We have calculated that I will be finished with the current treatment that I am doing on November 3rd. Can I tell you how excited I’ll be to not have to schedule my life around whether or not I’m going to smell like DMSO?? I’m going to a concert on Monday night with a couple of friends from Bend, so I have to stop my treatment on Friday in order to air out for a couple of days. Then, by Monday I’ll be odorless enough to be presentable in public. Nice, eh? Tyler had a carnival at his school last week and I was so relieved that when we walked into the gym, we were overwhelmed with the aroma of hot, sweaty kids. My aroma was then not so obvious.

So at this point, I think that I will have an MRI and a PET scan done at the end of that week, around November 6th or 7th (or whenever I can hitch a ride).

In other news, Tyler had his first field trip today to the pumpkin patch. He was so excited when he got back home. He got to go on a hay ride, go through a maze, go down a slide, eat a donut and apple cider. But the most exciting thing about the whole day was (drumroll…..) He got to ride on a bus. What? Really?? What I remember about buses was having to sit down on that cold, hard plastic seat that had writing and holes with foam sticking out of them, and the pugnant smell of exhaust fumes. And this mostly took place at a time of day when I was pretty sure I should still be sleeping. I guess we gain a distorted view of the finer things in life as we get older.

Trent is still not really speaking well, which has me a little bit concerned (I know he only turned 2 last week). He can say his vowels really well, but just sort of eliminates all consonants in-between those vowels. It’s really sad because he’ll come up to me “Ma, ma, ma, ma….gung, gung, gung, gung-gun”. He has the voice inflections, so I know that there is really purpose in what he’s trying to say, but I just can’t read inbetween the lines of gung-gung. I try to act like I know what he’s saying and quickly divert his attention elsewhere before he gets frustrated, which iw working well for the time being. Everybody tells me not to worry, as long as he understands what we’re saying to him and will respond to it, which he does very well. Tyler was already speaking fairly well at this age (per his baby book), so hopefully Trent grows out of this soon. Although I’m a bit conflicted. Tyler talks enough for everybody, so it’s kind of nice to not have verbal competition going on the house.

I’m so amazed at how hard my husband works everyday. And he does work every single day. He’s at work by 7, usually home by 7:30-8. He has Sunday afternoons off, but still works in the morning. There is so much going on right now, so his workload is especially heavy. It will be nice when things slow down a bit and he can whiddle his workdays down to 10 hours. Sheesh…He is such an amazing man, and we are so blessed to have him as a father/husband. He is a constant joy to my kids, which I love to watch, and a constant source of love and comfort for me. God has definitely stretched and matured us over the past several years, and I’m just so blessed by Marvin’s commitment to me. Wow, I can’t even write this down without getting emotional. I’m such a lucky girl.