Everything sounds good so far

Well,

Taylor is at home with Mommy and Daddy. Sounds like Landon is basking in the time he is home and spending some quality time with all his girls. Apparently there is some discomfort when Taylor pee's, but that could be her rash or from having the catheter in. Also she may still be nauseous according to Landon, but this is normal after chemo, generally lasting at least a week. But everything seems fine thus far and I believe they are all having a good weekend.

Grandma Josie has bronchitis and will be out of commission. I think she has been over exerting herself as Grandma Josie never, never gets sick.LOL

So Pennies for taylor is just about at an end. I will count the rest of the money and give an update. I really appreciate all the time people have put into this. Now remember I still need christmas wishes for Taylor...it is really important I get these...please, please, please. I put up my tree and looked at an ornament my son Hayden made when he was about 3...broke my heart how fast time flies, therefore why I want to capture this for Taylor.

A Good Day

Hello,

Mindy says Taylor has had a much better day now that she is being drugged with codeine. They are watching for sores as well. If Taylor gets sores they will put in a feeding tube as a preventative measure as she will not want to eat if she gets the sores. Better safe than sorry I guess. That is about the extent of my knowledge at this point so I will keep you posted with anything new.

Well the chemo has been started.

Taylor is receiving chemo today. It is one that takes 24 hours so she has had a catheter inserted to minimize the bum rash she was getting. With all the fluid going in they thought it might be better to avoid to much urine on her bottom. 

Mindy and Taylor had a long night last night. I guess Taylor kept waking up...probably all the noise at the hospital. Today she had a mini "meltdown", but has been given codeine and was sleeping the last time I spoke with Mindy (around 4pm). Mindy says she will probably be on codeine longer as the sores that she may get from this chemo (highly likely) and will take up to 4 weeks to heal. She obviously may not want to eat much during this time. SO we will see. Mindy figures this may be the worse one yet, but maybe we will get lucky.

Chemo is a go...

Well we went in this morning with Taylor and her blood counts are up...not as high as usual, but not low enough to not do chemo. Good in the sense that she does not need the immune booster at this point. So we got to leave until tonight when Mindy has to return. So that is okay. She needs to be hydrated tonight and then chemo tomorrow. So I will let you know when I know what is going on. Landon should be home this Thursday night which will be really nice for Mindy and Taylor as I know they miss him.

Christmas book for Taylor

Hi all,

I was thinking it would be super, super special if I could get something from you and your family, etc. Please do not feel if you don't know us directly that your excluded...everyone is on the hook here.LOL

Here is what I would like to do. I would like to make Taylor a Christmas book this year. I need you to write "What I would like for Taylor this Christmas, etc" along those lines. Talk with your kids, grandkids, etc and add theirs. It does not have to be perfect. If you are willing send me a picture of you and your family or just you...pictures are amazing! Feel like a model! Anyhow I would like to compile this as a keepsake for Taylor's first christmas.

You can send by e-mail:  DorcasL@telus.net

or by Mail:

707 Wellington Lane 

Sherwood Park, AB

T8A 4H7

THANK YOU it really means a lot.

Leah the slightly crazy Aunt!

It has been a good couple of days

Hello,

Well Mindy and Grandma Josie have both reported Taylor has been good the last few days. Yesterday Taylor came over for my daughter Aaryanna's 7th birthday. Taylor looked sooo cute. She was wearing a knitted bonnet my friend Joyce Baker picked up for her....you will have to check Mindy's pictures when they go up to see as she looked to cute. She was also wearing a dress and tights. The tights Taylor really, really did not like too much so they were removed upon entrance to the house.LOL I still remember what tights felt like as a child....picture sand paper against your skin. It must be how delicate/sensitive we are as children.LOL

Tomorrow is another blood work day to find out if Taylor is ready for chemo. If she does not have a higher count they will give her the immune booster shot...so I will keep all posted. I am going with MIndy and Taylor as I had a day-in-lieu for parent teacher interviews. Woot!Woot! to the hospital I get to go...LOL pretty exciting day ahead! But I get to spend it with 2 amazing females....maybe Dr.Piew will be around.LOL Dr.McDreamy...a girl can dream!

Mindy looks good and I think has had some good relaxation time. Landon sounds like he is really missing being home, but that is to be expected. I can't wait for this to end for Landon. Totally sucks! Maybe you could start barking at dogs and talking to your hand like its a real person at work and then they might send you home with full pay.LOL Just an idea.

Spending time at Grandma Josies

Well, Taylor and I have been staying at Grandma Josies for the past few days, and will stay here until Monday.  We have to go in for bloodwork, so hopefully Taylor's counts are high enough for chemo #3, otherwise they will need to give her some immune booster shots to kickstart her immune system.  

We went for a visit to Redwater to see Danielle and Benjamin today which was great - these kids grow so fast, it is truly amazing.  

The beagles are driving Brenda and Faye crazy, I think Brenda may have met her match with Abby - she is our wild child, but truly a sweet puppy once you get to know her quirks. Thanks again Ladies for looking after them for me...I will be sure to let you know when we are getting out of the hospital so you can drop them off.  

I hope everyone has a great weekend - it is my neice's 7th Birthday tomorrow, so we are going to dress Taylor up in a party dress and take some pictures.  I will be sure to post them on the website when I get home.

Take care,

Mindy

Taylor had a blood transfusion yesterday

Landon and I spent the day at the hospital yesterday.  Taylor ended up needing a blood transfusion as her red blood cell counts were too low and weren't recovering - the doctors were worried that her organs might not be getting enough oxygen.  So Landon got to spend his last day with us snuggling Taylor while she slept. I think we all had a snooze while we were waiting for the transfusion to finish - it required us waiting an hour for her blood work to come back, then an hour for the blood bank to find a cross match for her blood type, then the blood bank had to deliver the blood, and they had to hook her up...then it was a three hour process to get the blood pumped into her.

We have to head back to the hospital tomorrow for her checkup and counts again to see if chemo #3 will be a go this week or not.  Landon headed back to Ponoka this morning at 3:30 a.m. for his 6:00 a.m. shift to start and we are heading into the city tonight to stay at my moms.

Brenda and Faye are going to take care of the doggies for us until we are done with this next chemo treatment - Thanks Ladies!

Well, Taylor is feeling pretty good these days and is quite the happy camper in her bouncy/vibrating chair - I will post some more pictures on our website of her.  

Thanks again for all your support!

Mindy

It has been an uneventful couple of days

Well I am reporting that no pending doom or gloom has occurred just in case people were panicking I had not written for a day or so...LOL I do have a rather warped sense of humour.

Landon is home so  don't want to bug them. I am sure they need the space together. I believe this evening is to be a date night. I am assuming that Landon's Dad and Roberta are looking after Taylor as I know my Mom is not...LOL only so many options.

So Pennies for Taylor is going well. I have rolled a tally of $595.50, but I have a bunch of toonies and loonies not rolled as they do not make a complete roll. So I am over $600 really. So I hope everyone is participating that can in the "Pennies for Taylor". I hear there have been a few "mystery" deposits. Please make sure if you don't mind to let one of us know because Mindy and Landon would like to thank everyone who has gone out of their way to help.

The last few days

Okay, so I have been busy. Mindy has Grannie Thiessen there at the house helping her out.  Taylor has been good mostly, but has some times where she is inconsolable. Mindy and Grannie went yesterday to emergency, but after waiting 4 hours they left as she had a Doctor's appointment today anyway and Taylor seemed to get better. Apparently they feel it is back pain from one of the chemo drugs and they advised to give her codeine. Before she had the pain in the beginning of post chemo and now it looks like it is kicking in later. At least we are learning the process and how to make this a bit better for Taylor. The doctor were a bit miffed at the time wait as there agreement with emergency is cancer patients and especially pediatric cancer patients should not wait longer than an hour. This will be resolved next time if this happens through Mindy calling her doctor who will pull strings where needed.

Taylor still has low blood counts so she may not get chemo next week unless she improves. She has gained weight and weighs in at 12 pounds 3 ounces, which I feel is awesome. So on Monday Taylor will get her blood work again, so I will have to let you know then how things are.

Landon returns to his girls tomorrow, yeah! I know how much he must miss them as I miss them like crazy and he is obviously closer to them.LOL 

All in all I would say things are good. I think we might need to get Mindy to take more breaks, but I am sure that will come with time. Please make sure if you can that you lure her out of the house for coffee, etc. I think she could use some get out times, 

Leah 

Another great day

Well we had a good day. Quick trip to the hospital for them to double check Taylor's sores from the dressing as well as blood work. All in all Taylor is doing good, but needs to be closely monitored as white blood cells and red are down. Not to worry. She is getting her appetite back as well as sleep. Minor meltdown tonight, but we figure she was probably overstimulated or fighting sleep...gave her some codeine just in case.

We did some rolling tonight until we either ran out of rolls or could not fill another roll. We have rolled $445.50 so far. So I need to send a huge thanks to my students at Innisfree Delnorte School who have been so generous giving me all their piggy banks.LOL Love all of you! We are a small school with great big heart.

I will be leaving Mindy's tomorrow and Landon's Grannie will be coming to help next. We are quite the cycle of help.LOL Landon should be back Friday morning. Yeah! I know Mindy and Taylor miss him tons and tons. Check out Mindy and Landon's website for new pictures and video!

So they seem to play with us being a bit hypochondriac like

Howdy All, Greetings from Mindy and Taylor

So after yesterday's panic about Taylor being dehydrated I settled in this morning with Taylor so Mindy could sleep. We had an awesome morning and she had some extra snoozes. Then We hung out through the early afternoon till we had to change her dressing from the new Broviac tube surgery. Well Mindy was a bit panicked as she had these sores all around...so we got prepared to race off to the hospital again, but Mindy called the doctor first. The Doctor says she probably is just reacting to the iodine in the liquid adhesive swab removers. Apparently this is common. SO we head to the hospital tomorrow for a double check. LOL We were a bit nervous thinking if luck continued the way it has been she could have flesh eating disease now.SOrry not really funny but we were distressed at the time.

Taylor though was amazing for most of the day. She had a bit of a tantrum tonight screaming but we feel it was overstimulation due to her behavior. She eventually calmed down or passed out from no more energy, who cares as long as she finally passed out.LOL We did dope her up with codeine so that was interesting other than Mindy figures she slobbered it over her.LOL

We did some penny rolling tonight using my kids as sweatshop labour...there may not be a full 50 in every roll...LOL that is the banks job. We rolled $52 tonight and have $107.50 in all thus far without counting the silver...that job is for tomorrow. So I am signing off waiting for Mindy to make me some Nacho's...hope she is not a stingy cheese user.LOL

At Mindy's

Well I am at Mindy's...Taylor has been awesome this round of chemo. We did take her into the hospital to check whether she was getting dehydrated, but she was fine.  So we are just sitting around after eating pizza and wings, getting Taylor back to sleep. She has had some really awesome sleeps today. Still have no rollers but will try and get tomorrow.

They are home

SO Mindy and Taylor are home today. Mom is staying tonight as well as during the day and I go tomorrow. Mindy says Taylor is better this time so far. She is sleeping more.

We plan to do some penny rolling this weekend so let me know if I can pick up any

Second Chemo Finished

Well Taylor did get her second chemo treatment. All went well and she had a good sleep last night after treatment. She has only been mildly irritable, which is awesome. Mindy has a better idea of what she can do to make Taylor more comfortable during these times. Taylor has a hearing test tomorrow in preparation for the next chemo treatment that has the potential to affect hearing loss. Then tomorrow Mindy should be back home. Mom will be out tomorrow night to help Mindy and I will head over after work Friday for the weekend.

Grandma wanted me to tell everyone that Taylor loves her fishies...LOL She has a fish mobile above her change table at home that she likes to stare at (Taylor not Grandma.LMAO). So Grandma has been taking a little stroller bug thingy that Mindy brought to the hospital to keep Taylor entertained. Grandma moves it and Taylor to make sure she is getting the best view. It is really funny. Grandma also has been having patches of hair fall out. It looks fried, which I think is stress, but she claims is from her Las Vegas trip. It looks like Mom is going through chemo with Taylor. Mom is pretty funny, but the absolute most amazing Mom around. She really embodies unconditional love and sacrifice. I am glad Mindy and I have such an amazing role model. Mom never complains of tiredness and will bend over backwards to try and relieve any of her children's pain...God Bless Mothers!

So I hope everybody takes the time to call, write or hug their mom. They are the most amazing creation.

Keep your fingers crossed that this will be a better chemo reaction than last time.

Broviac done

Hi, So the Broviac was taken out as it twisted and she had a new one put in. She is sore, but getting "doped" up.LOL Hopefully she won't need too much of the morphine. She was a bit cranky as she could not eat before surgery, which happened late (four o'clock) and did not eat since 2:30am. She was very, very happy when she did get to eat.

Chemo may start tonight, but we will see. They need to make sure she is hydrated as it would hurt her kidneys and liver. The doctors are changing some of her drug dosages for constipation, etc so hopefully we can figure out how to best make her comfortable during this time. Not sure when Mindy will be out, maybe tomorrow, but Mindy doubts their promises.LOL

As a side note, I need to know if anyone has or knows of a business that could be used as a drop off place for "Pennies for Taylor"? Barb has 2 Benjamin Moore locations(west end and spruce grove...I think), but probably good to have more. So please let me know if you know of anyone willing. I have been getting many raided piggy banks, which is awesome.

Okay so say your prayers tonight for Taylor. She is doing AMAZING thus far. She is a nice plump baby (just about 12 pounds) and pink. Just amazingly perfect!

Sending my wishes you all have a goodnight.

Update on the Broviac

Well the Broviac has twisted and needs to be replaced. This is not a big deal as they say it has happened before. Mindy and Taylor need to go to the hospital tomorrow to get this done and chemo will continue as scheduled. Hopefully Mindy may be out by Saturday, but we will see.

Uncle Jim will still stay wed-fri and I will go out Friday after work and stay with Mindy till Tuesday. I am looking forward to spending some time with Mindy and Taylor.

Dog sitters have been found!

Thank you uncle Jim for agreeing to watch the beagles for a few nights, and Auntie Leah will be staying the weekend with them as well.  Phew - what a relief.

We aren't sure when Taylor and I will be getting out of the hospital - especially now that her broviac line might have a small leak in it under her skin (may require surgery to repair/replace the line). If we didn't have bad luck, we would have no luck at all.  Her line is going to be assessed tomorrow when we take her in to have it looked at.

Leah is going to say on Monday and Tuesday (Nov. 10 & 11) as well, so Granny Thiessen won't have to suffer through an entire week with me, the basket case, and the wild hooligans we call our dogs.  

Thanks everyone,

Mindy

Need a dog sitter

Helo,

Landon is leaving on Wednesday the day Taylor is going in for chemo wednesday, which means Mindy will not be home till probably Sunday. So we had some people willing to do dog sitting, but one is on vacation, one is going on vacation and one has a baby with pneumonia...lets hope Benjamin gets over the pneumonia quick he is a little guy as well.

So if anyone could dog sit some beagles for a bit please let me or Mindy know.