There are very few cuter things than singing children (except for when they are singing the first three lines of Jingle Bells over and over and over and over and over).

On the way home from work today Matan sang me every Christmas carol that he could think of. Then when he ran out of carols he sang me the Transformers song, which is a very long, very repetitive song about Transformers, how much he loves the Octimus Crime team and how bad the Megatron team are. My favorite part was when he sang, "Where is it, where is the end, where is the end of this song, I don't know, there it is, Bam!"

Where is the end, I don't know, where is the end of this post, there it is, Bam!

Sorry for the whiney tone of my previous post. It was a rough week.

So apparently by "next week" I meant two months from now and by "pictures" I meant nothing. Oh well, that's how the cookie crumbles. In, on top of things news, I actually mailed all of my out-of-the-state Christmas presents BEFORE Thanksgiving this year. I know, I know, I didn't believe it either.

For those of you who haven't heard, Dov was on KSL again last week. He did the Cold Turkey run here in Salt Lake and in order to capture his inspirational-ness they sent a news crew to film it. We actually had a great Thanksgiving and I hope you all did too.

Things here are good. Dov is feeling much better and we are all excited about the fact that for the first time in three months, he doesn't have chemo this Monday! It's uphill from here!

So, it has been forever since I have blogged, or Facebooked, or caught up on my non-work related email, or called my friends or anything. Sorry everyone!

Between work, the kids, the house, kindergarten, Halloween, chemo, etc... I have no time. You would think I would be used to that feeling by now but it still surprises me just how little time I really have. You know when you are scheduling time to carve pumpkins, life has gotten a little out of hand. Dov does his best to help with everything but this chemo makes him very sick and very tired so he hasn't been able to do as much as he would like. Fortunately we only have two more chemo treatments before this round is over and we get a break. How long the break lasts depends on how the follow-up scans go. We know we will have three months post chemo before the first PET so we will have to see what happens after that.

In the mean time, Halloween is fast approaching and I have penciled in time to carve pumpkins tomorrow night. :) This year is the first that Matan really had an opinion about what he wanted to be. He gave me a list of pre-approved superheros that he was willing to be and I found a Spiderman costume so that is what he is going as. I didn't think Siena was going to have an opinion so I got her a witch costume but now she is insisting that she be Spiderman too. I failed to take sibling worship into account, that will teach me. I'll post some pictures next week.

So Dov is home at last!! He was discharged this morning and is currently passed out on our couch. The pain still gets rough at times but he is doing pretty well for the most part and we are all glad to have him home again.

It has been an interesting day though. As if this hasn't all been challenging enough, this morning at 4:30 am Matan started throwing up. Apparently there is a stomach bug going around the day care and he picked today to get it. Since Dov had staples width-wise across his abdomen just a day ago (they took them out before he left and soon he will have yet another huge scar) it seems like a bad idea to expose him to the flu. Fortunately my wonderful parents were willing to wake up at 5:00 this morning to drive down to Salt Lake and take care of my pukey child so that I could take care of my invalid husband. THANKS MOM AND DAD!!

Fortunately Matan seems to be feeling better so now we just wait to see if either Siena or myself comes down with it next. Fun Fun.

One more change...they aren't 100% sure that they have Dov's pain under control so they are going to keep him here for one more night. It sounds like he will be coming home tomorrow morning.

Quick update! It looks like they are going to send Dov home today. I think the nursing staff is getting tired of being harassed...

Good news! Dov is almost completely unplugged. They are going to remove the last of the tubing today and then they are planning on springing him tomorrow. He is drugged off his noggin but is able to walk and eat and sit in chairs and everything, almost like a normal person. I've told him if he can do all that then we should plan on him heading back to work on Monday. I don't think he'll quite make that but he is doing well.

We are still waiting on his creatinine levels for today, hopefully they will be on the way down, which will be a good indication that his kidneys are on the mend. But overall things are going well and we are looking forward to having him home.

Hello everyone, sorry that I wasn't able to post over the weekend. Things were a little crazy.

Dov is doing really well all things considered and it looks like he will avoid dialysis after all!

They keep saying, "we are going to do dialysis tomorrow" but then tomorrow comes and they say, "well, let's give it one more day and see how things look." Not that we are complaining or anything. Dov really wasn't looking forward to having a giant needle stuck in his neck. It looks like his kidneys might be starting back up on their own. His potassium levels are going down and his creatinine is holding steady. They think that will start going down too soon which is good. They are going to keep checking his levels but for the moment at least his liver surgeon thinks that he is going to pull out of this on his own.

He is still tired and sore but things seem to be looking up. They will probably start turning his epidural off tomorrow and then once he is eating and walking and everything like normal they will send him home. We are still hoping for sometime this week but we will wait and see. I'll let you know what we hear.

So - it has been a challenging day for us. It turns out that Dov's blood loss during the surgery and the associated drop in blood pressure has damaged his kidneys. The doctors aren't expecting that the damage is either severe or permanent but they are concerned enough that they are beginning him on dialysis tomorrow. The plan now is to do a two hour treatment tomorrow then reassess the situation. If his kidney function doesn't improve then they will do another 2 1/2 hour treatment Sunday and then a three hour treatment on Monday. It doesn't sound as though they expect him to need more than those three treatments but we really don't know anything for sure at this point.

The good news is that, while sore and tired, he still feels pretty well physically. He has already gone on one walk today and plans on doing another one later this evening. (By the way - special thanks to everyone at ARUP, we have been getting our test results just as quickly as possible and I can't tell you how much that means to someone on this side of the test tube.)

I will update again when I know more.

Hello everyone,

I am in the waiting room at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital and I just got the chance to talk to Dov's liver surgeon. The surgery is over and it sounds as though things went well.

Because of the tumor placement they decided that it would be safest to remove the entire right half of the liver. He should have enough for adequate liver function and it will regrow to normal size in the next 6-8 weeks. They also removed his gall bladder, both because he had some stones and because it was in the way of some of the area that they needed to get to.

He did lose more blood than they would have liked, approximately a liter, and because he is anemic from the chemo they are still concerned that he might need a blood transfusion. They will keep an eye on him for the next couple of days to determine if that is going to be necessary. The good news is that we have an in with the blood folks (thanks to everyone at ARUP - you guys have been wonderful).

The other good news is that they poked around Dov's innards and didn't see any evidence of disease. They will know more when we get the pathology results sometime around Tuesday and they will make more decisions on further treatment at that point.

So everything is going as well as we could ask. Dov will be here at Huntsman for the next 5-7 days and then he should be free to go home.

We are so grateful to everyone for all the love and support. Thank you all!

So here is the scoop...

We have a surgery date for Dov's next liver resection. The surgery will be August 6th and then he will probably spend a week up at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital. Then once he is done recovering from that he will hopefully start chemo again. I say hopefully because he will start chemo again if they find evidence that this last round of chemo was effective. If it wasn't I'm not sure what we will do next. Hopefully we don't have to find out.

And that's a wrap...chemo is done once again. For the time being anyway.

Dov's three months of chemo has been a real party. This chemo didn't have the cold effects that the last one did but it had its own brand of fun. On the positive side, Dov now has a lot more sympathy with what I went through when I was pregnant with the kids. Turns out nausea and fatigue really are hard!!

But like the stubborn man that he is, he refuses to sit still and on the 19th and 20th of June he and the rest of "Team Tumor" ran the Wasatch Back relay. They ran from Logan to Park City in 36 hours. They managed to get both extremes of bad weather, with blazing sun on Friday and freezing rain on Saturday but they all did it and are thinking of doing another one in Vegas in October. Apparently insanity is not only hereditary but also contagious.

And here's a couple more pix. These are the kids opening their presents.

Here is Matan and our neighbor Molly.

Here are a couple of pictures from our massive birthday extravaganza. Matan turned five this year, Siena turned two and Dov turned 35. One of the things that cancer has done for us is give us a totally new perspective on birthdays.  Now every birthday that we are here and together is a win for us. Getting old never looked so good!! 

Siena and her best friend Yenni:

Here are the birthday cakes provided by the wonderful Alder family. 

Ok, it is time for a couple of catch up posts. 

Dov is 2/3 of the way done with this round of chemo. He is tired and nauseous but the new meds they put him on have helped so he's doing better. Once he finished chemo they will schedule his surgery and we 

will schedule the next liver wake.

Matan graduated from Pre-K. I'll admit, before I saw my adorable 5 year old in a cap and gown I thought these things were kind of lame but this was lots of fun. Here is a video of the big musical number.

Strangers with candy

From Matan's five year doctor visit~

Dr.: What would you do if you found a gun?

Matan: I would give it to someone

Dr.: Why?

Matan: Because it is dangerous

Dr.: What would you do if you found some matches?

Matan: Put them away

Dr.: Why?

Matan: Because they're dangerous

Dr.: What would you do if a stranger came and offered you some candy. Would you take it?

Matan: No!

Dr.: Why not?

Matan: Because it has lots of sugar in it!!

I love it, my kid isn't afraid of strangers but sugar is a different story!

Here are some pictures of the kids from our trip to Disney World.

Ok, I think we can all agree that this isn't helping as much as I wanted it to. 

Here is a run down of things. Dov had his second chemo treatment today which means that he is one third of the way through this round of chemo. Only four more to go!!! He amuses himself during treatments by thinking up t-shirt ideas and chatting with everyone else getting treatment. 

Chemo is about as much fun as you might expect. Fortunately the side effects for this kind of chemo (FOLFIRI for those in the know) don't include the cold sensitivity that made last summer so much fun. Nothing sounds better on a nice hot Utah summer day than a warm drink of water. 

We got back from Disney World last night and we had a great time. Dov went to Tampa for a work conference and the kids and I flew out to join him after it ended. Matan loved the parades, especially the chance to see Mr. Incredible and Frozone in the flesh. We went on lots of rides and everyone agreed, the Toy Story ride is the coolest. Still it is good to be home where it is not 95 degrees out (yet).

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I do a terrible job of staying in touch with everyone.  I'm hoping that a blog will help me do a better job with that...