Friday's appointment update and Christmas with the Smith's

Yesterday went much better than anticipated.  Amanda did very well, all things considered.  She received her Avastin infusion, fluids and her white blood cell booster shot.  With Tom at work, Maw Maw, Papa Smith and Brandon went along.  She had plenty of stories that she shared and everyone came by wanting to know how the trip went.  That helped out a lot.

While we were in the Dell infusion room, we had the opportunity to meet the Texas Longhorn Swim team while they were visiting.  Couldn't miss that photo op!  If you will notice in the picture, my dad and Amanda couldn't help but gig 'em!  Right after the picture, they laughed about it and Dad congratulated them on their Big 12 conference win and their excellent team.  They were a great group of girls!

Once we were through with the infusions, we met with Dr. Harrod.  We are scheduled to start chemo on January 3 and this time, Amanda will only take one pill per night!!  That is a huge improvement from last cycles where she took 6 pills a night.  They have raised her dosage a little so at that dose there is a single pill that she can take.  Amanda was more than thrilled at that announcement and so was I.  I can only imagine how much easier this will be for her.  Her labs came back great, and even though we are entering that time frame in her cycle that her numbers will drop and she may start to feel a tired more easily, she should still have a great Christmas break.   We will have her MRI on the 22nd and then we won't get the results until the 28th on their Neurology/Oncology day when both Dr. Harrod and Dr. George and his team will be in clinic.  I'm already working on not becoming anxious during the "wait."

Today we are at my parent's celebrating Christmas with the Smith side.  So many months of preparations and shopping ends more quickly than we would like.  It was a fun morning watching both the kids and adults open their presents.  It is a bittersweet day for me since this is our first Christmas without Grampy.  Just wasn't the same opening presents without him here. 

Tomorrow is my birthday and thankfully, Thomas is off.  :)  I am glad to be able to spend my day with the family attending church together.  The rest of our week will be pretty low key.  Tom has off Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and we are both excited about that.  We will have our own family Christmas on Christmas Eve, then attend Crestview's Christmas Eve services which gives us all day Christmas to enjoy before Tom goes back to work.  Our Watson Christmas is Saturday, the 28th.

Sounds like a we have a great week ahead!  We have come home and hit the ground running.  I am ready to spend some time at home and unpack/clean up the craziness that is my den.  More important than that, I can't wait to start working on our vacation photo album!

The Texas Longhorn Swim team (and the two troublemakers) ;)

Ginger opening her first present.

Ginger loves all the attention...

From the Smith Family - Merry Christmas!!