Doctors and Pancakes

Today, like many days these days, started with the doctor. We went for a checkup...I think he just has to be responsible and not take my word for everything over the phone...besides, he doesn't get a co-pay for phone time. He mashed around a little on her stomach, no pain, hurray!!

He ordered a bunch of blood work, he said it might not come back perfect, but we expect her pancreatic enzymes to be a little lower if we are doing the right thing. He is also checking some things he didn't check last time because we didn't know it was her pancreas then...her blood sugar and cholesterol levels. One of these could lead us to "why" perhaps.

He also asked us to have her eat a meal with a little fat in it, to test and see if her pancreas is still spasming. If she ate fat and wound up in tons of pain, it's spasming, if not it's still messed up, but done spasming...weird test. Since she was fasting for her blood tests, she wanted breakfast right afterwards and decided on pancakes. You would have thought she was eating some gourmet, 5-story high dessert...she oohed and aahed....the butter was SO good, and the pancakes were the BEST pancakes she had ever eaten!

It's bedtime now and we still don't have any pain, so she withstood the little bit of fat...hooray! I'm just not willing to set us back too far. If we get her pancreas irritated again, it could start making the tumor bigger again. We want to keep it quiet, so back to our vegan diet we go.

Cierra was concerned today about not getting the same treatment as Aspen these days...gifts to help her stay quiet and rest, lots of cards and emails, etc. We offered to buy her as many gifts as Aspen got if she would eat the vegan diet. She wanted to know if she had to get the same kinds of things...girly stuff, ya know. We assured her we would select gifts that she would like. It would have been really good for her, but she declined and decided it wasn't worth it after all.

It's like swimming in a sea of peanut butter...we are moving forward, but it seems so laborious and so slow and we still can't see where we are going! I have faith that we will get to the other side if we just keep swimming though.

Ken took his last final tonight, so we have Daddy back in the family for a week or so...and the honey-do list is really short! We are heading to the beach for a few days, it will be nice to have a change of venue and a break from the schedule. Only 11 more weeks until graduation...but who's counting?!