Castles and cupcakes

Megan's class at school did a unit on fairy tales that culminated in each student building a castle. As Meg has been home for several weeks now, she and I studied up on castles ourselves online. We even used Google maps to find the Tower of London on a satellite picture. We learned about moats and keeps and gatehouses. She built a wonderful castle and painted it orange with yellow spots and brown towers. The keep is striped red and purple. We had a lot of fun :) Rob dropped it off at school for us with her homework (I've been working with her at home so she keeps up with what her class is going over - her teacher has been wonderful :) ) and we were able to stop by for just a little bit during the open house so she could say hi to her teacher and see her castle on display with the other castles. Below is a shot of her with her finished masterpiece ~



Our friends have been such a support through this whole ordeal. The other night the doorbell rang and it was a friend with chocolate cupcakes that his wife made for us. All of us enjoyed them, but Jack managed to enjoy his to such an extent that frosting even ended up in his hair :)



Megan went back to Cook's today for her chest x-ray and more blood tests. We have appts next week (Wed.) for the echo and abdominal ultrasound. I'm gaining empathy for parents of seriously ill children. Rob and I are having a hard time with this. Some days I'm fine and able to look on the bright side of things and other days I feel like all I do is try to stop myself from being too scared to function. I think the waiting is the worst part. They run tests on Meg, then we have to wait and wait for the results. The tests don't give many answers, so we have to go to another dr appt, where we wait and wait and then they tell us what tests they're going to do next. I go home and try to figure out what all the new information means and then we go get more tests done. We come home and wait and wait for the results and the cycle starts again.

Fortunately we have an incredible support system. Even when I withdraw and ignore everyone, friends show up at our doorstep with dinner or call and leave messages or send emails letting me know they are there. Beca took me out for dinner and shopping on Saturday to give me a break (Rob got out later that night so he got a break too). Angela brought over dinner on Sunday. Jayneanne brought over dinner on Monday. Crysta sent over cupcakes and has spent hours on the phone with me. Laura (who is a nurse and works in a pediatrician's office) has spent countless hours (seriously hours and hours) helping me understand what the test results mean and helping me learn what I need to in order to make sure that Megan gets the care she needs. The primary president arranged for someone else to teach my class at church. Others from church have filled in for Rob or let us know to call them if we need anything. Rob's team at Fidelity is working with him so he can take off the days we need him home. Christy brought us dinner last night and took this afternoon off to watch the other kids while I took Meg in since Rob's taken off several days this week already. Her boss at Fidelity has told her he will make sure she gets time off when she needs it to help us out. He even put Megan's name on his church's prayer group list. Molly sent a care package with goodies for the kids. My parents have offered help in so many ways, even offering to pay for a plane ticket to fly someone down to help or if we can't find someone to drop everything and fly down themselves. Rob's parents have been such an emotional support for him and his mother is even considering coming down if we need her to. Kate has sent text messages and voice mails and called several times. Sus and Trav have done the same. Meg's teacher at school is working with us so she doesn't get behind in any area. The school secretary is doing what she can to make sure everything is documented so that the amount of school Megan is missing isn't a problem. That's not including any of the emails, calls, text messages and other ways people have let us know they care. While this is one of the hardest things I've ever gone through, we are so lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives! Thank you to each of you :)