One Day at a Time

Spray zone at the zoo

Prior to Fionn's cancer diagnosis, I was an over planner.  I admit it.  

Hello, my name is Casey, and I am an over planner.  

Hello, Casey.

Most weekends, I would lock in multiple outings, play dates, and other such events with friends.  Not to mention trips.  Trips to visit friends.  Trips to visit family.  Trips just to have a trip.  I loved it.  I love being busy.  I love traveling.  It's hard for me to be still and at the house.  At least when there are kids involved.  (With no kids involved, I can be very still.  Statue-like even.)  Conor would feel frustrated sometimes.  "Casey, can't we just have a weekend with no plans?" he would groan.  I would seriously look at him like he had grown two heads.  A weekend with no plans?  Are you kidding me?  I don't know what that would even look like!

Well, fast forward two and a half long months, and I know exactly what it looks like.  Leukemia has forced me to kick my over planning habit to the curb.  I've gone cold turkey if you will.

Here's why.  From week to week, we really have no idea how Fionn will feel and what his blood counts will indicate in terms of his immune system.  Also, Fionn's counts every Monday tell us if he moves forward with treatment or if we will experience a delay.  Looking ahead, there's no way to truly predict what part of treatment Fionn will be on during each week this Fall and Winter because it's all dependent upon those numbers each Monday.  It makes planning trips with friends and family pretty impossible. 

Even with play dates, I have to caveat them by saying, "We might have to take a rain check if..."  It's a whole new way of operating for me.  I am being forced to (gasp!) live in the moment.  Man, it's hard sometimes.

Man, it's hard most of the time.

Fionn, painting "rain" at the Art Room at the hospital.

This weekend is a prime example.  Usually, at this time of the year, we would be celebrating our Irish heritage (and love of beer and family) at Milwaukee's Irish Fest.  We were especially excited about this year because we were going to spend 4 whole nights in Milwaukee in order to get in as much quality time with the family as possible.  We also simply love Milwaukee and hoped to spend a little more time seeing the sights.  But, as you can imagine, things changed a bit for us in early June.  We had to wipe the slate clean in terms of travel, and that included the Irish Fest weekend.

The group formed a team to walk the 5K this year and named it Team Fionn.

It's so hard to miss out on these fun times with family.  Fionn caught wind of the fact that this weekend was The Fest and let his protestations be known.  "Awww!  I wanna go!  I wanna see my cousins!"  He didn't dwell on the whole thing, thankfully, but he was definitely a little bummed which made me feel sad.

But there is no other alternative.  Or, I should say, the other alternative is to take a huge risk with Fionn's health which we are obviously not willing to do.  So we will sit this one out.  There will be other Fests.

And...there are some good things about slowing down our pace.  We are able to enjoy a lot of family time...just the four of us.  Yesterday we went on a wonderful hike in Great Falls and then had a delicious lunch in Georgetown.  Today we hope to have a picnic dinner in the park.  It's not all bad, I suppose, this whole spontaneity thing.

One plan we are making is to have a lemonade stand next Sunday, August 24th, from 3-5 pm.  All proceeds will benefit the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation which funds cancer research and also provides funds to families who need assistance with travel and other expenses pertaining to their child's cancer treatment.  Since posting it on Facebook a few days ago, we have already exceeded our goal of $400!  And, heck, we haven't even started selling lemonade yet!  Amazing!  We are so very appreciative to friends, family and neighbors who have contributed.  And we hope to see more of you at our place on Sunday for some lemonade (and cookies -- Fionn is insisting that cookies will also be served).  Here is the link to our fundraising page:

http://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/1118184

I will update again after our clinic visit tomorrow.  Fingers crossed for higher numbers so we can move ahead on this journey!