Dad's Head Shaved - I Told You It Would Be Ugly

Without further ado ...

Kerri shaving away.


An attempt to shave an "M" into the side of my head.


Lorin enjoying the feel.


Bald and proud (Kerri used her leg razor to really polish me up).


Surprisingly, I don't have nearly as many weird lumps in my head as I thought. A Good thing. Tonight Izzy was feeling a little sick and said to Kerri, "Maybe if you cut Dad's hair some more my fever will go away." We hope so Izz.

Besides shaving my head, the event was fantastic. There were about 100 of my fellow classmates and teachers in attendance. Again, we are overwhelmed with all of the support from so many amazing people. Thank you to all of the organizers and participants for working your tails off to help us.

Dizzy for Izzy Event

A group of friends and school mates worked extremely hard to put together an event/party for Izzy this Saturday. You can find all of the info and buy tickets by clicking here. The general info is that the party will take place on Saturday, April 21st from 5 - 8 pm at the Ross School of Business courtyard (click here for a google map) and an after-party at Leopold Brothers, 523 S. Main Street, Ann Arbor at 10 pm that night. They are selling tickets to the afternoon party with the proceeds going to the Izzy Fund.

Our whole family is planning on being at the afternoon session, and we'll be shaving my head around 7 pm--I'm warning you that it is not going to be pretty. We would love to have anyone that can make it come.

1st Trip to the ER for a Fever

Last night we noticed that Izzy's temperature was on the rise, so we kept checking it throughout the late night and early morning. At 3:30 am her temperature was 100.5 which equals a trip to the ER for antibiotics. Dr. Connelly assured us initially that we would have several trips to the ER for antibiotics during the course of her treatment because her immune system would be so weak.

Kerri took Izzy to the ER at 3:30 and 5 hours later they came home. The ER took her blood counts which looked pretty good and then gave her some antibiotics just to make sure that whatever was causing the fever got eliminated. She's doing pretty good now. Her temperature is still a little high so we are keeping an eye on it.

We are trying to find the right balance between isolation and keeping her life fun and semi-normal. It will probably be something we struggle with for the duration of the chemo.

Dinner and Games with Dr. Connelly

Izzy's energy level improved this week as she only had the intrathecal chemo in her spinal tap and none put in to her blood stream. It was fun to see her with enough energy to play a little more.

However, a new side effect we are seeing is that it hurts her to use her legs. Several times she has had to use chairs or sisters to pull herself up after sitting on the ground and then hobbles around a bit.

On Wednesday, we had Dr. Connelly over for dinner and a stimulating round of Pretty, Pretty Princess, which unfortunately he didn't win--Izzy did. But we did get to see him wear plastic princess jewelry.



We now realize it probably wasn't the best decision, but in an effort to get outside--where Izzy has a lesser chance of catching something--while her counts are up and she has some energy we went to the Domino's petting farm. We had a great time. And we did some crazy post-animal-slime sanitation.

Easter

Izzy has been feeling pretty sick the last couple of days after her chemo treatment on Thursday. I realized today after one of these episodes that she may not be chewing up Ramen noodles very well when she eats them. We'll have to work on that.


The girls had a great time yesterday decorating Easter eggs. Izzy's steroid driven hunger kicked in about half way through the process, and she gave up decorating the eggs and began eating them instead.

Happy Easter!

4th Round of Chemo and Mom's Back

Kerri is back from her trip to Idaho, and I like to pretend I did a good job in her absence. Kerri had a fantastic time with her family--very rejuvenating for her--in celebration of her grandfather's life.

Izzy had her fourth round of chemotherapy yesterday. She ends up really tired and now nauseous (see pic below) for a couple of days after her treatments; but is having a good time pretending Lorin is her stallion and running her through her paces from the couch.


Starting on the week of April 15th we will be switching her long chemo days to Tuesdays as requested by our Doctor for scheduling reasons. On that Tuesday the 17th she will start her consolidation period--checking for the cancer in her central nervous system--and will likely be at the cancer clinic for 12 hours that day. We are trying to gear up for it.

Dad Holding Down the Fort

Kerri has been in Idaho for the first few days of this week for her Grandfather's funeral. Kerri was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle Izzy and Lorin for a few days so my Mom came out to help. Kerri was right. :) I would have been in trouble.

We took Izzy in for her blood draw today. Having her port and numbing cream have greatly eased the process but memories die hard, and she still has a bit of a tough time. The cancer clinic has a fantastic Child & Family Services group who do a great job of helping them through the routine. Below is Izzy with Kim--one of the Child Services reps.


Izzy is getting more and more swollen in her face and belly from the steroids--a predicted side effect that goes away when she gets off of the steroids in the next few weeks. Someone gave us some great advice that children take their cues on how to react to the side effects from their parents, so we have been trying to put positive spins on all of the side effects we are seeing. In that vein, Izzy loves rubbing and smacking her Buddha-like belly for us. She and Lorin had a great time trying on some stylish hair do's from their aunts.