grateful for every sigh of relief :)

Well today was full of sighs of relief!
The girls and I dropped Marcus off for his appointment with Cardiopulmonary today at MD Anderson. The fluid in his Denver Cath just has not been coming out since our last drain Dec 26-which we are grateful for, but just wanted to make sure the fluid was actually gone in the pleural cavity before the cath is removed...well, the x-ray wasn't really completely conclusive-but the dr. tried to drain cath but couldn't get anything either...so he decided to take it out! Marcus was so pleased!! BIG SIGH OF RELIEF #1!!
While Marcus was handling the Denver cath appt., I decided to take the girls to the Houston Museum of Natural Science until he was done and before their appt at 2:15.....we were blessed with a great parking spot right by the door-BIG SIGH OF RELIEF #2! and really enjoyed ourselves...dinosaurs, bugs, animals, energy, chemistry-very eventful museum tour-but my favorite part was the Butterfly exhibit! I could have stayed in there ALL DAY!! I even had a butterfly land on me-Sela was mad because she wanted one to land on her so bad-and I had to threaten to beat Sloane so she wouldn't try and grab it off my shirt and put it on hers!!! They were able to touch some dead butterflies that the nice volunteer brought by-and they seemed pretty happy with their butterfly experience! Marcus was done around 1pm and we drove back to get him, grabbed a bite to eat-then headed to their appt all together.....BIG SIGH OF RELIEF #3!!
Girls had their annual dermatolgoist appointment-first time with new pediatric dermatologist in hst-dr. hebert-she was wonderful-I guess once she saw on their paperwork that their daddy was Stage IV Metastatic Melanoma, she decided to call all interns she had in her office in the room to learn ;) She came in with about 5 interns (thankfully all female or Sela would have flipped out more than she already did!) She went over all the girls moles and explained to interns and me what they were called, what we needed to be concerned with, etc...and THANK GOD-everything on them is normal! Sloane's little new freckle on her bottom lip had me concerned-and the dr said it was good that I was aware and concerned because moles on mucousal (not sure if I really spelled that right) areas are at a higher risk of metastazing if they are Melanoma-so she said to keep a close eye on that one and keep chapstick with sunscreen on her lips! Sloane will be very happy with me now-she hates stuff on her lips unless it is sparkly-guess I am now in search of sparkly chapstick with sunscreen ;) Sela has a large mole on her back that I have never liked, but dr. says it is fine-just keep watching and come back next year-and we will! She also explained to the girls-more to Sela since she is older and actually understands-how they needed to take really good care of their skin, wearing sunscreen always, protective clothing, hats, etc. and getting their moles checked for the rest of their lives-due to the family history with their daddy-I made Sela repeat what dr. hebert told her so she couldn't get mad at me when I was hounding her about all this soon ;) And I also made her promise that even when she was a grown up she would always get her moles checked and her kid's moles checked-she agreed, but then she said, "how do you know I'm gonna have kids?" ;) I was just happy with her promising me this and for the good news about their moles being normal! BIG SIGH OF RELIEF #4!!

So Sela starts school tomorrow, Marcus goes back for labwork locally to make sure all his counts are still good, and we get back to normal life until Jan 19-21 when Marcus goes back to MD Anderson for scans to see how this CVD chemo cocktail performed! We are still standing in faith, believing that God will heal him from the inside out-and we will not accept anything else!!!! Please stand with me in faith-Love you all!!!!