6/3/12 - 2 week update, GA Force game, and Memorial Day weekend

Whew!!  What an awesome 2 weeks it's been!!  We've been so busy and loving every minute of it!!

Memorial Day Weekend:

Throwing water balloons at each other

Adam's brother, sister-in-law, and nephew (who is a year older than Haylee) came down for their annual family visit for the Memorial Day weekend.  Haylee was so excited all week long!!  We also had our annual Memorial Day BBQ on Sunday.  All the kids played in the water, threw water balloons, and just had a great time!  It was a nice weekend full of good friends and a great family visit. 

The week following was busy - I was able to work a few days before having to call it quits for the last round of chemo!!  I was able to get some stuff taken care of, took the kids to the park to play with the school-age kids from Discovery Point and had a picnic lunch with them. 

GA Force Football Game:

Warm-up time before the game

New Orleans Voodoo Dolls!!  They looked pretty cool!

Adam was able to get his hands on tickets to the GA Force football game Saturday night.  They played the New Orleans Voodoo - and were stomped by them.  If you've never been to an arena football game, I recommend it!  It was a completely new experience for us.  It's indoors, a small venue, a small field, and not crowded.  The fans there are hardcore - yelling at the players, coaches, and other team players.  We sat 4 rows back from the field, right next to the home team.  We were able to hear conversations between players and coaches and shouting matches between both teams.  We saw players slam walls (once right in front of us!), players flip backwards over the walls and footballs fly into the stands.  During each timeout, half-time, quarter change, and just down time between plays something was always going on!  Cheerleaders throwing stuff into the stands, "Blue", the Force Mascot, did the same, and the stunt team did as well.  We walked away with so much stuff - little footballs, frisbees, coupons that fell from the rafters, and about 5 glow sticks.  It was a really fun experience!  The kids loved it!  Haylee asked if we could go again once she started maintenance - we plan to do it again as much as possible!

Haylee is scheduled to go back inpatient on Tuesday at 9:30am for a BMA and lumbar puncture with a Cytarbine injection.  She will start 3 days of high dose Cytarbine twice a day, 3 hours each.  On day 4, she will have Idarubicin one time for 15 minutes.  That pretty much wraps up her IV chemo (not counting the ATRA and the oral chemo she will take during maintenance).  She will have to stay in the hospital until counts drop and then recover (about 3-4 weeks).  It's possible she could get sick this time around - fevers, vomiting, nausea, etc.  Some of the nurses told us that 2nd or more rounds of Cytarbine could make kids sick instead of the 1st.  We're prepared!! 

I'll update again on Tuesday and if I can get the rest of the GA Force game pictures to upload, I will!