Happy Forfajuwhy

Liz is not feeling well. Darn chemo: neuropathy, mouth pain, swollen tongue, insomnia, joint aches, nausea. She got a new side effect last night (or she's coming down with an unfortunately-timed cold): chemo cough. Ugh. She is at least eating English muffins and cream cheese, so that's something. And she loves Brenda's chicken sauce and rice. Hopefully only five more days of the worst of it before she starts feeling better. Then if the CT scan and echocardiagram confirm that she is kicking cancer in the can, we can kiss Taxotere goodbye.

The breast cancer markers and blood work all remained normal (WAHOO!!!), so that's still good news.

We had a great Fourth of July with the boys, Aunt Brenda, Grandma and Grandpa. And Liz found the strength to join us out front for our family fireworks show. I am so impressed with her strength and resolve to give our boys quality moments with their mom. We bought a large pack of fireworks last week at Walgreens. Glow snakes, poppers, and loads of fountains. Illinois is super lame doesn't allow the big stuff, unless you're on unincorporated land around the corner from our house (that fireworks show was AWESOME). But we had a good time rating the quality of each pyrotechnic. Jensen liked the names ("They are so beautiful, Dad!").

Violet and Umbrellas
Silvery Chrysanthemums
The Golden Unicorn

My favorite was The Peppermint Twist. Sounds like a sweet dance move. It ejected small, loud crackle explosions and scared the owner of the Audi parked nearby.

Earlier in the day, while Jensen and Eli were napping, I thought I would be super dad and let Cohen do the honors and set off the first firework. I pulled out a smoke grenade that had a pull string instead of a fuse. Super safe. Right?

We went to the back yard and talked about the associated risks, which basically meant that I told him to throw it as far as he could. I should have spent a little more time on the safety discussion. He couldn't yank the string hard enough, so at the last second he placed his hand on top of the smoke grenade to get a better grip, then he pulled the string before I could stop him. Whoops. Dime-sized second degree burn. He let me know his displeasure:

"I didn't even want to light fireworks."
"Why did you make me burn myself?"
And my favorite: "YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

He thinks the blister is cool now, so we're good. I won't be winning any Father of the Year awards, though.

The worst fireworks of the night were the sparklers at the bottom of the fireworks pack. They were like flash paper and instantly were engulfed in flames. They lit up like, well, like the Fourth of July. So I decided to put my Boy Scout hat on and see what would happen if I put two packs together. My experiment resulted in a burn (Cohen let me know that his was better) and a whole lot of flashy fire. So we have tons of unused sparklers if you want to dig through our trash.

One more chemo day down, hopefully not many more. It is hard not to think about the bad while so much good is happening. But I am very optimistic about the results of Liz's upcoming tests over the next few weeks. Here's to many more Forfajuwhys with the complete Cleavinger Clan.

Go Team Liz.