Heading to Disney!

Derek with his hives!!

We are getting packed and ready for our trip. We will drive to Orlando early Saturday morning and be back on Saturday the 9th. We're so excited to go and Troy said that he isn't even going to look at his phone! Troy has been doing really well. He has been going into work like he used to do before his diagnosis. He started on Monday of last week and has been doing it pretty steady. He stayed home Thursday to work from home, but besides that he is up and out the door by 7am. He struggles a little with his eating and wishes he could just enjoy food the way he used to. We will be going to Cobb Hospital on the 18th to have his port removed, so he will have to recover from that, but all in all things are really a lot better. My sister, Tonya, stopped by with her family while vacationing around the South. She was only here for a couple of hours, but it was so nice to see a piece of New York/family. Olivia, Christopher, and Logan (the cousins) are shown above with Ryan and Derek. Derek has only a couple of weeks of school left. He finishes on the 15th of May. He will be going to Kennesaw Elementary's Kindergarten orientation tomorrow. Ryan is signed up for the Fall to go to St. Catherine's Preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Derek went to the doctor (and the hospital) last weekend for hives. He was on all kinds of medicine for 5 days and he is going to the allergist on the 12th. I actually think he may have an allergy to sorbitol. It's a long story, but he had an allergic reaction a couple of years ago and we linked it to fluoride tablets that he had taken with that inactive ingredient in them and this past reaction I found the same ingredient in some frosted animal cookies that he had chowed down. We'll see what the doctor thinks. Anyway, he is doing fine and his reaction, luckily, was just cosmetic (not to mention he was extremely itchy) and didn't affect his breathing or anything. We have a week of doctor's appointments when we return from vacation. Troy has to go to the ENT Monday for his monthly visit, Derek sees the allergist Tuesday, Troy goes to the dentist for a post radiation visit (who knows what damage the radiation may have done), and on Thursday, Troy sees Dr. Knauer for his pre-op visit. Ahhhhhhh, vacation is only 5 days away!!! We will leave the chaos behind us for a week.

Complete Remission

Troy had his appointments with Dr. Goldsweig and Dr. Riley on Friday. His MRI showed up clean once again and everything is looking good. Troy is still having a hard time sleeping, but everything else is picking up finally. Thanks so much to Sharon Egitton (and Joe and Lauren) for coming to the house on Friday to keep Derek and Ryan company. They had a blast and we really appreciate you helping us out.

Today we will be going to see Dr. Knauer, the general surgeon who installed Troy's port. This appointment is for a consultation to remove the port. I'm assuming we will schedule the appointment for the surgery to remove it as well. Also, tomorrow, Troy will be going to see Dr. Osborn and he will have his feeding tube removed - YAAAYYYYY! He is so excited to have this removed.

The clouds are beginning to part and the sun is definitely starting to come through in our world. We are heading to Disneyworld on May 2nd through the 9th for a family celebration. We can't wait. We hope everyone had a nice Easter/holiday.

Starting to eat solid foods

Troy has had a good week and a half of trying solid foods. He can handle softer foods with some struggle. It still hurts, but the healing is definitely starting. Troy went for his MRI on Friday and we get the results this Friday. He hasn't had any appointments otherwise since the last post. We have scheduled an appointment with Dr. Osborn to have Troy's PEG tube removed before our trip to Disneyworld on May 2nd. We're anticipating good news this Friday. Keep us in your prayers.

Derek is registered for Kindergarten (I did that on Wednesday). He has his 3rd T-ball game today. It's a make-up game since all it has been doing around here lately is raining. We took the boys to the Eggstravaganza yesterday and they had a good time hunting for eggs, seeing the animals, and getting up on the fire truck and getting in the police car.

The pollen is awful this time of the year and for those of you up North who have never experienced it, the cars get yellow with pollen dust. Everyone is washing their vehicles around here - it's like the road salt and dirt on the cars up North during the Winter. It's pretty wild. Luckily, none of us seem to have allergies, so we are faring well.

We will let you know how Friday goes.