Clara

I know that a lot of you don't know Clara Jean personally, so I thought that I would tell you a story or two about her. A story that will show, a little bit better, who she is.

Clara was an easy baby. She was content and entertained herself. She was always moving and exploring, but was so easily entertained. Her favorite thing was high heeled shoes. That girl could walk in heels better than I can at age 2. I am not kidding.

One Thanksgiving we were with some of our extended family having breakfast. Clara was about 20 months old and I think that it was the first time that she had spent time with my grandparents. They live in Florida and we don't get to see them as often as I would like. Anyway, Clara had on her little nightgown and a pair of her grandma's high heels. The floor was tiled and she was stomping all around in them. My grandma (remember, CJ really didn't know her) was sitting on the couch with her breakfast plate. Clara walked right over to her, grabbed the bacon off of her plate, stuck in her mouth and pranced off. It was a riot!

A couple of years later I was sitting on the couch in our living room. Clara and I were the only ones at home at the time and I heard her talking, coming down the stairs. As she came around the corner I saw that she was talking on the phone. Now I hadn't heard the phone ring, but I could have missed it. So I asked her who it was. "It's Bob" she says. So I ask her, "who? who is Bob?" She leans in, points at the phone and whispers, "it's this guy on the phone." And I ask her again, "WHO??? Who is Bob??" She leans in again and whispers, "Bob is the guy who is going to give me Cinderella checks." WHAT!!?? I take the phone away from her and ask the man on the other end, Bob, who he is. He gets a little mouthy and tells me that he is selling checks to that woman and that I better give her the phone back. I tell him that that woman is my 3 year old daughter and I hang up. Clara is gone. I go and find her, in her room, crying with a flyer from check.com. Sure enough, she had dialed the 1-800 number and told Bob that she wanted Cinderella checks! She was crying because I hung up on Bob and now she wasn't going to get the checks that she wanted.

How we're doing

I just wanted to share a little about how Clara Jean has been doing. And the rest of us, for that matter. CJ is amazing. She is doing so well in/at school. The last week that she had chemo was the week before last. On that Tuesday, for the first time all year, she told Mrs. Heep that she wasn't feeling well. I went to pick her up and she came home and crashed. On Wednesday she did the same thing. Then last week she went every day, all day! And she felt good the whole time! I was so excited. Her ANC was very high at her last treatment, almost 5000! No wonder she feels good. I mean, it was 220 the night she went into the hospital.

And at school she is doing so well. Her grades are great and she is controlling her emotions so well. She isn't getting into any trouble, at all. Not even for talking too much! She is still struggling a little at home with her emotions and her temper. I think that she works so hard at school that by the time she gets home she is just done. But even here, things are improving.

Monday is a chemo day. My sister, Kylie, will be here from Indiana visiting. CJ asked me if Aunt Kylie can come to chemo with us. She said, "I want Aunt Kylie to see how strong and brave I am. She is going to be so proud of me." Just precious.

The rest of us are doing pretty well. Tom is working two jobs and is hardly ever home. That is pretty hard on my girls and on me, but we are dealing with it. He has been working two jobs for a while but he started a new 2nd job about 6 weeks ago that is a lot more hours than the one he had before. And when I say a lot I mean he went from maybe 8 hours to 20-25 hours a week. Oh' and he did start working on his MBA again, so that is good.

Lillie is doing well in middle school. Straight A's. Boys. Make-up. New cell phone. You know, all the things that make 12 year olds tick.

Emma is also doing well in 5th grade. Ditto the above except the make-up and the cell phone. She has to wait a little while longer for those to kick in.

And of course Della is as cute as ever. She loves preschool and is just a little ray of sunshine. She truly is the happiest kid I have ever been around.

The three of them have been incredible sisters to Clara. Don't get me wrong, they still fight like sisters do. But they have been supportive and loving. And this hasn't been easy on them. It is scary to see your little sister, who is usually the spunky one, sick. And it has been hard on them too because we never know how CJ is going to feel or what she is going to feel like doing. It seems like every time we think about doing something or the girls ask to do something the answer is always, "I don't know, we have to see how Clara is feeling."

Lung update

I took Clara to see a pulmonologist. They examined her chest x-ray and decided to do a lung function test. After the test the respiratory therapist came in and give Clara a breathing treatment. Then they did another lung function test. On the second test her lung function had improved by 10%. That generally isn't enough of an increase for the pulmonologist to think that the breathing treatment did it's job, but in this case she decided that the breathing treatment helped.

The doctor told us that there is inflammation in her lungs that is usually caused by acid reflux or asthma. So the pulmonologist decided to treat Clara for both. CJ had horrible acid reflux as a baby and the chemo/steroids often cause stomach problems. So they gave her an inhaler and put her on an acid reducer. We go back to see them the end of November so they can re-evaluate her condition. I will say that her cough improved dramatically in just a few days of the treatment and she seems to be feeling better than she has felt in a long time.