Above is a link to a video that we recorded a couple days ago with my cell phone. Hopefully it works for everyone. If not let us know in the comments and we will try to figure out what we did wrong.
We have finally sort of recovered from the wide range of emotions we experienced at the spaghetti feed yesterday. First of all we would love to thank those that were responsible for putting it all together, you know who you are. I have heard stories and saw first hand the hours that went into the organization of the wonderfully run event. Secondly, we would like to thank the Cascio’s for not only allowing us to use the hall but also for making an outstanding meal and making it look easy. Third, I want to thank the students that absolutely worked their tails off all day long. It was three hours into the event before I saw any of the kids getting to sit down or eat any of the food. Not only did they bring out food and clean up the mess, but they also were in the kitchen organizing the plates as well. Lastly, I would like to thank everyone that came out to support our beautiful daughter. Over 800 plates were served and around 150 items were bid on and paid for. Thanks to all involved, it took till sunday night before what had taken place sunk in.
Now onto the important stuff. How is Emma?? As you can see in the video above we are still seeing glimpses of the super happy version of Emma. Friday and Saturday Emma was in almost constant pain which was evident by the fact that she whined every time she was moved and awake. Because of the pain, Emma spent the majority of the day and evening Friday sleeping this obviously caused her to barely sleep at all Friday night. Talk about a crash course in new baby mode. We had quickly gotten used to our daughter sleeping through the night every night, one of the major benefits of a thumb sucker. Saturday was a continuation of the behavior from Friday with a little less sleeping during the day. Thank goodness Emma decided to sleep through the night on Saturday and even decided to wake up smiley and happy on Sunday morning. This wonderful development allowed us to take Emma with us to the benefit, a wonderful surprise. Emma would also like to thank her aunts, uncles, grandparents, Patty, and Melissa for cuddling with her throughout the day.
Tomorrow we embark on a new challenge with a surgery to implant a port, shunt, and have an MRI done of her spine as a baseline for future uses. The surgeries will start around 12:30 p.m. tomorrow and we have been told that all of the work should be done in less than five hours. The amount of time in actual surgery will be much less than this but switching between surgeons and having a spinal MRI done will take quite a bit of time. We will try our hardest to post on the site throughout the afternoon to help everyone pray with specific details. I’m pretty sure that the more specific the prayers the more effective they are.
Wednesday will be a test on Emma’s ability to be #EmmaStrong. Less than 24 hours after her surgeries Emma will undergo her first session of chemotherapy. We have been told that Dr. Abromowich has suggested that we start chemo with Emma as soon as possible after the surgery. We haven’t been told why there is a rush we are just hoping that it is a sign that they think she is strong enough and want to get started beating the tumor right now. This and the majority of the sessions will last six hours. I hope we will be able to cuddle and play with Emma while this is going on but very little is known about what the process actually looks like.
One more little blip about our life, tonight Kathryn and I walked into the living room to hear Aiden hunched over Emma saying “I’ve been so worried about you Emma. Everything is going to be ok. Love you Emma. Don’t cry it will be ok.” You can imagine what this did to our emotions. We are most definitely blessed to have two children as wonderful as they are.
Thanks to all that have made the transition to the EmmaStrong site, we like that we have the ability to incorporate as many pictures as we want as well as videos of the Emma into the process. If there are any major issues with the site let us know because we have almost entire control of what the site is going to look like as we go along. Also if you are not receiving the update emails there are 50 people that have yet to confirm their email addresses that the site sends out. If you didn’t receive this email look in your spam folder it may be in there as well. If all else fails just sign up again and the message will be at the top of your spam folder again. God Bless each and everyone of you.