Bountiful Blessings

I want to express my great gratitude and humble appreciation for those of you that have stepped forward to support me and my family over the past two and a half years. As much as possible, when my health and energy allow, I try to acknowledge your support with a note or a phonecall -- but whether I can do that or not, know that in my heart I am thankful for it all.

Most recently, I made a special request for financial support to cover house-cleaning, and I am so grateful to those of you who've sent checks, or are planning to. It means more than you can know for me to feel taken care of in this way. It will allow me to save my very limited energy for the times I really need it -- without feeling like my house isn't a clean, healthy environment during this challenging time.

One of the hardest things I've experienced in all of this is allowing myself to receive anonymous gifts. You know who you are -- and please know that I love you and am so thankful for the anonymous gifts that have shown up to support our family. My Rose Angel, the Giant gift cards, the anonymous checks earmarked for house-cleaning ... the list goes on. My gratitude is huge for all of these, and my frustration at not being able to thank you personally is part of my learning process.

Thank you for being part of my Village.
With all my love, Shari

You've been asking...

... and here it is, me with hair. At least for now; it would seem that my hair is falling out again so I guess I should just enjoy it while it's here and show it off! However, Daria thinks that this amount of hair *still* counts as "bald."

Treatment 11 Update

Treatment day was Tuesday, June 16. I haven't seen my doctor in a number of treatments (I generally see my nurse practitioner) so we planned my treatment for later in the day to accomodate the doctor's schedule. I won't be doing that again -- it made for a really looooong day. Generally, my pre-treatment steroids keep me up til 1:00 a.m. on treatment night, but because we shifted the schedule I was up half the night (and not very happy about it!)

My Rose Angel delivered a rose and inspiring messages on Monday, and my friend Max arrived on Wednesday afternoon, a little later than usual due to horrific traffic in Boston. I keep telling her if she'd move to Chester County she could avoid the city traffic, but so far she's not buying it.

This has been a mixed bag of a recovery week. Wednesday wasn't too bad but Thursday and Friday were really challenging, with a lot of body aches. I slept a lot; the gloomy weather didn't exactly inspire me to activity. I was able to rally for a Father's Day celebration with my parents on Thursday. Friday and Saturday were mostly a wash-out; I stayed in bed late and took it easy all day. I managed to supervise a closet-cleaning project (Max's professional organizing skills put to active use!) and finish a jigsaw puzzle, but that's about it.

I'm still increasing the dose of the latest addition to my prescription arsenal; Neurontin (generic name Gabapentin) is supposed to help with the pain and tingling in my feet but I have to build up slowly to a therapeutic dose. I'm grateful I found an online pharmacy that sells it for less than the local stores since I don't have prescription coverage.

Before the next treatment I'll have a CT scan to determine progress and future course of treatment. For now, my next treatment is scheduled *in the morning* of Friday, July 10.

Father's Day

We celebrated Father's Day twice; once with my dad on Thursday and once with Daria's Dad on Sunday. Apparently great minds think alike, because my mom gave Tom scratch-off tickets and I gave the same thing to my Dad. It was hilarious to watch them scratching off to see if they won (but neither one hit the jackpot). Ususally Tom waits til the "real" holiday to open his gifts, but he couldn't resist the temptation of the elusive big win!



On Father's Day morning, Daria wanted to surpise Tom with a Happy Face breakfast. She needed a little help with the omelet smile, but she was responsible for the rest of the "face".

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Daria's been showing more interest in sports, so we got her a T-ball set. She's been practicing but as you can see, there's still a little confusion about whether to hit the ball or the T!

True Love's Kiss

Daria's ballet recital followed hot on the heels of the end of pre-school. It was a very busy week. Her class' piece was performed to music from "Enchanted", the song is entitled "True Love's Kiss." Daria was so excited that when she came on stage for the first time and crossed the floor in her purple ballet costume she felt like she was in the movie! Daria attended ballet class all year long, and learned about listening to the teacher. They started serious bar work this year, and overall I'm very happy with the quality of instruction and pleased with Daria's progress.

Finishing Fantastic Fives

Daria will be going to kindergarten in the Fall, but first she got to celebrate her final year of pre-school with picnic and end-of-year celebration. Each class had thier picnic on a separate day, and of course, since we're all about to start building Arks, it rained on her picnic day so festivities were indoor. Luckily they use plastic eggs for the egg race! Their favorite "cake walk" (like musical chairs with cakes for prizes) still occurred and Daria was thrilled with her "cookie cake". We presented the teachers with gifts; I got to use some of my scrapbooking techniques to create unique cards for all of her teachers. Daria's sad to leave Miss Cynthia's class, but she's pretty excited about kindergarten.