Noah in the newspaper

In case you missed it Noah's picture was in the paper last Sunday. The Ozark Komen affiliate used the picture of him holding the pink ribbon for an ad. It was an entire page of the wedding insert in the Morning News.

In case you missed it and live in Texarkana he will be in the Texarkana Gazette this weekend. The Texarkana-Komen affiliate is using the image as the cover of an insert on breast cancer awareness promoting their Race for the Cure on October 20th. All of Noah's friends and family in South Arkansas should be on the lookout for our little biscuit :)

Family Day

It wasn't quite the Carribean vacation Jenna was going to take this summer. Neither was it a weekend watching the Yankees, but it was fun nonetheless. We went to Tulsa on Saturday to get away from the VROOM-VROOM that comes from living in the middle of the city during Bikes, Blues, and BBQ. We went to the zoo to let Noah actually see a "Key!" (translation-"Monkey"). The monkey's were a disappointment. Since it was 150 degrees I guess they had air conditioning somewhere other than their island. Noah did find a new favorite animal though, the polar bear.

The polar bear exhibit is a swimming pool with outdoor and indoor viewing. The outdoor viewing area had Noah pressing his face against the glass, then when the bear would swim by he'd squeal, stomp his feet, point at the bear, and stomp his feet and squeal some more. When the bear'd go out of sight he looked at us and would go "Aaaaaaaa" (translation-"Where'd he go?"). We went inside to the indoor viewing and it took a few minutes for Noah to realize he was seeing the same bear. The indoor viewing is below the water level so you get to see the bear swimming under the water. It was very cool. Whenever the bear would come up and turn around, Noah would look back at me with these HUGE eyes like "Did you see that Daddy?" It was hilarious. The best part was when I took him over to an elevated area where the bear turns around in his swim. Noah's eye level was just about water level. The bear came up to the glass and instead of turning around he stopped and put his face up to Noah's to get a good look. Their faces were like 12 inches apart! The bear finally headed off and Noah looked back at us and started laughing. It was priceless.

Proud Woman

I experienced a very special day yesterday. Since the Koman Foundation is using Noah's precious picture as their public service announcement I was invited by Alison Levin, Executive Director of the Ozark Affiliate, as her guest to the 10th Annual Pink Ribbon Luncheon. I scooted away from work for lunch at the Holiday Inn in Springdale with an enormous group of Komen supporters. I sort of felt like a lost little puppy in a sea of beautiful pink flowers, pink table clothes, all sorts of pink suits, ties, and sweaters. Then as I entered the ballroom I was struck by two very large screens with the most moving photo of a beautiful boy holding a pink ribbon. My heart lept and I knew this was part of the new me, breast cancer survivor, with a son who is unknowingly Koman's newest advocate! Alison seated me at a table reserved for a group from Wal-Mart and introduced me to the breast cancer survivor already seated there. When the program began, Alison introduced Noah Sullivan and followed by saying his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in June when Noah was just over a year old. I stood and waved to the crowd. Alison went on to explain that she had read some of our story on our blog. She read to the entire crowd the sentimal words of my husband and his story of playing in the Tee it Up for the Cure. You all may know the entry or feel free to scroll down to read it yourself. The entry made the most beautiful segway into the actual program in that Chad said playing in that tournament was about hope, a hope for a better tomorrow where other men did not have to hold their wives when they were suffering from this terrible disease. I was so very proud. Now I know I have a wonderful and amazing man supporting me, but now the whole world knows how very caring my husband is and how much he loves his wife. My two boys...one tiny face promising hope for women in the future and the other offering personal words of encouragement for all NWA Koman supporters. I am the luckiest woman!

Noah will be in the paper this weekend. Everyone look for him!

Hayfever-Man and Allergy-boy

Noah's snotty nose moved to his chest the other day so I took him to the doctor. Watching me sneeze up the exam room had the good Dr. ask me about my problems. She figures since he has my penicillin allergy he probably got my entire allergy profile so she put him on Singulair. What do you know? Within 2 days he's pretty much dried up. Now if I could just find my way to a doctor for some medicine of my own. I'll do it after I go get some more tissue.

What a week!

Full time work, especially during parent teacher conference week, made for a really long week! I fee good though and almost back to normal, almost. I did get my first "fill" this week at Atwood's office. It went well. I was a little nervous, but I didn't even feel the stick of the needle he used to numb me. I guess sometimes it pays not to have any sensation! They slowly "inflated" me with a syringe with a tube attached to a canister with saline. I got 50 cc in each breast. I was sore the next day in my back, but by Friday, it was all better.

Noah has had quite a bit of attention from his photo that Amber took. Amber has had two calls: one from Komen Headquarters and one from someone locally that wants to use his picture for a public service annoucement during October (Breast Cancer Awareness Month). I think the Headquarters people want to use it for a poster and make it available for local affiliates to use it for promotion purposes. Cool, huh? My friend Val had a lot to do with getting his photo in the hands of the right people. She thought it was so moving because it shows a completely different side to breast cancer and how it is affecting the younger generation. Thanks Val! We also got a copy of the magazine article from Texarkana in Four States Living magazine. The article was wonderful. Chad is going to try to scan it in so that people can look at it.

Also, my Race for the Cure team in Texarakana is HUGE. At last count, I believe 108 people have signed up. On Chad's page, many people have donated money. I feel so honored that people are doing this for me, but more importantly for other women who may have their life toppled on its head by a diagnosis of breast cancer. I have heard the Jenna's Hens and Friends T-shirt is WAY CUTE! No one is telling me exactly what it looks like though....

Chad and I went to the game last night. It was good that we won; however, I could not enjoy it the way I used to because my last image of Noah was of him crying as I drove away. He wanted to go with his Momma. Elizabeth, his babysitter, said he was fine though as soon as I was out of sight! She said he was good and they had a fun time playing, which makes me feel better. Who knows what he was really like though???

I need to run. I am going to go to church this morning. I have not been since my surgery, but feel it is time. Hope everyone had a great weekend!! Hugs and Kisses!!

Back to the working world

I went back to work this week part time. I have worked every day in the afternoons. It has been a little difficult organizing myself and getting out the door, but feels really good getting on a schedule. People in all my schools seemed genuinely happy to see me return which was heart warming. It is good to be missed. I also enjoyed checking on those children who I have worked with in previous years and see how they have adjusted to the new school year. By the end of the day, yes, I have been worn out. I do think chasing little Noah is much more exhausting than catching up with all my coworkers! They at least respond to me; Noah just ignores me and keeps running! He already demonstrates that selective hearing that many men exhibit! : ) Must be something in that Y chromosome!

We are skipping the actual game this weekend, but are going to try to tailgate some with Noah. I dressed him today in some Razorback attire and his Nike LeBron shoes his Magga brought him from Portand. I cannot get over how cute, yet a little funny, he looks in big tennis shoes on those little peanut legs!

Chad is golfing in the morning with his Cuz (Jeff Lyons) and the other Cuz (Nick Lyons). He was anxious about this because he will be leaving early in the morning before Noah gets up. This means rowdy Noah is all mine in the morning. I am glad he is going; he needs some time to whack a ball around and a break from his HIGH maintance family!

Hope all have a good weekend. Go Hogs!

Race for the cure T-shirts

I know this is last second but pretty much everyone whose signed up for Jenna's Texarkana Race for the Cure team has their 'Jenna's Mother Hens and Friends' team T-shirt ordered so I don't expect many overlooked folks out there. If you want a T-shirt then please call us or the numbers listed previously tomorrow at the latest.

You don't have to be on Jenna's team to buy a shirt and/or you don't have to buy a shirt to be on Jenna's team; these are separate. In fact, I'm telling everyone that if you can only do 1-buy a shirt or be on Jenna's team- then please sign up for Jenna's team because the T-shirt sale has been rounded up to $10 and everything left will go to Komen but the race money goes mostly towards the Komen foundation.

That sounds convoluted as I read it but I think its semi-clear :P

Prostate=clean bill of health

I finally went and got my prostate checked out. In case any of you don't know I had a kidney stone last Thanksgiving. A CT Scan at the hospital showed mineralization of my prostate gland. The doctor said not to be alarmed but I should follow up with my primary care physician and have it checked out. After Jenna was diagnosed we both knew I needed to have it checked out since we'd kind of forgotten about it. I didn't mean to put it off, I just don't have a doctor. The last time I was sick was in 2000 when I had strep throat. Anyways, with all of Jenna's stuff calming down I finally got into the urology clinic today for the checkup.

As I was typing this I had jokes forming in my head to the effect "I took it like a man" and such but now each joke is cruder than the one I before so I'll spare you all. Honestly its still too fresh on my memory to find it very funny anyways.

The moral of the story is everything is fine and he said all of my blood work looked great and .... He admonished me for not having a PCP because at 'your age you need someone to see you each year so if something goes wrong you have a doctor familiar with you.' I guess I'm officially old now :)

Brief update

Jenna kept saying she was going to post the past couple of days but she hasn't gotten to it yet. Lucky you guys get an update from me instead :) I'm trying to type this between allergy attacks.

Jenna went back to Dr. Atwood on Wednesday. He thought overall she continues to do great. There is some fluid built up in her back on her left side. Not quite enough to drain with a needle, but still enough to keep an eye on. She now has to wear a compression wrap 12 hrs a day. Think medieval corset and you get the picture. The good news was she's healing nicely and in 2 weeks she'll have her first expansion in her tissue expanders. This will help her psyche tremendously as I'm hoping the word 'pancake' leaves her vocabulary for good.

Magga decided last minute to come up this weekend. She and Aunt Sarah and Aunt Beverly went to Oregon last week to see Aunt Amanda. They took a tour of Nike's home office, where Amanda works, and Magga brought home a lot of Nike goodies from the employee store. It was a good excuse to come up to see the Biscuit. He's played all morning and is now starting the 2nd hour of a nap. I decided to use the 1st hour to mow and it may have been a mistake on my part since I ran out of my Rx. allergy eye drops yesterday and now it feels like someone took my eyeballs out, ran them over a sanding belt, and then stuck them back in.

I'm starting to ramble (and I'm losing focus on the screen as my eyes water) so I'll cut it off here.

Another day at home...hmmm

Well...I have decided women are silly, complicated creatures! And, yes, this is Jenna posting. I have so much ridiculous guilt associated with the fact that I cannot do ANYTHING around this house. I can barely even take care of myself. I had a pretty big celebration the other day when, I could actually wash my hair alone. I have not seen a lot of you, but I got my hair cut pretty short. I decided to this when I could not reach my hair to even attempt to fix it. My Chad is good at a lot of really neat things, but a hairdresser he is not! Anyway, I say all of this to tell another touching tale. Today, I was sitting on my bed organizing my jewelry and shining some of my silver earrings. You know, it seems I am always on target to be on time to work, then I get lost in my jewelry box looking for just the right pair. So, I am thinking I will get this together and that will help when I go back to work. Anyway, Joanna Davis from our church called to see how I was feeling. At our church right now they are doing their Fall membership drive and are giving away prizes for the member who brings the most guests. The family who won this week received a free 2 hour house cleaning. This particular family opted out of the prize because they have trained their children to help keep the house, which Noah, and his parents for that matter, have not yet mastered. They instead wanted to offer it to another member in the church who was recovering from cancer. Joanna thought of me. Now, the staff at Hellstern have been so caring and generous and have been covering my regular housekeeper, which has been a tremendous blessing. I thought though with this, maybe I could get some stains out of the carpet or have the baseboards and doors worked on...the possibilities are endless. I mean I do have three large, recently always under my feet, K-9 and they bring in tons of dirt! It is good to have had all these angels help me along the way. You know, they say don't sweat the small stuff, but sometimes it is all about the small stuff.

Little show-off

Noah slept for 14 hours last night!!! He went down at 8 and slept until after 10 this morning. The result is a child in a wonderful mood. He's eating lunch right now and he's just cycling through all his old "tricks" and then did a few we've been working on for the first time. After babbling 'Da-Da-Da-Daddy' several times he looked at Jenna and said 'Ma-Ma.' He has done this before but it is so rare and usually it's when Jenna's in his face saying it and he repeats it. Not this time. Then he went through his known signs for more, milk, and let me hold the spoon. Okay so that last one isn't actually sign language but it's pretty apparent what he wants. He accurately cycled through his body parts (except nose which has moved to his head but he knew it well at one point in time). Then he dropped the big one on us. Without a demonstration he blew a kiss when asked. It was hilarious and we laughed and celebrated. He celebrated by doing it again. The other new thing for today is he is actually saying the word 'Hi' instead of grunting some variation of the 'h' sound. He said it on the phone to his great-aunt Judy.

Hopefully the mood will last because it's pouring down rain outside so we'll all be in close quarters for the day.

Texarkana Race for the Cure

For those of you reading from Texarkana or family in ElDo or anywhere close to there the Race for the cure in Texarkana is 10/20. Some of my mother's friends have gotten together a team in my name. The team is actually called Jenna's Mother Hens and Friends. There are currently about 20 people registered. I don't think ElDo has a Race for the Cure and I would be honored if any of you there would like to participate in Texarkana on my team. Chad and I are both going to do it. I would like to try to run the race, but considering my current condition I don't know if I can gain the endurance by then. We'll see...I mean I did do a 1/2 marathon when I was a nonrunner prior to training so who knows! Below is part of an email that my friend Molly Beth Malcolm composed about the details for signing up:

To be eligible for Team awards, you must be entered by September 26, so we are asking everyone to register and get your t-shirt size and money in by Tuesday, September 25! We think there is a good chance of being the winner of the new team with the most members, so please sign in soon and get your friends and spouses to join. Men are welcome, too! Weldon Johnson, Curt Green, Bruce Malcolm, and Josh Wiggins are already on board.

We also are entering the team t-shirt contest. Vicky Starks is designing it and it is going to be darling!!! The cost will be $10.00 per t-shirt and we will wear them on the day of the race. Please get your t-shirt size (S,M,L,XL, or XXL) and $10.00 to Diane Green at 870-773-5722, Vicky Starks at 870-773-6160 or Junie Young at 870-773-4139 as soon as possible. (You will also receive a Komen t-shirt with your registration.)

Here is the information needed to register on line. Go to www.txkrace.org Click on “register”. Then click on “Join an existing team.” Type “jenna” in the team name box and click on “Search for Team.” It will go to “Jenna’s Mother Hens and Friends”. Click on “join”. You may join at any level, but most of us are going to join the Adult Non-competitive 5KJog/Walk. If you are unable to walk with us, you can still be on our team by joining Sleep In for the Cure. The next part of the form asks for an additional gift, your fundraising goal, or pink postcard purchase. None of those are necessary unless you choose to participate in them. Delete the $100 amount from your fundraising goal line. Follow the registration through to your credit card information. Once everything is completed you will receive an email confirmation.

Please call me if you have additional questions.

Also, the deadline for ordering any pics of Noah is 9/9. Lanningphoto.com is the site. Click on proofs and ordering and look for my name. The password is Noah.

I believe Mrs. Jenna is going to take it easy on this Friday. I am wearing my lovely compression bandage around my waist and it actually feels sort of nice on my back having that pressure. Everyone enjoy your weekend. I am going to enjoy mine with my two favorite boys!!

Good News

Well today at Atwood's office, Candy said she thinks I look really good. I do have a small pocket of fluid in my back on the left side. That is code for, "Jenna, slow down." It was really weird looking. She touched one spot in my back and another spot moved. I left with a make shift corset without the boning (picture a huge piece of elastic wrapped around my waist) in order to gently compress the fluid. I was given the okay to drive to ONE place and then home again. She squashed the idea of trying to work part time next week since I have the fluid in my back. It was her recommendation that I work on slowly trying to increase my endurance next week and enjoy some early afternoon time with Noah. I have some exercises to do to stretch out the muscles under my arm. I go again next week to check the fluid situation.

At Highlands oncology, we had a long conversation with Dr. Rosenfeld and left having made the decision not do do any follow up treatment at this time. The drug tamoxifican would reduce my chances of recurrance by half. However, since I only had DCIS with no lymph involovment and no other evidence of invasive cancer, my chances of recurrance are very minimal anyway. Also, if I took this drug, the time frame for treatment is five years and upon completion there is a 30% chance my normal cycles would not return; therefore, I would not be able to get pregnant. If they did return, I would be 36 at the time which is also an increased risk for something going wrong with a pregnancy.

I asked him point blank, if this were his wife and they were considering another child what would he tell her to do. He said he would not do it. He advised Chad and I to go ahead with our life plans as we had designed pre-breast cancer. He feels like my condition is very favorable. He said it is never too late to take it. So, we could try for another child when we are ready and then do the drug later. He also followed all the baby discussion with the advice that I never use birth control pills again. So hopefully, we can hold off on another child for a while, then have another healthy baby, then do the drug so that this cancer will never rear its ugly head again in the small amount of breast tissue I have left.

Thanks again for your prayers. I feel like I have made it over another hurdle and am now ready to heal emotionally and physically and get on with my wonderful, blessed life.

Big day

We've neglected to share it with everyone but today is a pretty big day. Today we go to the oncologist for Jenna's final pathology. We already know part of what we'll find out and we already know what Dr. Cross' opinion is on the matter. However, Cross is our surgeon and these guys get the final say on some stuff. If they disagree...we'll have to see. It's hard to get second opinions sometimes because you feel like you're shopping for the answer you want to hear but if they disagree we'll probably seek a 2nd opinion to see our best course of treatment.

The big deal here is if Jenna's cancer was hormone related. This will determine what medication she will have to take from here out. We also get the final say on chemotherapy. We're pretty sure they will say no chemo since the pathology we do have shows no need but until the oncologist says so, it's not in stone. The main thing that could go wrong today is we may be told we can't have anymore children. We know there are other options out there to add another member to the family, but it will be hard if Jenna has to go through menopause and told she can't carry another child. Just send out a few more prayers and we'll be fine.

Jenna also goes to Atwood this afternoon. Hopefully she'll be cleared to do more stuff...like pick up Noah or drive a car. We'll see how she's healing. It's amazing that we are already 3 weeks after surgery. She's doing really well. The mold levels are up outside so we all have sniffles and Noah didn't cooperate with his bed last night so we are all exhausted, but her spirits are still high. Thanks for all the cards, flowers, and calls that continue to come in. As she gets further from the surgery and she's still not 'right' they seem to mean more and more to her.

I'll post tonight what the oncologist told us and hopefully it will be good news.

State of love and trust

Noah has had a rough few nights since returning home but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. With Jenna being a psychologist and myself being in pediatrics for 11 years we've had our theories. We think Noah has just been confused and scared. When we told him 'Bye' a few weeks ago it ended up being for 2+ weeks and he'd never spent a night without one of us...or woken up without 1 of us. As the days went on he was sick and scared so his grandparents (rightfully so) lavished attention on him to compensate. After he got home to us and we tried to care for him, he didn't trust us. This was understandable because in his eyes we had broken the trust he had in us.

When he got home it took him a few minutes to go to Jenna. After he warmed up to her I got home. The first sign I really saw was the first time I left without him. When I told him 'Bye' he threw a fit. We mistook his new fits as being spoiled when he first got home (and in an earlier post). Now we think it's way different. It's a scared cry. When I left it wasn't the 'The world isn't going as I want' cry. It was the 'I fell off the chair and hit my head on the floor cry.' Even when you picked him up the cry would continue for a few minutes. He was scared I wasn't coming back. That may seem silly but I had just told him 'Bye' and he didn't see me for over 2 weeks. He was scared the same thing was happening because the trust that I'd be right back had been broken.

Then we tried shoe-horning him into his old routine. Only he had a new routine he was used to now. That first night he woke up about midnight. It wasn't the old 'Waaaa I can't find my pacifier and I really want to go back to sleep!' Instead it was a whole new 'WAAAAAAAAA WHERE THE HELL AM I!?!?' He was scared to death. When I'd go in there, he would literally jump into my arms and cling to me to make sure I wasn't leaving. The first night he and I spent 2 and 3 hours in the chair in his room. The second night he was fine with me in the room but would not let me leave until eventually I relented and lay down with him in the spare bedroom. Saturday night was not much better. Again I will reiterate that he was scared. We've let him cry plenty of times in his crib. We can even distinguish cries meaning he's wet vs. he dropped his pacifier vs. him just not wanting to go to bed. We can fix/ignore all of those cries in record time. This we couldn't fix and there is no way you could ignore it.

Well I'm happy to report that I think Noah trusts he'll see us again when he wakes up or is falling asleep. Last night he woke up around 11PMish with his old 'I thought I was just taking a nap why is it dark outside" cry. We ignored him and within 5 minutes he was back asleep. Then he slept all the way to 730 this morning. Then instead of the new terrorized scream it was the old 'Come on guys wake up, change my diaper, and I give me some milk' cry.

I've never been so happy to hear a cry in my life. Jenna wanted to take care of him this morning and let me go back to bed. He's been super-clingy to whatever person gets him first in the morning. So we went in there and I picked him up from behind Jenna and put him in her arms. Only she can't hold him so I stood behind her with my arms wrapped around her supporting his bottom. This worked fine to the changing table. When we left the changing table and headed to the living room was a whole different ballgame. He kept leaning over her shoulder and trying to push me away. He even grabbed by arm and pushed with his arms and tried to scoot his butt out. Luckily I'm stronger than him so he didn't fall. They sat in the chair and I fixed his milk and then came back to bed to write this. This may not seem like a big deal but it really is to us. The way Noah looked at us when he cried like that was heartbreaking. To have him back to 'normal' is priceless. I know it sounds like a Mastercard commercial but it's true.

Jenna's body is getting stronger each day but not all wounds are to the body and some wounds are shared between us all. Having him back filled a gap in our home that was impossible to describe. Having his trust back shows that we are truly healing as a family from this dreadful disease.

"My name is Jenna and I have a Demarol problem."

"Hi Jenna!"
Okay its not that bad but Jenna went back to Dr. Cross today to plead her case for a refill of the Demarol. It's not that she's in pain. She's just really stiff. The deal breaker for her has been that she's not sleeping. The Darvacet at night has made her crazy. She talks in her sleep. I don't mean a word here or there. I mean she has conversations that I have to shake her awake from. The best so far was last night at 3AM when she started laughing. I mean really laughing. I woke her up to get her to stop. I asked what she was laughing at and she said, "Susan told me a joke." Then she went back to sleep. I had a hard time going to sleep because I kept one eye open looking for Noah's babysitter who apparently in her spare time is a stand up comedian in the middle of the night in my bedroom. This story is only slightly weirder than the other night when she woke up scratching my arm.

The title of this post is funny to me because Cross told her 'No.' She said 'But.' And he still said 'No.' He said she looks good and she's not in pain so there's no reason to be on a Class 2 narcotic. I never knew my wife had a drug problem. I guess it's just one more cross Noah and I will have to bear :)

What 2 weeks gets you these days...

I want to thank everyone in my family who pitched in the past couple of weeks to take care of the Biscuit (Noah). We never could have felt comfortable the past 2+ weeks if Noah was with anyone other than his family. It made the nights without him bearable knowing the people caring for him loved him as much as anyone in this world. The proof was that you were all sad to see him come back home. I really don't know what we would have done without your support and loving care. If you had not stepped to the plate then Granda and Pops would have and then they wouldn't have been there to offer the support for both Jenna and myself. Geez, come to think of it I don't know how we would have survived this without them too. I owe you guys a huge debt of gratitude as well. I've gotten slightly off topic but please know that Jenna and I are the luckiest people in the world to have a family strong in both support and love.

Now back to the topic. I didn't think Noah would change much in 2 weeks but apparently I don't know much. Jenna thinks he's taller but I can't tell. What I can tell is the 4 top teeth that shine when he smiles. The coordination when he runs now is much more fluid and graceful...graceful may be overstating things a tad. He can open a flip phone now. He says 'oggie' for the dogs. He says 'Daaaeee' much more pronounced. He knows his ears and his toes (to go along with the belly, nose, and eyes we taught him). And most of all his fits have now grown from 4's on the richter scale to a full 8. Thankfully we don't live in California. My favorite fit by far was when he wanted the phone and I said 'No.' He started to wail. Then he walked in the other room looking for Jenna. The door to the room was shut so he stopped crying and walked back to me in the living room. Only I wasn't there. I had migrated to the kitchen. He looked around, saw me, walked to the kitchen, and then when I made eye contact with him...he started to cry again. Of course, I relented and picked him up because it was too funny.

Both Magga and Mamaw have had a bad habit the past 2 weeks of laying down with Noah for both naps and when he woke up in the night. I really expected to have a hard time getting him down tonight after 2 weeks of sleeping with grandmother's but after he calmed down he fell asleep in my arms in his chair. I put him down and he didn't budge. Now I can't promise he won't wake up at 2AM screaming but so far so good.