I'll have 2 tacos and an oncology consult.

What do you think I did to give my daughter cancer?

76% of you said I ate too much Taco Bell when I was pregnant.

7% of you said I allowed my pediatrician to give her vaccinations.

17% of you said I went through a scanner at the airport.

Stupid is as Stupid Does Dart into Traffic.

What should I do with Eve's port?

16% of you said Turn it into a necklace.
51% of you said Turn it into a Christmas ornament.
33% of you said Turn it into a pull-chain for a ceiling fan.

Pop Quiz

What would you do if your kid was bald?

40% of you said, Let him track boar through the jungle and talk to the island.
25% of you said, Wax it, just to see if you could get a good reflection out of it.
35% of you said, Rent ad space.

The Constituents of Wilmsville.

In what way will Christy use her nacho cheese while emotionally eating?

27% of you said With a 2 lb. bag of round corn chips.
29% of you said With any piece of food that is not already covered in ranch dressing.
44% of you said With a spoon, while listening to Foreigner.

Who moved my cheese?

How hard was it to have National Turn-Off TV week during double Griffith surgery week?

20% of you said, "I can't figure out how to make dinner with these damn kids in the kitchen."
30% of you said, "I can't figure out how to go potty with these damn kids in the bathroom."
50% of you said, "I can't figure out how I am supposed to keep Eve still during Dan's surgery and then come home and let him rest on the couch without my beloved boob tube."

20% of you haven't mastered the art of one-armed cooking with one child on your hip, and one child on each leg.

30% of you are too modest.

50% of you didn't know that the no-TV rule only applied to Natalie, and luckily Nat was at a friend's house all day long when Dan had his adenoidectomy so we could eat popcorn and lay on the couch all day long. Score!

But the real question is...how hard is it to NOT get into this 6 lb. 10 oz. container of nacho cheese?? (Daniel didn't even weigh this much as a newborn.) And why is the purchase of said cheese in the top three events of my weekend?

Maybe it's the self-imposed quarantine of the last six months that has considerably lowered my excitement threshold. Whenever Eve is declared N.E.D. (no evidence of disease), maybe I will up my standards to something like Brie.

Yo, Calgon!

Is it ok to have favorites?

6% of you said GASP! I adore my children equally! You should be reported for even asking this question!
2% of you said Yes. I have a middle child? Oh, crap.
91% of you said It's cool. You don't have to like them the same, you just have to love them the same.

6% of you make me wonder if you have children.
2% of you voted a little too honestly since this was an anonymous poll.
91% of you know what's up!

My favorite kid changes by the hour. Daniel is my favorite when he climbs into bed to snuggle with me. Natalie is my favorite at story time. Eve is my favorite when she pretends she's a ballerina.

Sometimes Eve is not my favorite. Sometimes she breaks into the pantry and empties sacks of flour all over the floor. Sometimes she sneaks out of time-out and breaks back into the pantry to do the same with the sugar. Sometimes she throws her cup of milk on the floor, determined to make me mop at least twice a day. It's like the surgeon took out the tumors, but left me with the TWO.

But then Nat and Dan (or "Search and Destroy") do something equally butt-headed and make me forget about my bald little imp, and I'm ready to post on Craigslist:
FOR SALE- Three kids, ages 2, 3, and 4 (as is). Like new! Stubborn Determined, won't take "no" for an answer goal-oriented, hyper enthusiastic, demanding persistent, rebellious independent, manipulative charismatic, irrational creative, has the attitude of a teenager articulate. Make me an offer. Priced to move!

And before I have a chance to post my listing, the kids are sound asleep, looking so innocent, and I forget about their deft plotting to have me committed.

Take me away!

How to get your washer fixed in 3 easy steps

1. Have washing machine in disrepair. Have it not fixed during a service call in October 2008.
2. Call back in January 2010 about same problem plus some new ones and get stood up by repairmen. Blog about the experiences with key words such as Sears, repairman, and inconvenience.
3. Enjoy repaired washing machine in March 2010.
   

For those of you who were following our Sears soap, the repairman did come out to our house last month to install the parts that were ordered. Unfortunately, they were not the parts that needed to be replaced and we had to wait for the correct parts...which were on back order. And I get suspicious when anything is on back order. Have so many machines had this problem that they can't keep up with demand for new parts? Or is the Maytag man working at the Kenmore parts plant and he's just lolly-gagging around?

But a big thank you to the very nice repairman who came out this morning and fixed our washer. And a bigger thank you for having us first on the list! I was floored that he showed up not even 30 minutes into our time window. I was sure he was going to be on Duke time. I admit there were some words eaten this morning on my end.

So you might be able to guess my answer to the following question:
What is the best part about having cancer?
55% of you said blogging about it in a wildly inappropriate way.
27% of you said the baked ziti that your friends will bring to you.
16% of you said playing the "cancer card."

I know the following things about the audience who reads this blog:
55% realize blogging can actually get things done, like maybe get a major appliance serviced.
27% are not lactose-intolerant.
16% are late for their Sickos Anonymous meeting.

I apologize for leaving out an option for the actual best thing about cancer: The money saved on conditioner.

Bruce Willis wins by a hair.

Who rocks the Kojak best of all?

32% of you said Charlie Brown.

28% of you said Uncle Fester.
39% of you said Bruce Willis.

I wonder who Ashton voted for?

Yesterday was our last trip to Rad-Onc for a while. They say she did well, as if she had a choice. It's not like you choose to lie still when you're on Propofol. Hopefully we won't have to see that particular sub-basement again until Eve's six-month follow-up appointment. Now it's time to scrub off all those sharpie crosshairs. FIN!

6 down, 0 to go. Back to counting down chemo treatments...

Eve's blood counts are up. We'll knock 'em back down this Friday for post-op chemo #2. But then we'll get them right back up again as all those little cells in Eve's body scream "Cuck Fancer!"

There is a light at the end of this proverbial tunnel.

What drives you to drink?

Which marathon would drive you to drink first?

6% of you said Dungle Book (Jungle Book).
4% of you said Doe Wipe (Snow White).
89% of you said Dowa the Expluhwa (Dora the Explorer).

But you know what is really going to drive me to drink? This on-again, off-again relationship with radiation-oncology.

So, it's like this:

Left kidney is A-okay.

Right kidney is resected. Almost all of the tumorous areas were necrotic (favorable histology). However, there was one small spot that had viable cancer cells in it. Since it is a small area and not all over the place, this is called focal anaplasia (unfavorable histology). Favorable histology, smaller cells, easier to treat and cure. You can probably guess what unfavorable means.

Technically, with Eve having bilateral Wilms tumor, she is considered Stage V. But, they do stage each kidney individually and both of Eve's were Stage I, meaning the tumors were only in the kidneys and were completely encapsulated.

This all sounds fine and/or dandy. There are pathology reports to read and protocols to follow. But we all know Eve is complicated, no?

Apparently no other kid has been treated like Eve before. I guess that's something she can brag about at sick kids' camp.

According to Dr. WilmsExpert up in D.C., the focal anaplasia adds an "interesting wrinkle" to the case. Nobody wants to be a wrinkle, no matter how interesting it might be.

Normal Stage I treatment is surgery and a two-drug chemo. Eve has already been on a three-drug protocol, which is usually used for higher staged cases. There is no data on kids who have been on a three-drug treatment with Stage I Wilms.

There is a study which shows kids who have been through the Stage I treatment are more likely to have a recurrence than children with more advanced staging who are treated more aggressively (i.e. radiation).

Are you still with me? It's ok. I'm not even sure I'm still with me.

Sooo...now everyone's going to pretend that Eve has unilateral Wilms since her left kidney is so hunky-dory. Just focusing on the right kidney, this anaplastic histology screams, "RADIATE ME!" And that's what we're going to do. I know, I know. You have questions. What exactly are they going to radiate? I thought they removed that kidney?? Good question! They are going to radiate the tumor bed, or where the tumor was. Just in case one itty-bitty cancer cell mysteriously found a way out of the totally encapsulated kidney that was removed. Because, with Eve, it totally could happen and you know it.

There's also no data on kids with Stage I who have been given a three-drug treatment AND who have been radiated.

Protocol? We don't need no stinkin' protocol.

General Hospital

As much as I will love and embrace Eve's new belly, I just had to get some pictures of it before it was changed forever. Armed with a bag of conversation hearts and a lot of patience, Jo's PhotoMojo got a lot of great pics yesterday. Go on, take a look at the slideshow here.

We will get some post-op belly pics in a few weeks. Maybe one with a broken beer bottle and a caption that says, "You should have seen the other kid!"

At 8:45 last night, Eve's oncologist called to say they had a game plan. Apparently, emails have been bouncing back and forth across the country, all with Eve's name in the subject line. Do they take out the entire kidney to remove any possibility of leaving cancer behind, or do they try to spare as much of the kidney as possible to preserve as much kidney function as they can?

(Maybe too much information doesn't help you as much as you think?)

The plan was to do renal sparing surgery. I thought this was the plan last week, but apparently plans changed several times in between our meeting with the surgeon last Friday and my conversation with the doctor last night. Anyhoo, early to bed. 4 a.m. wake-up call!

So...
Do surgeons take breaks if they are operating on the same patient for hours on end?
12% of you said yes. They pass the knife off to another surgeon like a relay with Chariots of Fire playing in the background.
8% of you said yes, but they don't share the knife. They leave the patient open on the table and let nurses shove donut holes in their mouths when they feel their blood sugar dropping. (Nobody likes Dr. McShakyHands.)
59% of you said no. No breaks for you.

That's right. No breaks for you. Which was fine, because Eve's surgery didn't take too terribly long.

We arrived at 6 a.m. I carried Eve back to the operating room around 7:30 and she immediately forgot she was in the hospital because she was so hypnotized by the four large screens playing Cinderella. The anesthesiologist placed a strawberry-scented mask on Eve's face, and it couldn't have been choreographed better. The fairy godmother appeared and sang "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo" just as Eve slowly layed back, eyelids drooping, until she hit the table with a big grin on her face.

We should all get to fall asleep like that.

(I wonder if they popped in a different dvd after Eve fell asleep? Like, Wilms Tumor Excision for Dummies or Scrubs.)

The surgery took about two hours, much faster than we had expected. Everything went well. The right kidney could not be saved as hoped, but the other was left relatively intact, with only a small section removed. The tumorous right kidney and the biopsies of the left kidney and lymph nodes will be FedEx'd to a pathologist in Chicago who has seen pretty much every case of Wilms Tumor in the past thirty years. So yeah, I guess she's kind of qualified to inspect Eve's innards under her microscope.

Eve is in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) right now to recover. Abdominal surgery is no joke; it is quite painful. Her pain meds have been increased to keep her comfortable and let her sleep. As of now, she has her port accessed, and has two IV lines, one of which is an arterial line to get a constant reading of her blood pressure. She also has a nasogastric (NG) tube which is taking all the gross stuff out of her stomach and draining it out through her nose. It resembles pesto. There are a handful of leads on her chest and back which make the image that much more dramatic. Lastly, she has a catheter and we have taken to watching her urine output. There's not a lot coming out, and what is coming out is cloudy, so she keeps getting more fluids to keep her from getting dehydrated. And yes, there was a 10-minute period today when I just stared at that pee-pee bag, willing it to be filled up.

(Oh! And there's this 6" section of bloody steri-strips in the middle of her stomach.)

We are allowed to stay in Eve's room 22 hours out of the day. We lucked out in that we got one of the few private rooms here in the PICU, which meant I could turn up Terminator 2 on the TV as loud as I wanted. (Turns out Eve does not give a damn either way what happens to John Connor. I'll let it slide this time since she's medicated.) We are NOT allowed to sleep in here, though. I guess if there were to be an emergency and the staff needed to get to Eve, they do not want to trip over me outstretched on a short, uncomfortable cot, drooling on the plastic pillow and snoring like an overweight lumberjack. So...as long as we are awake, we can stay in the room. Which has become increasingly harder as the day has worn on.

Matt decided to take tonight's shift, so I will be going home in a bit to get a few hours of rest in our own comfy bed. (Matt, I hope you're not reading this right now. And if you are, don't be jealous. This was your idea!) I'll come back early in the morning and Matt will take his turn going home to get some sleep. We are goofy enough when we are sleep-deprived, so it's best not to be deprived at the same time, lest you want one of us to document the days events by changing the lyrics to Dora the Explorer. (Because I'll do it. Evie, Evie, Evie, Ne-phrec-to-my! Eve is super-cool with just one kidney!)

Hopefully Eve will have a good night and we will be able to move her to a regular hospital room tomorrow. Not only would one of us have a place to sleep, but we know where they hide all the snacks!