Daley Ponderings

Well, it's been a couple of months since we posted an update. We're thankful for this break from medical appointments. With the dry weather, Grace's skin has really broken out. It gets dry and itchy, and then she scratches so hard that she makes herself bleed, and gives herself welts. So our... (More)

Grace is getting an MRI, and ECG, and bloodwork (including thyroid) tomorrow morning at Dartmouth.  I'm not sure how much the thyroid medicine is working, so we'll see what the numbers say.  Her skin is very dry and she has rashes in places, and also the dryness is itchy so she... (More)

We are settling into our second week of being full-time in the apartment. Our schedule consists of: Adminstering meds 3 times a day and then washing all of the syringes and straws and flushes Keeping her central line clean twice a day ( Boston Children's says cleaning twice a day is... (More)

Grace has been steadily improving.  She is not throwing up as much, she's had a few messy diapers that look more normal than she's had in months, or even ever. She had an ultrasound which she slept right through.    Her drain has not been putting out much, so... (More)

Jon wrote today: When I said it was a "bad day" the other day, a nurse corrected me and said "good moments and bad moments". This morning was good and she played in the playroom for quite a while. She did throw up after eating. But has continued to ask for food, and hasn't... (More)

Faith steadily improved throughout the day as she slept through most of it and has now transferred to our Boston apartment. She got a present (mailed to Grace at the hospital) so that was fun. Grace's diaper rash did not get worse overnight, and without oral meds, she ate well and did not... (More)

My place beside you, My blood for yours, Till the Green Ember rises, Or the end of the world! One of our favorite series is The Green Ember, by S. D. Smith . Rabbits with swords, new stories with old soul, heroes and villains, joy and grief, hope and longing, with love and... (More)

I woke up at 6AM because it turns out that is when the hospital does weekly generator checks which involves the power going out, which shuts off the ventilation fan briefly and triggers these color changing lights (that we didn't know about previously, see below), and so the nurses run around to... (More)

The last long update ended February 3 in the evening. In the wee hours of February 4 (Sunday) she got a blood transfusion for her hemoglobin level, which was expected. (They’re killing off her bone marrow, so her own body is not making as much blood.) Sunday morning, she got a dressing... (More)

Since I'm on a roll of typing out the insulation we've used, I figured I might as well post about our heating systems too. We have five different heating sources for our home, and someday we'll get a sixth... 1a. Oil burner base board radiators. I grew up with base board radiators and I... (More)

Or: How This Mom Started Playing Minecraft They say that a good way to show love is to take an interset in what the other person is interested in, even if you wouldn't care about it on your own. I'm a busy mom and wife of an entrepreneur, right?  I don't have time for video games.... (More)

From an email written to my mom on April 4, 2015 at 7pm. Just after noon, Noah came screaming in from outside.  He was holding one hand with the other and blood was dripping.  I took him straight to the sink to wash off.  He couldn't tell me what had happened and there was... (More)

Got a bunch of spam comments and then when I was looking at posts, the boys pointed out that my last post was a month ago and I said "trip to DC goes in a separate post"...  So here we go. When we went into downtown to see the sights, we split up into smaller groups.  Jonathan,... (More)

11/8 - It was gusty and the maple seeds were being blown off our big tree by the thousands.  It was such an amazing sight!  The little helicopters were fluttering everywhere, even swarming like a host of grasshoppers or little birds.  The grand picture was the swarming, and then... (More)

Faith had a blast at Star Island with Grammy and Papa. 7/25 - JDD, explaining why he likes to use a certain spoon for his breakfast cereal, "That spoon is special to me, because Grammy gave it to me for Christmas last year." 7/28 or 29 - Joy had a cold and I gave her 1 or 2 nebulizer... (More)