No fooling

Dear Madeline,

I'm so happy that the weekend is finally upon us. I'm not sure if the nurses were pulling an April Fools prank on us or not, but they told us that one of the machines - the only they've used for you - was not working properly and that they almost called us to come in for a 6:30 AM treatment instead of an 8:30 AM treatment. Were they kidding? They did indeed have you get your treatment on a different machine, so who knows? That would have been one prank for which we'd not have been so thrilled to be on the receiving end.

You sailed through radiation treatment this morning, the nurse "de-accessed" your port, and when you woke up and finished chugging on that bottle of yours you flashed everyone some huge smiles. I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am that your radiation treatments are almost at an end.  The clock cannot strike 10 AM on Monday fast enough. When it does, we'll do a victory lap down in "L2" of the Weinberg Building, sprint over to strike that end-of-treatment bell, blow everyone a big, cartoonish kiss, and scram. You've weathered this treatment so well so far, but I'd be lying to you if I said I still wasn't worried about the long-term side effects.

Changes ahead

Dear Madeline,

Well, that was quite the long day, wasn’t it? I think we managed to arrive at the Johns Hopkins at about 7:30 this morning for your morning radiation treatment and didn’t manage to get home after your pediatric oncology hospital clinic appointment until about 4 this afternoon. In between, though, we did skip out of the hospital and I gave you and Mom the grand tour of Baltimore to pass the time. (I think we managed to pass through the majority of notable places, hot ZIP codes and wastelands alike.)

You haven’t been taking too kindly to these morning radiation appointments and the accompanying restriction on not eating after midnight the night before. The radiation oncology team needs you under anesthesia so you don’t wiggle around or change positions while receiving the radiation. Trust me, it is better this way. That doesn’t mitigate the perverse irony, though, in that the intentional damage to the area where your giant tumor was is triggering your body’s healing response, which in turn requires a great deal of energy (and thus, a great deal of eating to fuel the healing). Your treatment is, in short, making you very hungry and we need to deny you some of your feedings in order to ensure your treatments are as effective as billed.

Are you looking for Dr. McDreamy? ....Seriously?....Seriously?

Dear Madeline,

Seriously? Seriously? Are you wanting to see if there is a real Dr. McSteamy that works at Johns Hopkins Hospital? I know that we have been watching a lot of Grey's Anatomy at home and all, but I didn't think that we needed to go out trying to find him. You have a couple of cute doctors, but unfortunately Dr. McSteamy is a fictional character. Can you imagine if this was Seattle Grace Hospital and all of the steamy drama was happening right under our noses. Scandalous!

Remember, right now you are "MY PERSON" and we are doing everything in our power to get you all better so we can continue our Grey's Anatomy marathon. We got through the first 5 seasons, but we have a lot to catch up on! In the meantime, I will continue to play you the Grey's Anatomy theme song to settle you down.




Love,

Your Mommy