Since we have been home even though we are facing down the scariest thing we have ever encountered medically we are somehow finding a calm within the storm.   We still are at the hospital at this point for clinical checkups or for chemo therapy but we can go home at the end of the day and be in our own home and sleep in our own beds.   You never really let it out of your head what you are going through but somehow the new normal begins to set in and things aren’t as raw.  I have found myself going to far into this desensitization and losing my tact when someone ask me how I have been or what I have been up to.   I ran into a customer that has become a friend randomly at the airport while I was leaving for my first trip since all of this has happened.  He asked me how have you been and I just dumped my rather jarring story on him.  As his mouth hung open in shock I realized I could have presented that better or even just answered fine to the question like everybody else does that is carrying around their stuff.   Then I awkwardly found a way out of the conversation and said good bye.  I later texted him and apologized for tactless blabbering and he was very nice to say no worries.

The first weekend home we started to really notice Audrey losing her hair quite a bit as we were brushing it and it was just getting tangled a lot more than normal as you could see the hair was dying.   When you would brush her hair there would just be a pile of hair in your lap.  While I was repairing the roof from the dust storm that had ripped off a 10 x 20 foot section of our roof while at the hospital Melissa came out to let me know she was going to trim Audrey’s hair out on the porch if I wanted to come hang out.   She ended up doing a great job and her hair was actually very cute that way even though it had thinned a bunch on the back and top she still had enough it looked really cute.   Cole had decided at this point he wanted to save Audrey’s hair from the brush as well as what we cut off.  He had been saving it in a creepy pile on his book shelf so Melissa said he could keep it but he had to put it in a bag and store it somewhere she couldn’t see it.  I ask him why he needed it and he said because he might want to look at it when she is bald.

The week before while in the hospital we had finished our first 3 weeks of chemo and we were starting week 4 of treatment.  This is a week I have been dreading and at the same time looking forward to.   Week 4 we get an MRI so we can see what has been going on inside and what the state of the tumors is.   Knowing that the oncologist also has no idea what type of results we will see as well since there are only a few cases to go off.  Unfortunately this is also my first week back to traveling and I will not be home for the MRI or for the follow up appointments that will follow.    This trip is from Phoenix to Minneapolis for a meeting then connecting through Dallas on my way to Raleigh, NC for a meeting.   During my plane ride from Minneapolis to Dallas Melissa has the appointment with the oncologist.  As soon as I land in Dallas I give Melissa a call and she has good news. Up to this point there has been very little good news.  It seems like every turn has been darker and scarier that the next.  She tells me the tumors have receded some and that the oncologist is happy with the scan.  At this point that is about all we know.  We are the cautiously optimistic that things are moving in the right direction.  The next day Audrey went to see the neurosurgeon who really love her.   He was so excited to see the scans.  He said the syrinx has completely diminished and the tumor that he saw inside of the spinal cord was no longer visible.  His face was lit up and for once he got to give us good news.