Yes, I know that I said it was raining the other night…and it was! It was nearly 40 degrees when I went to bed and RAINING! However, when I awoke the next morning at 8am (the perfect time to rise, btw) there was 4 inches and it was still coming down 🙂 The total so far? A glorious 10+ inches of snow with more predicted! It is SO beautiful and if you head on over to my other blog you’ll see it there. It is so amazing to see God’s handiwork…it is as if everything is coated in a lacy veil. Just awesome. Cold, but awesome. The kids could hardly stand it and are often seen tearing through the house with snowpants and coats on their way out to frolic with the dog and horses before they’ve even had a chance to have breakfast…oh to be young and not bothered by the biting cold! I just take pictures and watch them with my warm cup of tea, cozy behind the windows. I know, I should be out playing in it but I would be far too whiny for their liking. The downside was I allowed way too much playing and only accomplished about half of my to do list today 🙁
Kennedy has an appointment with the opthamologist tomorrow. He is a very kind and gentle man who specializes in children who have had cranial radiation either for a brain tumor or leukemia. It makes no difference to Kennedy how kind he is because she absolutely hates this yearly appointment. They check for any vision changes including cataracts but also any damage to the optic nerve as the back of her eye and socket were a highly targeted area. Why? Because enough kids with high risk leukemia were relapsing with clusters (not tumors) of leukemia cells in this area. The possible damage from radiation could lead to destruction of the optic nerve, cataracts and brain tumors…a relapse would drop Kennedy’s long term survival rate to 30%. We had to pick the lesser of the two evils. So, tomorrow is the day. The worst part? The dilation drops and severly bright light needed to view the optic nerve. While they do use drops to numb the eye, it is all trauma for Kennedy. Thankfully it is once a year and it is my hope and prayer that she will over time reconcile herself to this and the other follow-up tests needed to keep her as healthy as possible. Research has been done on long term survivors of childhood cancer and 2/3 will suffer with some kind of serious illness. Good follow-up is vital to quality of health and life. That, however, is difficult to explain to a 7 year old. So, to NW Portland we go!
The kids recieved gift cards for both Old Navy and Borders for Christmas so on our way home we are going to stop and spend them…how odd for them that they won’t be following mom through the history, literature, gardening, fantasy, bargins sections of Borders but will get to spend the ENTIRE time looking for kids books! Hip hip hooray!
Well, it’s off to bed before another busy day!!
