Carter's Surgery 02-26-10

I brought the hospital this cute, happy, pink cheeked, sweet tempered, little boy--pain free I might add and did--


They brought me back a miserable, hurting, sad little specimen, and then they had the audacity to charge me lots of money for this "service". Rude.




And on the way home from the hospital he hid from the world. He has had a rough go of it, not keeping much down, doesn't even want to swallow poor fellow. I think we will lay low at home for a while. Thanks for the dinners, Shelli and Lisa, and for the fun toys, Andrea, Aunt Heather, Grandma Louise, and Aunt Courtney, who, not to brag or anything, came through with the much wished for dream come true sword!

Blood Counts for week 22

WBC was 6.2 last week 3.2 today and normal is 5-12
HCT was 36.7 last week 35 today and normal is 31-48
PLT was 475 last week 136 today and normal is 150-500
ANC was 3385 last week 1700 today and normal is over 1000
Time to go pack a short stay hospital bag for Carters surgery tomorrow. Should be interesting to say the least. He told me this week he thinks his heart is going to stop?? What in the world made him say that? Maybe Michael put him up to it to see how strong MY heart was! We have loaded the freezer with popscicles and the pantry with spongebob chicken noodle soup---so we should be set, right??

Who did you spend your time with today?

Was it someone so cute you can't believe your good luck?

Was it someone who made your "baby" feel like the "big boy"?

Carter Noftle 5 years Aftyn Andersen 11 months
Was it a monkey who spied the leftover preschool snacks?

Adalyn Andersen 3 years

She has skills to pay the bills

I wish she could pay the bills. But even so I think Sierra is a pretty skilled play dough artist---not to brag or anything but she is really good with her hands(that's for you, dear family of mine!).

Seven for Zoe

Beautiful Zoe---stubborn, sweet, a stare that can freeze lava, yet the most affectionate of all our children. She is smart, funny, and depending on the day an actress who hams it up for attention, or extremely shy unable to speak when spoken too. She loves babies and loves animals, and has learned not to ask where her food comes from, as she likes to eat but doesn't want to think she contributes to the death of any animal friend. Zoe is great because just when Michael and I thought we were figuring the parenting thing out, Zoe was born and we have been humble ever since!


For Zoe's birthday we went to the Woodland Park Zoo after Chemo on Friday. It was rainy, then dry, then pouring rain, the sunny, then drizzly--you get the picture. It was great though, because the Zoo was not crowded. We had fun, the kids cracked us up with their insights and Zoe made the important life decision of solidifying her career aspirations. Drum Roll---Zoe has decided to be a zookeeper! I figured it would be a career in animals or babies--zookeeper or Octomom is in her interest area for sure!

Zoe milking the fake cow at the zoo, later that night at the hotel she took a uninflated balloon and put a little water in it and tied it shut. I asked what her plan was (cause mean Mommy won't do water balloons in hotel rooms)and she told me she was practicing milking a cow!

After the Zoo we went back to the hotel to wring our clothes out. We walked with the kiddos to the Seattle center and rode the monorail to Westgate mall and ate there. On the monorail ride back we told them it was Zoe's birthday and they let the kids ride up front and honk the horn. Zoe also got to tell the driver if she wanted him to go faster or slower and he was so cute with them all. Later after we regrouped and were leaving to walk back to the hotel we passed under the monorail and the driver noticed the kids and honked several times--they were thrilled.

Sammi is officially a teenager!

If you know Sammi you know this is one of the birthday's she has been waiting for----a teenager, officially a teenager.

Here is the sign from the mother ship that was calling the "mall whisperer" home (aka Sammi).

Dinner at Sammi's fav---Panda Express.

And the fake candle, when we were singing to Zoe I realized we never sang and blew out a candle to Sammi, even though Chriss provided super cute polka dot cupcakes for her birthday in our hotel room--we never lit a candle, so here she is blowing out Zoe's #7 candle and thinking "my Mother is crazy".
Sammi is still playing the violin, still a great babysitter, still loves any social event, anytime, anywhere, she enjoys participating in volleyball, basketball, and softball, she gets great grades and she still LLLLOOOONNNNGGGGSSSS to own her own cellphone--not yet baby girl, not yet! We love you Samantha, and contrary to your beliefs, we don't live to embarrass you--we are just so happy to be your family!

Chemo round 6 and MRI

The day starts with an MRI at 7:15am, Jax picked out some tunes and rocked out while holding very still.

While Carter and I waited, Carter looked out the window at the Children's Hospital patient park.

Next it was on to Endocrinology, and this included lots of waiting, I mean reading, time! During this appointment Carter went to the sibling playroom--they have a wii so I don't need to describe what Carter did with his time in there.

Then on to Oncology. The boys make infusion rooms look loungeable.

Usually infusion of his Chemo drug only takes about an hour from start to finish, but the Pharmacy sent the Chemo drug in the wrong "state" so we 'got' to double our time in this curtained off room. Enough time to let the brothers take a cat nap.
So to sum up, the day at the Hospital started at 7:15am and we got back to the hotel at 6:30pm, but it sounds worse than it was. Mainly Carter played in the sibling playroom for a total of four hours today, and Jax and I waited and read most of the day. If they only possessed a single comfy chair at the hospital I would have considered it a good day!
No results on the MRI, but they are sending it off to Houston for Dr. McClain to review, I hope it won't take too long to get some sort of report. Jackson's blood counts were great today:
WBC was 2.0 last week 6.2 today and normal is 5-12
HCT was 35.0 last week 36.7 today and normal is 31-48
PLT was 743 last week 475 today and normal is 150-500
ANC was 800 last week 3385 today and normal is over 1000
I'm off to get my laundry--it follows me all the way to Seattle. We are looking forward to the rest of the family coming tomorrow, feels like it's been way more than 3 days for some reason.

Cougar strikes

Yesterday was very busy for a Sunday, and Michael and I fell into bed exhausted about 11pm, and I knew I needed to fall asleep fast as I was getting up at 4:15 to get the boys and I over the mountain for Jackson's BAER test. At 11:15 Carter started crying, real crying, so Michael went into him and spent an hour trying to get him to sleep and I tried to ignore the little sad boy across the hall from me and fall asleep so I wouldn't kill him on the road in the morning. Michael crawled into bed a little after midnight and he and I went to sleep for "realsies". At 1:30 Carter woke up crying again and this time I got up and through my amazing Mommy senses discovered Carter had an earache (or maybe I knew because he was screaming "my ear hurts" over and over). So I got him some medicine and a drink and put him in bed between Michael and I. Then I proceeded to listen to him moan and groan and whimper until 4:15 am. I know I dozed off at times because I remember being annoyed and a tiny bit sympathetic when his moans woke me. That was Cougar strike number 1. The boys and I were on the road by 5 am and the first 20 minutes Carter amused me with every thought that was crossing his mind but after that he and Jackson participated in synchronized snoring--they are scary good. By Ellensburg I was feeling bad for Michael because I was so sure I was going to fall asleep at the wheel and leave him a widow. So I pulled over in Ellensburg and did something I have never done, bought a 5 hour energy drink. I got back in the car wondering if I should really take it---I glanced in the rear view mirror at those cute boys and decided I had to try. It tasted like the time when I was a kid and took a huge swallow of sour milk. It took me five force feedings to get it all down, and it's not a big bottle, about the size of sample shampoo (which I'm pretty sure would taste better). I blame having to drink that swill on Carter too--so Cougar strike number 2. I don't want to advertise these drinks because I'm pretty sure they are not health elixirs but it worked, and I got us to Children's Hospital in Seattle awake and alive! By this time Carter remembered his ear hurt and conveniently we were scheduled in audiology for Jackson's BAER (Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response) test. The audiologist looked in Cougar Man's ears and hooked him up to her timp machine and declared him to have double ear infections. I am starting to look forward to his surgery on Feb. 26th. Poor kiddo I'm sure they hurt.
Jax had to repeat the hearing test to confirm the conductive loss was the same--it was---and it still is not significant so on to the BAER. Because I had Carter this time I wasn't in the room for this BAER test since Jax has to sleep through it. I was afraid the Cougar would strike again and wake him at a critical part of the testing. Before we left Jax we got a photo of him with his four little electrodes on his head---here it is---I think he makes a darling Frankenstein.

Carter and I went to the cafeteria to get breakfast. Carter love the huge fish tank in the dining room so I took a picture of him by it.

Then I saw a family trying to maneuver a wheelchair through the maze of chairs and tables so I ran to help move chairs, and that brings us to Cougar strike number 3. In those couple of minutes he took 17 pictures of the fish in the tank! Gotta love digital cameras, otherwise I would have been out a roll of film. I will post his better pictures...just in case he becomes a famous dive photographer someday.





When Jackson's three hour test was done the audiologist told us that in the first BAER back in September there were significant delays in his auditory pathways. This time the delays are still there, but they are less!! No delays would be normal---so we are moving in the right direction, I think. I couldn't get her to commit to anything because normally a BAER is used to determine serious hearing loss in infants who can't communicate, and NOT for neurological reasons--but the delays are less which to me is a great sign that we are moving in the right direction with the right therapies. We left the hospital and went to pick up lunch and Carter's Rx. We had to kill some time waiting to get into our hotel room and by the time we were able to get in our room I was dead on my feet. Jackson, as mentioned more than once by audiologists, is always able to sleep at will (wish my sister Holly and I had that skill) so we got in the room and he fell asleep pronto. I turned on cartoons for Cougar and laid next to him in the other bed and he was looking very drowsy---and thats the last thing I remember. When I woke up I discovered Cougar strike number 4, he managed to order a pay for view movie. I've never in my life ordered one---yet good ole' Cougar, money is no object for him. Luckily he ordered "New Moon" because there was much worse he could of ordered that would have sent me straight to the Bishop's office! So I watched New Moon while Carter jumped from bed to bed about 4 zillion times. During all this my phone rang and I was sharing Jackson's good test results when I noticed the pay per view screen up and Carter just about to order another movie! I grabbed the remote and gave him a talking to that brought the pouty lip out in him. Phew, Cougar strike number 5 was averted. But then it took me 10 good minutes to get out of the pay per view "area" and back to the movie I was already paying for ---how is he doing this?? Then tonight while I was writing this blog Jax stopped Cougar strike number 6 this time Pay per view adult channels! But we figured out how he was getting there (I thought I wizened up after #5 and I had the remote up on the TV armoire) there is a Nintendo controller in one of the armoire drawers and you can control the t.v. with it---who knew. Well, I guess Carter knew! I wholeheartedly second Jackson's opinion that Cougar man is in danger of never being invited on another Chemo trip again!

Sunday Blessings...

Today we were lucky enough to go to Mattawa and watch the newest member of the Andersen clan be blessed. Little, teeny, tiny Preston Lee Andersen was only born on Tuesday and today he was out and about!! Zachary and Natalie had him blessed today because Zach heads back to Iraq on Wednesday. Only one week with his new little son and he is off again to serve us all---Thanks Zach. The blessing was beautiful and the baby more so. Today was also special because, among a few others, Jackson was fasted for by our Ward in Royal and many family and friends. Thank you everyone. We head over the mountain tomorrow early for his BAER and MRI and Chemo. We will post information as it comes to us. We love our family and friends and our community and so appreciate everyone's prayers and service. Thank you---your a blessing to us everyday.

Blood Counts Week 19 and news about Carter....

Hot off the presses here are Jax's newest counts:
HCT last week 31.8 this week 35.0 Normal 31-48
PLT last week 78 this week 743 Normal 150-500
WBC last week 2.9 this week 2.0 Normal 5.0-13
ANC last week 1300 this week 800 Normal above 1000

And now for the other son draining Michael's wallet---
Carter will be getting his adenoids and tonsils out on February 26th, at Samaritan Hospital. Nothing but a party round here!!

Five year old's and photo shoots....

He couldn't have been easier to photograph, what a cute, happy, kiddo!