Have I mentioned I am tired of winter?...

The terrible weather we struggled with yesterday, continued today. We have had a freezing rain/sleet/snow mixture all day. And around 3:00pm this afternoon, we lost power. Jeff is on the midnight to 8:00am shift this week so he only got a couple of hours sleep yesterday (he insisted on going to chemo with us). He also worked 4 hours overtime today, getting home around 12:30pm. He and Michael shoveled the driveway, then we had a nice lunch and then he went to bed. So when the power went out, I didn't want to wake him to start our generator. I was hoping it would be a short power outage. I was wrong.

Around 5:00pm it started getting dark and cold, so I reluctantly woke Jeff up. He had a problem getting the generator hooked up to the house and our friend and neighbor, Jeff, had to come over to help. They just got it figured out around 7:00pm, when the regular power came back on. Hopefully he won't be too tired as he is working a 12 hour shift again tonight (well, actually 11 hours with the time change). When you are being billed by 4 different hospitals, a couple of labs, half a dozen doctors and your kitchen could pass for a small pharmacy, the overtime comes in handy.

Michael didn't have the best day today. He woke up at 4:30am sick to his stomach. Thank God we had gotten all the buckets back out yesterday and strategically placed them in all the rooms of the house. We had put them away since he wasn't nauseous the last 3 weeks when he didn't get the carboplatin. He also had a low grade fever again today (99.8 degrees, again) and he didn't eat hardly anything. I know the saying goes "man cannot live on bread alone" but let's hope little boys can live on rice krispies, bananas and bagels with cream cheese. His eyes just looked so tired today and he didn't have much energy.

I am really glad he had a break from the nausea and fatigue the last couple of weeks. Hopefully that will give him the strength he needs to get through the next 3 weeks (then he has a 2 week break). Yesterday while Michael was getting his treatment, he was sitting in the recliner with Daddy and they were both sound asleep. I was just watching the medicine drip into his IV and thinking "that is pure poison going into his little body". I know he has to have the chemo to help his body fight the tumor in his brain but as his mother, I have a hard time not feeling guilty for letting them do it. Especially when he is showing no symptoms from the tumor and the chemo makes him so sick.

I want to thank Jenny for sneaking on here today and posting the videos she took last time she was home. I had taken some with our video camera but none of us can get them to load onto my computer. So, Jenny took some with her digital camera when she was home last weekend. The first video is the "Hot Chocolate Song" that Michael is now famous for in Unit 5C at University Hospital. The second video is a current country song he hears on the radio but just doesn't have the words quite right. It is hilarious. If you can't understand what he is singing, post a comment and I will post his words. Otherwise I will let you listen for yourself. I don't want to spoil the "punchline". You're all lucky there are only 2 videos. This morning, on the phone, Michael serenaded my sister for about 10 minutes before I finally took pity on her and took the phone back.

I will post again tomorrow night. (Unless we lose power again as it is still storming.) Please keep Michael in your thoughts and prayers, JoAnne