Happy 4th.

Tired.

I've tried to keep a hopeful spirit about Mal, she is my perfect sweet baby girl. My world revolves around the girls, they mean everything to me. 7 months ago my world came crashing down, cancer? seriously cancer?

I am still in shock, 7 months later. The thing about cancer is, it changes you, it makes you fight harder, it makes you take in more of life, it makes you grateful for the days that you have. It is also haunting, extremely haunting.

Mal's cancer stumped her doctors, how does a 2 month old get double adrenal tumors? They didn't know how to formally treat it, the fact that standard protocol didn't work even though she has the non-amplified favorable neuroblastoma, so we took a different route that would hopefully neuter the cancer. Now It's time to sit back and wait since right now the cancer is in remission (meaning : it's quiet). She still has a mass that's just sitting there, and we just wait. I think the fact that her numbers climbed up the scale makes me nervous, are we just waiting around for the cancer to re-manifest itself?

She's been able to be a baby for the past 1 and 1/2 months now, its been amazing. I am cherishing every second, but not a second goes by where I don't worry about her.

The tears come and go and I relive the fear that she just might not make it. That we will live another nightmare, and how does one make it through this? I'm not supposed to think of what could happen, I try to stay positive but when your daughter has cancer all you can think about is what if she doesn't make it. What do we do? I keep having visions of her dying all the time. I have visions of Mallory dying on the operating table, what if they had to remove that tumor? I have visions of having to make the choice to stop treatment. I just can't figure out how to cope, and not any amount of therapy is going to make this go away until we are YEARS out. I just want to watch Mallory blossom into a little girl, one with no worries in the world, I just need her to keep going. The things I've watched her do amaze me, she is in love with her big sister, she is always smiling, she just lights up at the site of us. I just can't miss anything, I can't wait to see her walk, and to celebrate her birthday, and to watch all of the amazing milestones that are coming.

I am carrying on everyday with the hopes that this will someday be over, that someday it'll be just a distant memory. I still struggle, I struggle everyday with this. Hopefully this number jump is just a bump in the road but fear has once again taken over.

Clinic Visit

Her last catacolomine numbers were 19/15, and now they've shot up to 27.5/29.5. Which is a pretty drastic jump than they were before, this is not what we wanted to hear. Hopefully it is a dietary issue, although I watched her closely maybe something slipped through my Mom radar and made these levels fluctuate. We go back in 3 weeks for another urine test to see where we are at.

We just don't want this crap to come back, hasn't our poor dear sweet Mal been through enough? Let this be nothing but a bump in the road.

Silly Sweet Mallory

She goes in for her monthly clinic check on Thursday, she's been rocking at being such a sweet baby. We couldn't be more blessed <3 <3 <3

And we've got LIFT OFF!

Miss Mallory has been such a ham lately, she seriously couldn't be anymore relaxed.
She cut 3 teeth in 2 weeks and did not make a single peep about any of them! (This is one PROUD Momma!)
She's been basking in the sun, she's even CRAWLING. AHHHHHH!!!!
Another HUGE milestone for this little girl, its amazing what a different kid I have after we finished chemo.

Life Couldn't be anymore Perfect for our family.
We continue the cancer check-ups next week Thursday with a routine blood draw and a urine catacholomine test. Last time we did this her levels were 19 / 13! Which are AMAZING! So we just pray that they've stayed that low. She will have scans in August again but for now this family is just enjoy a lot of normal life.

We feel very blessed, tomorrow we celebrate our babies 9 month birthday. She fought cancer for 6 of those 9 months, it just feels surreal at this point to look back on. She's our little tough nugget! She's even sporting some hair now (although the pictures make it hard to tell since its SOOOO light blonde, but she rocked her first teeny tiny mohawk in the bath the other night)

Wedding Schmedding?

So yesterday I had this GREAT idea to plan a wedding in 3 weeks.
Ryan wasn't too keen on the idea.

We were supposed to get married on July 7th of this year, it was supposed to be a glorious sweet simple small wedding. Things got rocky between Mallory's chemo and our never ending arguing.

Something had to give, and for me that was planning our wedding. I honestly couldn't take on any more stress, I couldn't help but wonder if Mal's counts would be good enough to go, if we'd have an ER trip the day of our wedding, because at the time we were looking at Chemo going into her 1st Birthday pretty much, so I got stuck. I had enough of Cancer, of having it run our lives, arguing over EVERYTHING, I had enough of trying to juggle who was taking the girls, I had enough. I was tired of it, our little girl didn't sleep more than 2 hours at a time, exhaustion made it impossible to get through the day. So between the constant yelling and bickering and misery we split, it was the worst idea I've ever had. Now there's a line that seperates us, that wasn't there before, a line that has to be mended, it has to be fixed now. I just don't know what else I could have done at the time, I just wanted out of the crap we'd been dealt, and Ryan was the only person to take it out on.

We've been together for 7 years. SEVEN GREAT AMAZING YEARS, I think yesterday I was feeling a bit of resentment towards myself for not being able to get married, because the only thing I want in the world right now is to marry my best friend. That's the only thing that matters to me.

I feel terrible, awful, miserable knowing that we were supposed to make that BIG STEP in 3 weeks and we can't. It was a great thought I suppose, we just have different expectations of having a wedding. I don't care who comes, I'd be happy with a Vegas wedding just the 2 of us, and Ryan wants a bigger wedding than I envision. It's a tricky, tough situation. Something we're just going to have to figure out. I've been bawling since last night and it just won't stop, when did life get so complicated on us?

This whole situation just breaks my heart, I just want to marry my best friend and spend the rest of my life with him. End of Story.

What I've realized.

 

I take a LOT of pictures for 1.

In the last 9 months I've learned more about life than I can even fathom. There are days where my mind is going a million miles an hour, but especially after the kids go to bed. One of the biggest realizations I've made is that Life is Precious. It is a gift. It is one of the greatest gifts. I've been blessed with 2 beautiful girls, Cancer could have easily taken away one of the most amazing people that I have ever met and I am forever humbled by the experience. I loved my kids before all of that came in to play but after that life will never be the same. I smell my kids differently, I hug them differently, I talk to them differently. I have been given a gift through all of the hell. They mean the world to me.

Another realization I made was that having a 2nd child made me a better Mom. It made me less uptight and less judgmental. I'd be lying if I said I didn't judge other Mom's out there because I do. I also realize that they do things differently than I do because that's what works for them and I'm sure the same goes from me to them. I mean hell I'm sure I've gotten enough comments behind the computer screen about another picture of my 2 year old with a diet coke in hand, WHAT MOM DOES THAT. Well this Mom does that, although I'm trying to break the habit and it's going pretty well. I also try to surround myself with people that discipline there children in the same way as I do, therefor I am less likely to judge. I am not perfect, my kids are not perfect, but they will know Love and Respect. We believe that instilling a good childhood sets the foundation for the rest of there life. We have fun, we don't expect our children to be anything more there age, we adapt to different situations, and we discipline as needed. I can only hope that these values will work the way that we want them too and right now our lives couldn't be any better.

 There are things that if you would have asked me if I would have done before I had Mallory, I would have said you are out of your mind! Truth be told, If I need to make Mallory a bottle, I let Jillian hang out in the backyard while I go fetch a bottle. There is NO way I would have done that if she would have been our only child. I bribe when I bring her to the grocery store, so she will sit and behave, who doesn't love to much on a doughnut while you shop. I've given Mallory more cake in 2 months than I would have ever thought. (That girl deserves her some cake). I skipped almost right over baby food with Mallory because she would rather eat what we're eating, she doesn't let 2 teeth hold her back and I don't mind one bit. She had a peanut butter cookie her last night of chemo, I called it her chemo cookie, peanut butter at 6 months old, WHAT? I wake Mallory up when she's sleeping sometimes because we have to go somewhere, Wake a Sleeping Baby? NEVER!  These are just some ways that I've adapted as we go, because it's what we do, we learn, we adapt, we become better people. I've become a better person through having a 2nd child, a very sick child at that, because I've learned that to be a good Mom means that you have to adjust to every day, you have to adapt to every situation, and things don't always pan out the way that you want them to. I certainty didn't plan to have have a Child with cancer, but we adapted, it was tough, it sucked, it wasn't fun but it made us realize how great life truly is.

My relationship with Ryan is getting better, we're working out the kinks and ten years from now we're going to laugh looking back at this all. Fear breeds anxiety, and anxiety breeds fear, and it's a vicious cycle that has consumed me from the day our dear daughter was diagnosed. We've made a lot of huge steps to get back on track and I am finally back into the swing of things. Dinner has been made every day for a week straight, now if only I could get caught up on Laundry and the dishes (some Big 3 footer keeps turning it on "rinse only" so I've had to re-run it all the time, maybe i'll get the hang of just checking it before I send it). We're having fun, making memories, and enjoying the simple things in life. It feels great.