COOKIE's Memorial Weekend SUNDAY

Dearest Friends and Family,
Most of you know that there are three things that COOKIE loves (not counting Parker)....
Hilary Duff, the color PINK, and turtles, not necessarily in that order. One of the doctor's came in this morning and told COOKIE that he was thinking about her and how much she loves turtles. He wanted to remind her that the "slowest turtle wins the race". Our girl is as slow as a turtle when it comes to producing white blood cells. They went up a point today. At least they're going in the right direction. It was little consolation for COOKIE though. She's been a little depressed and very, very homesick. She woke up and felt like crying immediately this morning. Never a good way to start the day. (Sunday)

Aunt Shannon took Parker home to Palm Desert for a 2 day visit to her house. This is the first time he's ever been away from home without Mommy or Daddy or Grandma. He was so excited and so was Uncle Johnny and Aunt Shannon and their friend, Gave. They went grocery shopping and went to Toys R' Us to buy new pool toys! He's going to have a wonderful time! Mommy spoke with Auntie Shannon tonight and he's had a great day and the weather hasn't been too brutal either. Today they races remote control boats in the pool. Tomorrow they swim. He told Auntie Shannon, "Thank you for letting me live with you for a couple of days."

I went to the hospital about noon and forced Shelee and Matt to leave and go do something for the afternoon. COOKIE and I talked and played Yahtzee (She won one and I won one. We quit at that.) We watched "Pirates of the Carribean". In between she had to do her mouthwash, take her pills, irrigate her sinuses, take some new liquid meds for the blood in her urine, put on her Emla Cream to get ready for her injection at 7:00pm. She ate some lunch and took a little nappy poo too. Every time I tried to turn off the movie, she would open her eyes so I just left it on. When she woke up we still had a good hour to finish the movie. BUT, she still had to take more medicine, get her shot, take her bath, get her dressing changed and irrigate her sinuses again and take a BOAT LOAD of medicine AGAIN!

Sometime in the afternoon we had a cry together and a serious chat about working really hard to stay positive, to stay thankful, to try to greet each day with a smile and to understand that this is TEMPORARY! She is so homesick and you can see it all over her beautiful face. COOKIE wants to just quit all of this business and go home. Well, guess what? That's not acceptable now, is it. But, WHO CAN BLAME HER?

Before I left, COOKIE had a slight headache. She took some Tylenol and said it was getting better. I went home about 9:00pm and I called to say goodnight about 10:20pm. COOKIE was vomiting. She had gotten herself (and her mommy) all worked up and she got sick trying to take her BOAT LOAD of pills. After she got sick, she felt better and got all of her medications down. Tomorrow is a new day and hopefully all the talking that both Shelee and I did today will help her (and us) to keep putting our best foot forward and get through this.

The pictures show COOKIE after sinus surgery and COOKIE two days later. She's a remarkable little girl with an old soul and a heavy burden on her shoulders. She's certainly entitled to a couple of "off" days but that's it! She's got to find her strength again and fight the good fight. I know my COOKIE. She'll be back tomorrow in full force.

I'll close this blog with two words.....cancer sucks.
With love,
Cookie, The Grandma