Laughter is the best medicine

TGIF!!! Never have we been so grateful for Fridays! Especially me since normally my "Friday's" aren't really Fridays because I work Saturdays. Now, Fridays take on a whole new meaning. Fridays mean that we have TWO days with no doctor appointments. And best, NO radiation!  We are supposed to have some nice weather this weekend. We are hoping to take Kayla out to the Zoo for some local fun.

During Kayla's line nurse appointment, Denny got checked off (to be able to do line flushes here at the TH). I will get checked off on Monday. This was great! It means that we don't have to be at the hospital until 8am on Monday. Kayla continued to win everyone over with her sense of humor.  I was apparently hurrying her way too much to get up onto the exam table (because we were creeping up on our appointment time for radiation), and Kayla said to me, "Be patient woman!" It was hysterical! Who says that??? Apparently, Kayla does... today! We all laughed and laughed!!! Ok, we are still laughing. That is why I had to "blog that, baby" (our other catch phrase).

Kayla waiting to be seen by her line nurse

Today went well with the radiation. Kayla's pain and tolerance to all of this seems to get a little better each day which is great. We met with the psychiatrist this morning who said that Kayla is above a 2nd grade level after all of her testing.  Who knows HOW they gather that info! Kayla liked to hear it though. It was good news since she has missed SO much school this year. I can't wait to get that all rolling here. Right now we have been totally focused on getting everything lined up for the start of Radiation which is our priority. Anything non-medical gets pushed off until things slow down. I can totally see why! As far as psychology... I can see how some kids would really need it. It's kind of a waste of time for Kayla though. We will let the social worker know. We can even opt out if we want. What I told her scheduler today is that I think that these appointments should be prioritized by who needs them! Like, we need PT! If PT got bumped for Psych I would be ticked. She assured me that that would not happen. Lets hope not. Psych is automatically scheduled for 2.5 hrs even if it only takes one. So then, when you finish, you are just hanging out waiting where you could be doing something beneficial. I am getting to know this system here really well now. :)

We heard that the bake sale that Emily and Victoria held today at their house was bustling with a lot of our friends and supporters. You all are AMAZING. Emily and Victoria, THANK YOU so much! These girls (13 years old!) were kind enough to donate their proceeds from their annual hot cocoa/bake sale to us this year. We can't wait to go in person next year and give them hugs, love and buy a lot of hot cocoa and yummy treats! Again, people are so good!!!! I can't stop smiling at thinking of all of the love. We keep getting messages about how all of this is effecting you all personally. That in itself, is just incredible.

Funny story:
When we went to the Kroger to buy groceries the first night here at the Target House (TH), we had a situation. First of all, just know that all the locals (the nurses, docs etc.) call the Kroger by us "crack head Kroger". They call it that for a reason. Ok, so here we were in the middle of a grocery store with a list trying to navigate through unfamiliar isles. We were on a time crunch to boot! We had 45 minutes to grab what we needed before the shuttle came back for us. Divide and conquer. It's usually a great method! Den went down one isle and grabbed while I went down the other. Funny thing is I have a really good sense of sound. Over all the noise of the grocery store, I could hear Denny talking to someone. I'm thinking, "Who in the heck is he talking to? We need to get OUT of here!!" So, I walk in his direction to see what is keeping him straying from our list. There is an old man who is obviously in dire straights trying to talk to him. I hear Den mention something about St. Judes... blah blah blah. Then as I walk closer I decide to get things moving. I proceed to throw what items I am balancing in my arms into the cart saying, "ok, we need this, this and this." Den says with certainty, "I'm ON IT.  This is my wife." He looks at ME and says, "I believe this gentleman has something he wants to talk to you about!" And he RUNS to the next isle. Ok, So I can clearly see what is going on here. He always sends me to do the dirty work. Not a problem. I have no issues with being the one to deal with things like this. The man starts to try and sell me his $60 worth of food stamps for $50.  It was SO funny. Denny loves to do that to me! It's ok. I'm used to it! hahaha After all was said and done, I found Denny and just gave him the look like "REALLY??"  He just laughed and laughed!!! Funny guy. Apparently when Den told him we were here for St. Judes, he offered to throw in a beanie baby! Just in case we were on the fence when he gave us the initial deal. We keep wondering where he was hiding that beanie baby.

So, today I had a bit of payback. When we got into the psych appointment the lady told us that she needed one person to be able to fill out all the paperwork. That it would need to be the same person each and every time. I quickly said, "Den will do it!".   There were at least 50 pages of questions to fill out about Kayla! Maybe more! It was hysterical! There I was, with my iPad trying to work on the zazzle store, wondering if the lazy boy I was in reclined,  while Den was stuck filling out endless questions about how our family is disciplined, how we deal with stress, how important money is to us, our emphasis on competition, if we enjoy the cold side of the pillow, if we enjoy ketchup on our eggs and all manner of crazy questions etc. It was SO funny!!! We laughed A LOT.

Denny filling out an endless amount of paperwork. Good thing I brought bananas!

Now, my next bit about the zazzle site. We are working the kinks out. It turns out that they aren't very Mac friendly. I even tried to use the Dell computers in the TH lobby. The three of us (Tracy, Chris and I) have spent a ton of hours working on organizing it. For whatever reason every time we save changes it duplicates items or renames them with things we didn't enter like "bumper sticker sticker". I called tech support a few times and they said to give the site 24 hours to catch up. I will work on it more tomorrow so it's easier to navigate. Both times I called, the techs said that the loved the design and wanted them too after hearing our story. That was sweet! I can't get over how much I LOVE the design. It's so perfect :) As for technology... it needs to catch up to my speed!  Please excuse the zazzle site. Hopefully all of you (who want to) will find what you are looking for! If not, let me know.

We hope you all have a fabulous weekend filled with FUN holiday parties and great memories with family and friends. We are hoping to hit Kroger again with more funny stories to tell!