Riding for Roses

Oh dear, what a long hiatus. I feel a desire to dig through my journal and family newsletter to backdate some postings to reflect the past 9 months, but for now I’ll just dive right in.

Spencer is doing well overall, but we had some minor problems last week. Over Spring Break (which ended March 18), we had a fun trip to the Dallas/Fort Worth area where we hit science museum, zoo, aquarium, Boy Scout Museum, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Spencer was coughing a fair amount. Monday night after we got home and he went to school, he woke up in the middle of the night with an earache so bad that he woke us to help him. Unfortunately, he came in at 2:45 AM in after I had just settled down from an hour of coughing fits. I gave him ear drops to ease the pain and he got to bed. I took a little cold medicine.

Tuesday morning, we went to his regular pediatrician. By this time, Spencer had a wheeze and Dr. Cardwell was concerned he might have pneumonia and ordered a chest X-ray. Spencer was scheduled for a procedure on Wednesday and we had to postpone that. The Chest X-ray was clear (I’ll have to scan it and upload it, it’s really cool to see his port-a-cath on the X-ray), so we’re probably good. Just in case, he had an appointment with the oncologist Wednesday and they drew blood to culture. We return tomorrow to check things out and reschedule the procedure that was to be.

In other news, we are talking about plans to ride 2 days of RAGBRAI (I am writing the check now) and ride the 70 mile ride in the LIVESTRONG Challenge on October 14.

More on all of this later.