9 Months Old

DJP is now 9 months old! He now weighs 20lbs. 8oz. and is 28 inches tall (we think he was measured incorrectly last dr's visit because this measurement means that he's only grown 1/4 of an inch in three months!). He has 6 teeth (4 top and 2 bottom). He crawls faster than we can walk. He stands. He walks along the furniture (has gotten quicker!) and will walk holding onto our fingers. He no longer falls trying to get down from standing but lowers himself.

DJP claps (with noise) and smiles all the time. He plays well by himself but by late afternoon wants someone to be with him constantly (there's a bit of separation anxiety too!). He enjoys all of his toys especially his very own TV remote. He likes to be chased-thinks it's the most hysterical game in the World.

We still have to say that Kitty (aka Ophelia) is his favorite play toy. Even with the gate up now, he will talk to her (more like giving her orders since his voice gets a very demanding tone to it) when she ventures to her food and water bowls.

He's also discovered that he can bounce when he's in his exersaucer. I love watching him do this-one of these days he's going to bounce himself right out of the exersaucer with his very powerful legs!

Updates are all over the place

It seems like there's another update every few hours...information changes from hour to hour, so once I know what's really going to happen, I'll post.

So here goes-

Saturday afternoon, Mom was transferred from Upper Chesapeake to UMMC. UMMC is not the best marked hospital that I've ever been in. I asked for help (and I don't do that often!). The ambulance transport guys were great and so was the admitting RN. Mom did see one of the residents who didn't think she needed surgery right away, but probably on Monday or Tuesday. It took him forever to put his orders in for the nurses so Mom went quite awhile without having any liquids. When I left around 9:30pm, she had just gotten a tray of "clear" liquids-chicken broth, lime jello, apple juice and water. Yum.

Yesterday, the team who is treating the cancer came to visit her and said that they thought it was the stints causing all the trouble and they'd send a GI guy to see her. He came about 7pm and said that Dr. Darwin (doctor who put in the stints) would be seeing Mom today. Well, a half hour later, Chris calls me and says that plans have changed and that Mom would be having another endoscopy done to see what is going on with the stints and her gallbladder. She will be having that done at noon today. Once I know more, I'll post again!

Another Mom update

Mom is currently in the hospital at Upper Chesapeake. She was extremely dizzy and was vomiting on Tuesday morning, called the doctor and he sent her to the emergency room. Aunt Felicia has been with her (she had planned to spend the week with Mom anyway) and giving us updates as information comes in.

Mom did have a fever yesterday-blood culture results to come sometime today-and they gave her some Tylenol and low-dose antibiotics to reduce the fever. The doctor was telling her that if she has no fever she can go home today. When I talked to her last night, her temperature was 99 (better than the 102 is was earlier in the day!).

Mom sounds good and positive, although a bit frustrated at her roommate who is a bit loud...so loud that it was hard to hear Mom on the phone last night. I did put the speakerphone on so that Mom and DJP could "talk" to each other. DJP recognized his grandma's voice and smiled at the phone. Of course, he wanted to "hold" the phone so he could chew on it with his four new top teeth! (Mommy said no-what a surprise!)

Latest on Mom

Since my last post, Mom has had two doctor's appointments-one to meet the surgical oncologist and the other to meet the entire team that will be working with her at UMMC.

The plan is to start with radiation and chemotherapy for about 5-6 weeks. Mom will go to UMMC Monday through Friday for radiation and the team is undecided about whether she will have IV or pill form of chemo. If they decide on IV, she will go once a week to the Cancer Center at UMMC for chemo. If they decide on pills, she will take those twice a day. The pills would be easier for her, since she wouldn't have to spend extra time at the hospital.

Once the radiation and chemo treatments are finished, Mom will have a month break, during which time she will have another CT scan to see if the tumor has responded to the radiation and chemotherapy. If it has, the team will schedule her surgery. After surgery, she will be in the hospital for up to 2 weeks since this is MAJOR surgery. Then have about 6 more weeks of recovery at home.

The final step will be to continue chemotherapy for 6 months after the surgery to make sure that there is no recurrence of the cancer.

The doctors are all optimistic and the plan is for this to be finished by this time next year.

News

Before we left on the cruise, Mom went to the doctor and he said that she was jaundiced. He sent her to see a gastroenterologist. After some additional tests, he sent her to have an endoscopy done at UMMC. I went with Mom for the procedure. We got the results right there at the hospital-Mom has a walnut sized mass in her pancreas that is cancer. The doctor said that he thought we caught it early and that Mom is probably a candidate for the Whipple procedure.

Mom goes back to UMMC to have a CT Scan tomorrow and then we have an appointment to talk with the surgical oncologist on Friday. I will continue to update Mom's condition and progress here as soon as we have new information.

Eight month birthday

For DJP's eight month (plus) birthday he got a special present-he got to go on a cruise! Actually, we had planned this cruise before DJP was even a thought in our minds and now that we cannot imagine life without him, OF COURSE we took him along.

He enjoyed being on the ship, people watching and meeting so many new people, especially his two "girlfriends" from the main dining room, Monika and Precious:

DJP made friends young and old, so many that he has learned how to wave within a week and as we were waiting for Aunt Niki to pick us up, people that Jason and I had not met were saying "Bye DJP!"

While on board ship, DJP continued his teething and two new teeth broke through-a top incisor and a top front tooth! We could also feel the other front tooth and incisor which have started to poke through as well. Two of DJP's favorite "toys" in our cabin were the door stop and the metallic trashcan. (Yes, we wiped them down before he started chewing on them!)

Another "skill" that DJP worked on while we were away was his fearlessness. When DJP was on the bed, he would crawl around then look at us and then crawl to the edge and even attempt to crawl right off without seeing there was no where to go!

We're definitely going to have to watch out for our little daredevil!

DJP has also gotten brave enough to start hanging onto various pieces of furniture (and fingers too!) and walk! We are amazed at DJP's progress every day. He learns so quickly!

Seven Plus Months

I'm a bit behind...as usual!

DJP is seven months plus a week or two and has changed so much in the last month.

DJP now has TWO (yes, they came in together!)bottom teeth which we avoid since they are super sharp and he likes to gnaw on various items. He has chewed on his Halloween book from Nina & Papa so much that he has put a hole in it (he liked it that much!) and we now look at that book from a distance. DJP is still teething-top gums are super swollen and have widened even more than the bottom gums did. Still no obvious signs of teeth yet, however the ear tugging and chewing on everything in sight (including Grandma's arm and thumb) has commenced once again. With the teething in full swing, there's been little sleep the last few days. We were very lucky last week that we had five FULL nights of sleep (well, DJP did!).



DJP is also not just rolling everywhere but he is crawling! He took the first few tentative crawls on his 7 month birthday then nothing for a couple of days. He moves around like a pro now! He's even been able to catch up with Ophelia lately-she'll learn to move faster when he grabs her tail and won't let go!




Our little boy is growing up so quickly!