The Never ending story

Scotty is back. Yay again. Hannah is sick. I took her to the drs and she has a bug and is mopey. I am trying to keep her entertained while I get some work done from home. It's a tough task for sure. She will be fine but once again it's another unscheduled detours in this thing called life.

I'm back working out at 545a 4x a week. It's good to be back into the morning routine. I missed those ladies. The energy we all have together is amazing and heck, we have a good time.

I cleaned out my closet this past weekend. I feel lighter. There were just too many old clothes sitting around and no room for anything new. So many of my clothes are just too big - I'm not complaining, just it takes time to go through it all and decide what to keep. I am not going back to that old size, so I am not keeping it. Period.

My friend, Avelina, is a judge and she suggested a women's shelter in Leesburg to donate to. She offered very kindly to take it from me on Thurs during boot camp and have her friend who runs the shelter pick it up. I would rather it go to a good cause. My closet looks so good and organized and I feel good about having my clothes go to some people who need it. Last week we went through shoes and donated 5 bags of shoes - mine and the kids. Scotty is going to do that this weekend.

My Beautiful Bea

From Hanging Out

A trip to the zoo for a 7 year old

Hannah went to the zoo this week with camp. She came home to tell me how she saw these huge turtles. I thought, great!

Next day at camp, they asked the kids to draw their favorite thing they saw at the zoo. I got an IM from the daycare telling make sure I see her drawing. I am sharing it with you.

Gearin' Up

This past weekend was great. Scott is really getting his old energy back and we are getting back to running the house as a family. I have been so used to doing it all, when I came back from the gym on Saturday to find the laundry going and Scott going through the kids' sock drawers, I was speechless. It makes a huge difference having an extra set of hands helping me day in and out.

Scott is also making changes in his diet and overall activity level. He is still having the same issues with side effects so he can't go full steam into activity. He has been playing catch with Nate, taking the stairs instead of the elevators - just changes! I am so proud of him.

We are gearing up to head to Carmel, CA Aug 19th to watch my brother, David get married to his love, Janine. Hard to believe that he is getting married. I am excited to spend time with everyone in my family -- my brothers and sisters and my Mom and Dad. It doesn't happen very often so it's always special when it does happen. The kids are so excited too.

I have been exercising like crazy. This past weekend I ran a 10k on saturday, and 5k on sunday. Someone asked me today --you running for any particular reason? I said.. I'm workin on my fitness!

So as you can see, things are good overall. The kids are growing like weeds - both in size and attitude. Hannah has been challenging lately. Always talking back, blowing off the handle at the smallest thing, yelling and name calling her brother. We have now taken away TV and Computer for a week and no night light on at night during bedtime to punish her. Not sure what else we can do at this point...

Hannah Bea - Artist

Here is my wonderful Hannah Bea again with her latest art creation. It's based on the style of Norval Morrisseau called Eastern Woodland Style. Done in marker.

I have this up on my other sites but thought it would be a good idea to put it here as a way to keep track of her artwork.

You know I am biased, but I think its amazing!
She's 7, yep that's right, 7!

Her first showing...

Hannah's art was chosen to be displayed at a Lockheed Martin facility in Herndon, VA a few months ago. There was no photography allowed in the high security building, but the school did provide a professional photographer for us to get a family picture. Hannah's picture is the one in the middle - the city scene. It is done with construction paper pieces. She worked so hard on it and it is really good. There are times when I am in complete shock at her talent.

From a proud mama!

My kids get more and more beautiful every year...(yeah I am biased)...Oh there are more:

http://www.thehoaglunds.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=21556

My Hannah Bea

My daughter Hannah, is the sweetest girl on the block. I am so proud of her for being the kind of girl who thinks of others. I love that the child care center encourages that and really saw this idea through fruition. What a wonderful lesson for the kids to be a part of.

We are so fortunate to have this type of benefit available to us as employees of AOL. For all its downsides, this has been by far the most valuable benefit for our family.

All Clear

Scotty had his colonoscopy yesterday with Dr Crenshaw at Loudoun Hospital. We got there around 945a and I went to wait in the lobby around 10a. He was wheeled into recovery around 1045a. We got great news. His colon was clear. They did find one very small polyp which they removed while they were in there! We were both so relieved of course. (image to the left is at our arrival)

When I went back to visit Scotty, he was still heavily sedated and kept asking me, did I say anything funny?? Then he would say, has the dr been in yet? It was like 5 mins into me getting in the room. Then he would say yet again, Did I say anything funny?? Now that was funny. The nurse that was helping him recover had only seen the back of head when he was rolled in. She was looking at the chart and looked at me, then the chart again and said.."he is only 38 yo"? I said yes. She got this shocked look on her face and then walked around the bed to see his face. She apparently thought because of the white hair, that he was an older guy. She laughed and said oops! We left the hospital around noon and I went to get Scotty something to eat.

Cancer plays funny tricks on your mind we are finding out. I think Scott was so convinced that they would find something wrong, that he had a ton of anxiety about the procedure. It's not really because of the procedure anymore - you are always thinking, what if they find it again? I had a hard time sleeping the night before as well. I hope we won't always be like this, always wondering when the other shoe will drop but I am told it's a common feeling amongst cancer patients/survivors. (image to the right is at during recovery)

So, what's next, you ask? Benchmarks for cancer are 3 years for remission, 5 years for cured. So we are not out of the woods, but we sure are on the right path. We go back to see the folks at G'town next week to talk about next steps with our chemo treatment. As I have mentioned before, Scott is still having neuropathy issues and headaches. So we shall wait to see what's the next destination on this journey...


On another note, our first baby, Hannah Bea, finally lost her first tooth yesterday morning! She was the last one in her class to lose a tooth, so this was a very special occasion. And while we are at it, here's a cute pic of Nate Dogg - just cuz.

Winding down the weekend...

This is probably the first time since we started chemo, that to me, Scott looks beaten down. He really didn't feel up to leaving the house at all this weekend. Normally, he is stir crazy, but he was so weak and tired he didn't feel up to leaving the house. His feet are hurting pretty bad as well.

We really didn't have much planned this weekend so that wasn't really an issue. I went to the gym Saturday morning. When I got home, I took Hannah to Matthew's birthday party and Nate played outside while Scott sat on the porch to watch him. When I got home, I took over. The kids played with our older neighbor Vanessa for literally hours Saturday. They came in and were literally exhausted which was a double edged sword. Great, because they were tired. Not so great, because Nate had a major meltdown because he was exhausted. I threw them in the shower and they were in bed and out before 9p.

I went for a great 4mile run this morning on the Wo&D trail outside. The weather this weekend was perfect. Then I took the kids to the park this morning after Hebrew school for a few hours. Hannah and I are heading out shortly to sell GS cookies in front of AC Moore for a few hours. After that, laundry, gearing the kids up for the school week and winding down the weekend.

Chemo 11

We went to chemo session 11 last Tuesday. Scott is doing well overall, no real concerns beyond the normal ones. His bp is a bit high but nothing earth shaking. He also started getting some headaches which Dr M will be monitoring. The chemo session went off without any issues.

We had to share a room for a while because they were crowded. It turned out to be a good thing because it was yet another moment where both Scott and I realized how lucky we are. The man was from Fairfax. He has stage 4 colon cancer, spread to his lungs. Probably in his early 50s. He has been battling this for 3.5 years and is now allergic to most chemo drugs. He is at G'town in a trial that gives him some drug to see if it can slow down the cancer, not shrink it, not cure it. If it doesn't work - which they will know within 2 weeks - then that's it -- he is out of the trial and there are no more known treatments for him. This guy was also being made very sick from the meds. He was throwing up and just nauseatious the entire way to the hospital and while he was there. He was still in fairly good spirits and very nice. I asked him a lot of questions. He said he didn't really have any symptoms prior to this -- however while he was in the bathroom, his brother in law told us that this guy's wife had colon cancer too but they caught it early. She urged him to get checked and and sure enough. Very odd coincidence I think. He also said that he did have some signs like constipation. Again, we are very fortunate.

So Scott has one more Folfox treatment to go. We talked to Dr M about what will go on after that. They will schedule him for a CTScan and he will proceed every 2 weeks with the Avastin drug. It will be a few hours as opposed to a 6 hour process every 2 weeks. How he recovers from the Folfox will be gradual. It won't be like all of the sudden, he feels great - it will happen over time. They did stop the oxyplatin a few weeks back and Scott started noticing a slight improvement after about a week. He still can't really handle cold things, but it's not as bad as it once was.


Hannah was sick last week and Scott had chemo the same day. School called while we were at G'town. We had to scramble to find some help to pick up Hannah. Thankfully, Bill Buermeyer was able to get Hannah from school and then it turned out Maya had the flu so was home with Pat. Ellen dropped Hannah off there for a while and both girls slept then Annette took both girls to Dr. Lisa late afternoon. Dr. Lisa gave both Nate and Hannah Tamiflu since they were both exposed to the flu bug via Maya even though Hannah tested negative. Then I picked her up after we got home from the hospital. It was really hard on us trying to figure out who to ask, how to ask for help and handle it all from the confines of Georgetown Hospital. When we get home from chemo -- we are both drained for different reasons and then to have to handle poor Hannah sick. It was a lot. I had to then run to Target, get the scripts filled, then feed Nate. Hannah didn't eat. Then Hannah threw up all over the couch in the family room. So I sent everyone upstairs, cleaned that up, got Hannah calmed down and in bed, got Nate ready for bed and then went to bed myself. Then, I had to stay home from work for another day because there was no way Hannah was ready to go back. She just started eating normally again last Friday. It's a lot to handle thats for sure. I am tired just blogging about it.

And yes, I got up the next morning and went to boot camp...

Scott and I are tired of this whole thing! We want it over with -- talk about an understatement! Scotty can't even enjoy most foods because of the taste change. It has obviously and literally affected every piece of our lives. For instance, before cancer, I fell asleep before Scott. No issues. Now, Scott is in bed sometimes as early as before 7 and I sometimes can't sleep in our room because he snores. If I fall asleep before he does, I am fine - after, not so fine. So even something mundane as our sleeping arrangements have changed.

How am I? I am ok. I am very emotionally tired of this whole journey. There are times when I get upset and then I have to remember, it's not his fault, it's not my fault -- it is what it is. I sleep a lot on the weekends when I get a chance. I am working out 5x a week to help not only with my overall health, but to just be able to handle the stress that is on me. So, I am ok.