Prelude to a punishing week

Good morning! Well, here at Dungan manor, we are now sitting in the first day of scan week. I know, I know, it snuck up on us. Truth be known, until late last week, we had no idea either. But, here we are. I am sure the days will follow with my usual ramblings and skittish behavior. Thankfully, though, for the next few days, everyone gets to relax before I become the other psychotic form of myself. The fun will officially begin on Wednesday with the bulk of the fanfare on Thursday. Yes, at this late date as we get farther and farther out from diagnosis, our scan week has turned into scan day and a half. We have cut some of the meat out of our scanning schedule. At this point there will just be CT and MIBG scans. More on that later.

For now, carpe diem. There are other things to talk about on this fine day - like the fact that Sydney received straight As on her report card. Yep, you heard me, the little brainiac did splendidly and evenly topped that off with some exceptional behaviors in work ethic. Who would have thought? Well technically, I did, but I have already established that I am full of myself so this is only a natural progression. I am incredibly proud. There are many late effects from all of the chemo that can cause learning disabilities. However, this is one indication that things are continuing to develop normally - a big relief.

Graham received his report card as well. His is not As and Bs but that is no fault of his own. They simply do not provide letter grades in kindergarten. His is a cryptic set of +s, -s, and Xs and Os on a litany of different skill sets. Clearly he is doing well but he has room for improvement in some of the areas where his parents have failed. For example, he needs improvement on his site words - words that he recognizes on site. That is probably largely due to the fact that Mom and Dad have not focused on that area of homework with him as much as we should have. It is more a mark on us than him. The good news is that we have spent the last couple of weeks getting him back up to speed so we are hoping that by the time of our teacher conference this Friday we will be able to say his parental deficiency has been corrected.

Ainsley has not received anything as of yet. We will certainly keep you updated as soon as we hear anything but, in her case, we are expecting nothing but good things. Let's hope we are right.

Well, I had best be off. There is a mountain of work today, considering this week will be dominated by doctor's appointments and teacher meetings. Work does not seem to care that we have other obligations.

That is why it is up to me to determine my purpose.