More than a Tumor: June 2013

For those of you that are new to our blog, we are currently catching everyone up to speed and are now "up to" June of 2013. We have a long way to go to get to present day, but it's important to us that you know our back story and how we got to where we are today. If you are new, you may want to start from the beginning so you don't feel lost. Thank you for joining us on our journey!

We were slowly getting our normalcy of life back. Before Nate's diagnosis, we really thought we were living life to the fullest, but when something like this happens, it's like a slap in the face. And some days, there are more reminders than others. Any other parent of a typical 21 month old wouldn't necessarily worry about their child falling and possibly hitting their head, however slightly. But, for whatever reason, Nate just likes to hit his head; a lot. It gets so frustrating. Are we worrying too much? Are we not being careful? Is there more that we can do? How hard is too hard when hitting his head? These are all questions that pop up every time he falls; questions that we would learn to process each time he bumped his head on something.

We went through June of 2013, enjoying the sun and our pool as much as the weather would allow us. Ben was starting to enjoy playing sports on the XBox Kinect so it was definitely something fun to do when it rained or at night. We were also working on Nate's appetite. It was so very hard to watch him eat so little when before surgery, he ate EVERYTHING. By the middle of the month, he was finally eating full meals and even tried chicken again. Like I said, day to day. His sleep was creeping later into the morning. When I say later, I mean 5, maybe 5:30. It was definitely better than 4! He still wasn't sleeping through the night, but getting up for the day at 5:30 is glorious when you're used to 4!

Father's Day arrived. It was a day I was dreading. It was my first Father's Day without my Dad, who passed away suddenly in July 2012. I bowled in pro tour stop in Connecticut and then came back home. It's just simply a tough day. We were approaching the anniversary of his death and I would be done with the first year of all the "firsts" without him. Those of you that have lost parents (or any loved one for that matter) can relate.

We were also coming up on Nathan's first official follow-up MRI to check for growth of the tumor. I thought I was anxious on the days leading up to his MRI to check the size of the ventricles, but I was quickly learning all about scanxiety and how it truly affects your life.