to the rescue. For Erin, she's willing to siphon the tank, scrub the rocks, wipe layers of brown yuk off the glass, recondition the water, and so on. It was not really her fault that while she was down on her hands and knees scouring, she knocked the other tank on the table over. That would be the tank where Erin was growing sea monkeys. That would be the tank that fell over onto her head. Rather than rushing home to wash out the sea monkeys, she calmly finished the job, rationalizing, no doubt, that high-protein sea monkeys might do wonders for her "do."
Will Erin miss the sea monkeys? Maybe, but given that she has begged for days for someone to clean Bill and Sue's tank--even leaving bold notes taped to the kitchen counter, the bathroom mirror, the piano bench, her pillow, and the sofa--pleading their case, I don't think she'll be that upset. I suspect she'll use it as an opportunity to make a new potion: Sea Monkey Creme Rinse.
ADDENDUM: When Erin came home from school, Moo ask me if I had told her what happened. I said no. Erin asked, "What happened to what?"
Moo: "The sea monkeys."
Erin looked and noticed they were gone: "Where are they?"
Moo: "In my hair."
Erin started laughing and fell on the floor: "Have you showered?"
Moo: "Not yet. Do you want them?"
Here's the burning question. If your mother walked up to you in the hall of your home, and said, "I dumped the sea monkeys on my head" would you have her committed?
That happened to me moments ago, and I'm going to hold off signing my mom's commitment papers for now. If she were locked away, I would have no one to clean Erin's BioSphere aquarium. Erin can't really keep the gourami tank clean herself, because it would require her to touch fish gunk that could contain bacteria or fungus (a no no for an immuno-compromised girl). Touching fish gunk is not high on my list either, and you can't get Walter to touch fish gunk with a ten-foot pole. Moo (that's my mom) to the rescue. For Erin, she's willing to siphon the tank, scrub the rocks, wipe layers of brown yuk off the glass, recondition the water, and so on. It was not really her fault that while she was down on her hands and knees scouring, she knocked the other tank on the table over. That would be the tank where Erin was growing sea monkeys. That would be the tank that fell over onto her head. Rather than rushing home to wash out the sea monkeys, she calmly finished the job, rationalizing, no doubt, that high-protein sea monkeys might do wonders for her "do."
Will Erin miss the sea monkeys? Maybe, but given that she has begged for days for someone to clean Bill and Sue's tank--even leaving bold notes taped to the kitchen counter, the bathroom mirror, the piano bench, her pillow, and the sofa--pleading their case, I don't think she'll be that upset. I suspect she'll use it as an opportunity to make a new potion: Sea Monkey Creme Rinse.
ADDENDUM: When Erin came home from school, Moo ask me if I had told her what happened. I said no. Erin asked, "What happened to what?"
Moo: "The sea monkeys."
Erin looked and noticed they were gone: "Where are they?"
Moo: "In my hair."
Erin started laughing and fell on the floor: "Have you showered?"
Moo: "Not yet. Do you want them?"
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
What's So Funny?
September 18, 2007
Why do children loved to swim but hate to bathe? Why does reading become a much higher priority as bedtime approaches? Why does my van smell so bad after carrying little Mystics around? Why do I laugh so hard on the soccer field?
You'd laugh too if you had overheard the following conversation on the pitch this week. . .
This is Elvis Takow. Elvis trains Erin's Mystic '97 soccer team. It is only one of his many talents. He is also a coach/trainer for the Texas A&M women's team (ranked #5 in the nation) and a Ph.D. student in the Rangeland, Ecology, and Management Department, specializing in computer mapping of forests and other naturally occurring resources.
What else do you need to know about Elvis? Those of you my age may remember Jan-Michael Vincent in his role of Nanu in Disney's The World's Greatest Athlete. For those who can't recall that charming performance (when I googled Jan-Michael Vincent, his mini-bio began "Virile, handsome and square-jawed youthful star. . ."), just picture a really fit thirty-year-old man who looks like he has tucked softballs in his calves. That's Elvis. Having Elvis back in our lives is deja vu. He trained Davis during his first year of competitive soccer, which is coincidentally, the year Erin started knocking a ball around on the sideline at Davis's games (fall 1998).
Despite what the lovely smile on his face (above) may lead you to believe, Elvis is a serious man, with a serious purpose: training young athletes to become good soccer players. The best adjective to describe his sessions? Not fun. Not exciting. Not jolly, merry, nor pleasant. Grueling comes to mind. Maybe harsh. Certainly no-nonsense.
At the end of practice last week, Elvis gathered the players around him and ask them if they had had fun. He didn't get much eye contact and certainly no agreement. He went on to say, "I know that sometimes practice is hard. I make you practice this way so that you can get better. You may not like me very much when I make you work so much. You may even hate me. When I was young, like you, many times I hated my coach. But you know what? Now I like him. Alot. I really appreciate that he made me work."
The girls, all gathered round him in a knot, didn't say anything.
I'm thinking, "He nailed it. At this point they really do hate him. Maybe they are considering that they could like him . . .some day."
I look around at the group. Erin is across from me. She's looking especially thoughtful, but also skeptical. She raises her hand. Elvis notices and calls on her. She say, "You mean, your coach is still alive?"
Elvis gropes to retain the gravity of the moment, but then cracks up. Suddenly Elvis, the other coach Lisa, and I are all falling over with laughter, and the girls don't really know what's so funny. Finally, Elvis said, "How old do you think I am?"
Erin looked a little sheepish, but explained, "I don't really know, but Davis is in college and you were his coach when he was a little kid, so I figured your coach must be getting on up there if he was alive at all."
Another priceless moment came at the game on Saturday. No one can enter the field as a substitute until the ref notices them and signals them on. Typically, Lisa calls from the sideline in a steady cadence when she wants to sub, "REF, SUB. . .REF, SUB. . .REF, SEB" until the ref signals that its okay. This is typically quite effective. Saturday, the ref appeared to hear the other coach's signal for a substitute almost immediately every time, but kept overlooking Lisa's more effective (in my opinion) call. At some point, he looked up, saw a Mystic player standing ready to sub and finally noticed Lisa's "REF, SUB. . .REF, SUB. . .REF, SEB." He took a step towards Lisa and said, "Sorry, coach, you sound just like my wife. I must be tuning you out." Then he turned, jogged up the field, and re-started the game. After that, we lowered our voices as deeply as we could to call for the subs and had no problem getting his attention.
By the way, Erin's team took their first game 5-2 and lost a squeaker on Sunday 2-1. Next week we have the blessing of a home game with an afternoon start. No early morning drives into Houston. No excuse to miss church.
Why do children loved to swim but hate to bathe? Why does reading become a much higher priority as bedtime approaches? Why does my van smell so bad after carrying little Mystics around? Why do I laugh so hard on the soccer field?
You'd laugh too if you had overheard the following conversation on the pitch this week. . .
This is Elvis Takow. Elvis trains Erin's Mystic '97 soccer team. It is only one of his many talents. He is also a coach/trainer for the Texas A&M women's team (ranked #5 in the nation) and a Ph.D. student in the Rangeland, Ecology, and Management Department, specializing in computer mapping of forests and other naturally occurring resources.
What else do you need to know about Elvis? Those of you my age may remember Jan-Michael Vincent in his role of Nanu in Disney's The World's Greatest Athlete. For those who can't recall that charming performance (when I googled Jan-Michael Vincent, his mini-bio began "Virile, handsome and square-jawed youthful star. . ."), just picture a really fit thirty-year-old man who looks like he has tucked softballs in his calves. That's Elvis. Having Elvis back in our lives is deja vu. He trained Davis during his first year of competitive soccer, which is coincidentally, the year Erin started knocking a ball around on the sideline at Davis's games (fall 1998).
Despite what the lovely smile on his face (above) may lead you to believe, Elvis is a serious man, with a serious purpose: training young athletes to become good soccer players. The best adjective to describe his sessions? Not fun. Not exciting. Not jolly, merry, nor pleasant. Grueling comes to mind. Maybe harsh. Certainly no-nonsense.
At the end of practice last week, Elvis gathered the players around him and ask them if they had had fun. He didn't get much eye contact and certainly no agreement. He went on to say, "I know that sometimes practice is hard. I make you practice this way so that you can get better. You may not like me very much when I make you work so much. You may even hate me. When I was young, like you, many times I hated my coach. But you know what? Now I like him. Alot. I really appreciate that he made me work."
The girls, all gathered round him in a knot, didn't say anything.
I'm thinking, "He nailed it. At this point they really do hate him. Maybe they are considering that they could like him . . .some day."
I look around at the group. Erin is across from me. She's looking especially thoughtful, but also skeptical. She raises her hand. Elvis notices and calls on her. She say, "You mean, your coach is still alive?"
Elvis gropes to retain the gravity of the moment, but then cracks up. Suddenly Elvis, the other coach Lisa, and I are all falling over with laughter, and the girls don't really know what's so funny. Finally, Elvis said, "How old do you think I am?"
Erin looked a little sheepish, but explained, "I don't really know, but Davis is in college and you were his coach when he was a little kid, so I figured your coach must be getting on up there if he was alive at all."
Another priceless moment came at the game on Saturday. No one can enter the field as a substitute until the ref notices them and signals them on. Typically, Lisa calls from the sideline in a steady cadence when she wants to sub, "REF, SUB. . .REF, SUB. . .REF, SEB" until the ref signals that its okay. This is typically quite effective. Saturday, the ref appeared to hear the other coach's signal for a substitute almost immediately every time, but kept overlooking Lisa's more effective (in my opinion) call. At some point, he looked up, saw a Mystic player standing ready to sub and finally noticed Lisa's "REF, SUB. . .REF, SUB. . .REF, SEB." He took a step towards Lisa and said, "Sorry, coach, you sound just like my wife. I must be tuning you out." Then he turned, jogged up the field, and re-started the game. After that, we lowered our voices as deeply as we could to call for the subs and had no problem getting his attention.
By the way, Erin's team took their first game 5-2 and lost a squeaker on Sunday 2-1. Next week we have the blessing of a home game with an afternoon start. No early morning drives into Houston. No excuse to miss church.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
A Use for Willie
September 13, 2007
I forgot to mention something you can do this month to promote Pediatric Cancer Awareness: donate blood. That's what I did this morning. Unplugging a vein and dripping into a bag took 6 minutes and 35 seconds, according to my blood tech. Doing the paperwork took a few minutes longer. Do someone a favor. Save a life. Give blood.
On with the update. . .
Willie resented the start to school more than anyone. Sure, Erin belly-ached about the earlier bedtime, but she more than made up for that inconvenience by getting to hang with her friends and learning all the fifty states. Walter and I might have felt like lounging around for a couple more weeks before we took the plunge into the fast-paced fall, but we appreciate the back-to-work salary that goes with the back-to-work job. Willie appreciates none of it, as demonstrated by the renewed feasting going on at my house in my work-day absence.
In the meantime, I have been pondering the many e-mails and comments prompted by my request for what to say on the radio last Friday. Thank you all for pointing out both the obvious and subtle things that the public ought to know about pediatric cancer. I think we did okay--Dr. Vance invited us to be his guests again next September to celebrate(?) Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. We agreed, and as everybody knows, once something gets put on my calender, it gets done! But back to the thought I started with (unless it died of loneliness waiting for me to get back to it). I wanted to thank my friend Phyllis Washburn for the following advice:
I think you should stress how your family has tried to maintain a normal life for all of you. I have been so impressed with the upbeat attitude of each member. I believe that your positive outlook on life and your faith has made a real difference in how Erin views her illness.
Now, I'm not sure I know what "normal" is. I have always really considered myself more akin to the brain in the jar presented by Igor (pronounce eye-gore) to Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein: "Abby somebody, Abby Normal, I think." I do know that whatever we do, we do for love. Cancer has stripped almost everything else that wasn't essential away from our lives.
Beyond love, I have only a few other bits to offer (based on my experience with the stress and tension brought on by approaching scans and the other abbynormalities in our lives).
While these three carry me pretty far, the inevitable dark moments poke their way into my thoughts. Why has Congress kept the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act of 2007 bottled up in committee, while at least eight children I can think of have died since we went to Washington? What will happen if Erin's tumors flare up? What happens to cancer families who can't afford treatment and who lack the support network we have?
Final Solution. Because I have an obnoxious dog who will eat up the house if he doesn't get exercise, I spend the first 25 minutes of every single day walking Willie. I give myself permission to let my mind wander through random thoughts about Erin and her illness and the insidiousness of it all during these mostly pre-dawn walks. Usually, after about ten minutes or so, my mind wanders on to other topics, and by the time I have made it home, I have set aside any negatives and am ready to start the day. If I have any lingering doubts, I look at this (taken at Mark and Alicia's wedding in July) and refer back to #3 above.
I forgot to mention something you can do this month to promote Pediatric Cancer Awareness: donate blood. That's what I did this morning. Unplugging a vein and dripping into a bag took 6 minutes and 35 seconds, according to my blood tech. Doing the paperwork took a few minutes longer. Do someone a favor. Save a life. Give blood.
On with the update. . .
Willie resented the start to school more than anyone. Sure, Erin belly-ached about the earlier bedtime, but she more than made up for that inconvenience by getting to hang with her friends and learning all the fifty states. Walter and I might have felt like lounging around for a couple more weeks before we took the plunge into the fast-paced fall, but we appreciate the back-to-work salary that goes with the back-to-work job. Willie appreciates none of it, as demonstrated by the renewed feasting going on at my house in my work-day absence.
In the meantime, I have been pondering the many e-mails and comments prompted by my request for what to say on the radio last Friday. Thank you all for pointing out both the obvious and subtle things that the public ought to know about pediatric cancer. I think we did okay--Dr. Vance invited us to be his guests again next September to celebrate(?) Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. We agreed, and as everybody knows, once something gets put on my calender, it gets done! But back to the thought I started with (unless it died of loneliness waiting for me to get back to it). I wanted to thank my friend Phyllis Washburn for the following advice:
I think you should stress how your family has tried to maintain a normal life for all of you. I have been so impressed with the upbeat attitude of each member. I believe that your positive outlook on life and your faith has made a real difference in how Erin views her illness.
Now, I'm not sure I know what "normal" is. I have always really considered myself more akin to the brain in the jar presented by Igor (pronounce eye-gore) to Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein: "Abby somebody, Abby Normal, I think." I do know that whatever we do, we do for love. Cancer has stripped almost everything else that wasn't essential away from our lives.
Beyond love, I have only a few other bits to offer (based on my experience with the stress and tension brought on by approaching scans and the other abbynormalities in our lives).
- Humor. I rely heavily on humor and constantly look for things, even little things, to laugh at and with. I especially like to share jokes and funny, private moments with Erin.
- Tolerance of Ambiguity. I work very hard at not having to be sure of everything (those who have known me for any length of time realize that this is a real stretch for me, Vickie "Know-it-All" Buenger). I try to look at the positives of fuzziness and remind myself that it is pure hubris to imagine that I have to know/control everything.
- Valuing Erin. When those two fail and I feel the churn start in my stomach, I just ask myself about how I want to spend my time with Erin. The future holds variations of two scenarios: survival or not. If she's going to survive and grow to adulthood, do I want to waste time in the dark moments of worry and anxiety? Answer: no, that would be counterproductive. If she's going to die, do I want to waste the even more precious time I have with her in the dark moments of worry and anxiety? Answer: definitely no, if I only have her for a short amount of time, I want to squeeze every bit of positive I can out of the time.
While these three carry me pretty far, the inevitable dark moments poke their way into my thoughts. Why has Congress kept the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act of 2007 bottled up in committee, while at least eight children I can think of have died since we went to Washington? What will happen if Erin's tumors flare up? What happens to cancer families who can't afford treatment and who lack the support network we have?
Final Solution. Because I have an obnoxious dog who will eat up the house if he doesn't get exercise, I spend the first 25 minutes of every single day walking Willie. I give myself permission to let my mind wander through random thoughts about Erin and her illness and the insidiousness of it all during these mostly pre-dawn walks. Usually, after about ten minutes or so, my mind wanders on to other topics, and by the time I have made it home, I have set aside any negatives and am ready to start the day. If I have any lingering doubts, I look at this (taken at Mark and Alicia's wedding in July) and refer back to #3 above.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Don't Lean In
January 20, 2009
Sometimes I feel like Doris Day. Not the perky, chipper Doris Day who always figured out how to do her job and snare Rock Hudson, while looking stylish. No, I am the Doris Day in Please Don't Eat the Daisies who had to actually think of all the ways her children might misbehave (before they actually did) and warn them NOT to do whatever it was. Left to their own devises, they would eat the daisies in the table decoration before guests arrived because no one told them not to.
Now, I am not about to go on a rant about Erin, who though not a perfect child, is certainly one who can recognize in advance something that might get her into trouble, even if she had had no warning. No, once again I'm on a tear about Willie.
I guess I should have said,
"Willie, don't eat your father's exercise mat."
"Willie, don't eat your father's gloves."
"Willie, don't pull photo albums off the shelf and eat their covers."
and most recently,
"Willie, don't eat that African giraffe mask I bought your father for Christmas."
not to mention,
"Willie, don't eat the puzzle piece that says 'Davis Mountains' on it."--Davis thought this was a tribute to him and a sure sign that Willie's misbehavior was due to his absence and Willie's loneliness.
So, other than walking Willie around and around the lake in this nasty weather, attempting to tire him out enough so that we could leave him alone for a couple of hours each day and not come back to further destruction, we haven't done much. I have been surprised at how long Erin's hyperactive bowels have continued to, well, act hyperactively. Things have resolved to the point that she is in the bathroom only a couple of times a day, and most of the problem has been converted into gas. This is not necessarily the solution sought by most socially-active nine year old girls.
I think the cold and icy weather this week has put us all together a bit too much. With soccer and horse back riding both put on hold this week, we have found quieter, more indoorsy pursuits. Erin spent most of the day on Martin Luther King Day working on a project about French Texans for school. What? You didn't know there were French Texans? There were at least as many French Texans, apparently, as there were Greek Texans and Norwegian Texans, which were topics assigned to a couple of Erin's buddies. Here's a shot of Erin with Jackson, Aaron, Noah, and Jesse who all received awards at the academic assembly. Erin's was for Texas History.
We also put the finishing touches on a 1000 piece puzzle of the State of Texas (thank you Marsha, we loved it!), less of course, the piece depicting the Davis Mountains. One morning as we sat hunched over the puzzle, all three dogs lying calmly at our feet, Erin muttered something. I didn't hear her clearly, and thought maybe she was hoarding the piece I was looking for, so I bent towards her, and she said, much more loudly and distinctly, "Mommm. I said, DON'T LEAN IN." This further convinced me that she had the piece I needed, so I leaned in even more. At that point I discovered, through olfactory evidence what she meant. So, if you are ever by a cute red head who hisses, "Don't lean in," my advise is to heed the warning.
On the cancer, as opposed to the bathroom, medical front, blood counts went well this week. Everything was normal but her hemoglobin, which was just a hair shy of normal. We have been excused from the mid-month Bun/Creatinine test next week because of boringly normal levels the previous three draws. With that news in hand yesterday afternoon, Erin bounced happily to a birthday sleepover at Samantha's house where all kinds of quilting and sewing projects kept everyone busy until late night.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
What Sugar Plums Dance in Your Head?
12/23/06
What Sugar Plums Dance in Your Head?
The Buengers have myriad answers.
Erin:
Davis:
Walter:
Luke:
Uma:
Willie:
Vickie:
Other than Willie, do you think anyone else's wishes will come true? I'm counting on it!
What Sugar Plums Dance in Your Head?
The Buengers have myriad answers.
Erin:
- Personal Energizer batteries (it's a bummer running out of steam just when you get to good part)
- A visit from Santa (who may or may not be a real guy, but who's willing to chance it?)
- Fewer pills (hard to tell the difference between the viruses and the medication side effects)
- That Chet Edwards' delayed throat surgery (January 15) comes out all right, and that he doesn't drive J.T. and Garrison crazy with the summoning bell she suggested
Davis:
- Sleeping in (no explanation needed)
- Grades he deserves (is there any other kind?)
- That Dean Forman drinks a hefty stein of eggnog for Christmas, then logs on and makes a fatally blundering move in the correspondence chess match
Walter:
- That he regain his stamina (no joke here, just a sincere wish to put the Erin-born viruses behind him)
- That he enjoys Davis and Erin and the holiday (Again, no joke here)
- All problem faculty from the history department volunteer to teach at A&M's campus in Qatar
- No more destructive, wall-paper eating dogs
- No more garbage-eating dogs who ingest so much extra stuff that their feet don't touch the ground when they nap on their sides
- No more dogs who are almost blind and definitely deaf who wander off after dark and don't come back unless someone stands in the cold and dark calling their name for a half hour
Luke:
- Someone to chew his food (preferably steak tartar) for him,
- While rubbing his belly,
- And not complaining about the wonderful odors slipping from between his back legs
Uma:
- No one but her getting attention
- A closer garbage dump (the walk is getting a little onerous)
- A tiara
Willie:
- Someone putting a giant chew stick (12 feet tall), full of tasty wooden, plastic, and glass morsels right in the living room
- A daily walk with strategically placed piles of leave desperately needing someone to pee on them (another reason not to jump in random piles of leaves)
- An adversarial bunny residing in the nearby tank farm willing to wait coquetishly every morning at 6:00, cotton tail erect, to lead him on a merry romp, and thus delay his real walk by fifteen minutes
Vickie:
- The soccer dream: She shoots. She scores.
- A dark chocolate chip and pecan cookie warmed on the lip of the coffee cup each morning before the children awake
- Healing for all the children with neuroblastoma and peace for their families
Other than Willie, do you think anyone else's wishes will come true? I'm counting on it!
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Glimpses of Erin
11/7/06
Vignette 1--Erin and mom walking the dogs, chatting, and enjoying the beautiful weather last week.
Background: We eat fairly healthily at our house. Not absurdly healthy, but fairly healthy. Oatmeal once or twice a week, no sodas, limited breakfast meats. Walter has also made a big push to eliminate Trans Fats from our diet. For some reason (maybe because her parents dropped several yummy foods from the grocery list solely because they contain "partially hydrogenated vegetables oils," ie. Trans Fat), Erin is more afraid of Trans Fats than she is of cancer. We're not even allowed to say the words Trans Fat in her presence. It's TF or nothing.
Erin: "Mom, I have a question."
Mom: "Shoot."
Erin: "When I get married . . ."
Mom looks quizzically and wonders where this is going.
Erin (continuing): "And my mother-in-law invites us all to Thanksgiving dinner at her house. . ."
Mom still has no idea where this is going, but she really hopes that the scenario plays out some day, because it will mean that Erin has survived.
Erin: "Will dad come, even if my mother-in-law cooks with TFs?"
Mom, trying to make sense of this whole conversation and wondering how Erin ever got the idea that avoiding artery-clogging foods would be more important than attending a family holiday gathering: "Erin, your father loves you more than he hates TFs. Of course he would go to Thanksgiving at your mother-in-law's house."
Erin: "Would he eat?"
- - - - - - -
Vignette 2--Same scene, a few minutes later. The conversation has wondered to whether dad would ever retire.
Erin: "Do you think dad will ever retire?"
Mom: "Maybe."
Erin: "When he does, do you think he'll be like uncle Dave?"
Mom, thinking what a kind and interesting person Uncle Dave is: "I hope so."
Erin: "So, he'll have all white hair, learn to play golf, and grow a round, little belly in front?"
Mom corrects that impression, then goes on to give convoluted answer about retirement: "Well your dad will probably step down as department head in a few years, then later, he'll stop teaching, but he will probably always do research and read and write books. I doubt if he'll every play golf, and I can't really picture him with a round, little belly in front."
Erin: "Oh, so he'll be like one of those guys that sits alone in a dark corner, reading?"
Mom, thinks to herself: "Not a dark corner. He'll have a three-way bulb or maybe a compact fluorescent bulb, or maybe both. And he definitely won't be alone. I'm sure he'll have a dog at his feet and probably one in his lap."
- - - - - - -
Vignette 3--Riding in the car with mom (Mike, this one is for you.)
Mom has had a hard day and a hard week. She has had intractable, hard-to-figure out problems coming at her from her neighborhood, her family, and her students. She's mumbling to herself that she can't solve everybody's problems.
Erin looks up from the backseat and asks what's the matter. Mom doesn't want to share the burden or give any specifics. She just says, "Oh, sometimes I get into trouble thinking I have to control people's lives and solve their problems. I need to keep my eyes on my own paper (as Bob Leslie always said)."
Erin gives me a sweet smile and says, "You should just cut back on the number of people whose lives you control. You're really good at it."
Mom, thinking what a meddling fool she is, looks up in the rearview mirror. Erin winks and says: "Wisdom from the mouth of a child."
For those of you waiting to hear about game day with Chet. I am going to hold off for a day or two, in hopes that his wife Lea Ann sends me some of the photos she took of Erin, Chet, and their boys, J.T. and Garrison. I will preview that entry, by telling you that we had a wonderful time, despite the score of the game, and that our bubble about what a wonderful Congressman we have has not been burst.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Reacon, Alcon, and Batcon
10/31/06
Happy Spook Day! I wish I could report on Erin's costume choice for tonight, but it's not that simple. First, I would have to explain to you the game that Erin, Nico, and Adam made up that is played either in her room, in the fort, in the climbing tree, or on the kayak in the lake. Then, I would have to tell you how each of them is from a different planet (Alconia, Reaconia, and Batconia) and each has a different pair of jobs: Nico is captain and hunter; Erin is the mapper and the herbalist; Adam is the navigator and the look out and maybe something else, too. Then, I'd have to figure out the purpose and roll of the myriad of shiny, colored pebbles scattered around on the floor that are clearly important to the game (I'm pretty sure they are not food or weapons. They may form some sort of mysterious map or coded instructions for mission completion. Or they may just be magic). Even if I could figure out the little stones, how could I explain the electric piano, and the mission-crucial role it plays?
So, imagine you are in my shoes this evening, walking door-to-door with three children begging for candy. Erin is wearing red shoes, red tights, a short, pleated skirt made out of aluminum foil, a red turtle neck, and a shiny silver cap bestrewn with jewels. She is carrying two bags: one to hold her ill-gained loot; the other stuffed with maps, herbs, and shiny stones. The other two will have on something completely different, but equally, uh, idiosyncratic.
Here's how the conversation goes:
Purveyor of Candy: "Look, Harold. What cute trick or treaters. What are you supposed to be?"
Erin: "I'm Reacon."
Nico: "I'm Alcon."
Adam: "I'm Batcon."
P of C: "Oh. . .are you from a tv show?"
Erin: "No."
P of C: "Oh, well I haven't seen that movie."
Erin: "We're not from a movie."
P of C: " Oh. what are you then?"
Mom (daringly dressed as a business professor, tries to clarify the situation): "These are characters from a game called Gateway Explorer."
P of C: "Ah, I get it. A video game."
The children (together): "No. It's not a video game."
P of C (with diminishing enthusiasm for the conversation) stares with a blank look on her face, hoping to eventually light it up with recognition: "A board game, then?"
Mom (jumps in, hoping to switch the light bulb on): "They invented this game, you see. They're from different planets. They have different jobs and wear different colors. They go on missions determined by the electric piano and the shiny glass pebbles kept in a treasure box . . ."
P of C gives out more candy to shut me up and quickly turns off the porch light. Maybe I've stumbled on a winning strategy.
Not to run the sartorial theme of this journal entry into the ground, but Erin and I have another problem that involves wardrobe choices: Chet Edwards invited Erin to the A&M/OU game next Saturday. His wife and two sons are flying in, and we will join him and his family at the game. So the big question: what do we wear? Red for the campaign (probably not, since that's what OU will be wearing)? Maroon for the home team (a likely choice, but one that will involve a shopping expedition)? Or green (the color that looks best on Erin)?
To have such high class problems! Can you believe that Chet would spend the last Saturday before election day with someone who had his vote from the start and someone who won't be able to vote for another nine years, instead of with a high rolling donor or someone still sitting on the fence? Wow!
In other news, those of you who laid down bets on Team Buenger with the local bookie last week can now collect. PharmaCare approved Erin's prescription for Celebrex (indefinitely BTW, so we don't have to repeat this process every month or even every year) for the normal copay (which happens to be $155/month less than they wanted us to pay originally). She took the first dose last night, and headed off for developmental soccer training. She didn't mention any side effects. However, when I asked her after practice whether her stomach bothered her enough to warrant a banana milkshake on the way home, she was sure that her tummy had been at least that grindy.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Jilted
09/28/09
This probably falls under the heading of Details about the Buengers I Don't Really Need to Know, But Might Be Fun Anyway. We have a rather rigid morning routine. Walter gets up first, maybe 5:20 or so, dresses, coaxes Luke downstairs, lets Uma out of her crate, and frees Willy from the downstairs bathroom. He walks the dogs down the road in the pitch dark, collects the newspaper, and returns about 5:50 (actually, at exactly 5:50) to start the dog feeding process. At that point, yours truly is almost always still abed. . .waiting.
Waiting for what, you may ask. Godot? For the Iceman to Cometh? For Walter to bring me coffee and bon bons in bed? No, for the last six months, at 5:50 every morning, I've been waiting for Willie. He arrives one of two ways: by banging insistently (noisily, stubbornly, incessantly, , , you choose the adverb that fits) on the bedroom door until I let him in or by plunging through the doorway, up onto the bed, dogpiling on me and licking the ice cream cone he thinks I have stored behind my ear. I cozy him up for a few minutes then roust myself to dole out Erin's morning chemo. Willie eats while I dress, then I walk him the mile and a tenth around the lake, so that he will be calm enough to survive the day without doing something so bad that one of his owners kills him on the spot.
So, there I am, yesterday. It's 5:50. No Willie. 5:51, 5:52, 5:53. No Willie. I hear Walter bumping around in the kitchen, mixing doggie kibbles, opening the can, arranging it all artfully in their bowls. Where's Willie? I think to myself, maybe this is the day. Maybe Willie has grown up. Maybe he is setting aside his rambunctious puppy ways and is ready to join the family as a full-fledged, non-remedial, non-probationary dog. I dressed quickly and headed downstairs to tell him what a good dog he was. I found him laying there, head up and cocked, looking first at me and then at something else, something he is guarding between his front paws. I discover he has not given up his bad dog ways. I have, in fact, been jilted. Our morning tete a tete, our daily rendezvous, has been set aside for someone else. A tree frog. I was dumped for a tree frog. A now dead one, at that.
I picked it up, while it was still in one, non-bleeding piece, tossed it in the trash, and reclaimed my puppy, code named "No No Bad Dog."
Friday, September 22, 2006
A Jar of Erin Fortitude
09/22/06
Everything was great at clinic yesterday. We will start round 10 of oral etoposide on Monday and scan on October 19. Erin is feeling very well, and Walter and I along with the medical team are working as hard as we can to keep this trend going.
I did have a follow up conversation with Erin about the horse show last weekend. It crossed my mind at bedtime the other night to probe a little into Erin's state of mind, riding into an arena on a horse that had never been in a horse show, much less inside a covered arena, on a day that performance jets had been flying low and repeatedly over the area (and stirring up a number of the horses to the point that they were trying to kick their way out of the stalls).
Mom: "What did you think about the horse show?"
Erin (straight to the point): "I liked it."
Mom: "Were you nervous or anxious or anything?"
Erin: "What do you mean?"
Mom: "Did it scare you to mount up and ride into the arena with judges and an audience watching? Did you think Scamp might panic? Were you afraid you wouldn't know what you were supposed to do?"
Erin: "No, mom, I was born for that."
And so, no stage fright, no butterflies, no pounding heart. Just a casual ride through the gate and around the arena. You can do that if you were "born for it." I love Erin's confidence. She has joined a new soccer team this year. All girls. All girls who could beat Erin's old (boys) team hands down, every time. Is she nervous? Maybe, but she's not letting on.
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