Some days up, some days down...

Yep, I hate waiting. I know it's only be 2 weeks now that we've been waiting for a court date, but it feels like a lot longer. Other families with our agency have gotten court dates in just under 2 weeks, and since we don't know what'll happen with our court date (will they give us one or make us wait until after 3 months to assign a date), the waiting is particularly difficult.

A cyber friend of mine is currently at Toukoul picking up her beautiful daughter. While she's there, she's planning to look in on our precious ones, and possibly even take some pictures if she can. On her blog today, there was a post from her stating that she'd met her daughter, and would be trying to get info on our kiddos soon. Oi! It's harder and easier knowing that someone is going to see them. Obviously I'd rather it be me over there meeting them and wrapping my arms around them, but since it can't be... yet... I'm just thrilled that she's going to take some time and learn what she can. I'm dying to know what they're like. Are they laid back, fussy, smiley, what?!??! Any little piece of information would be so exciting. Just knowing someone else has seen them, makes it feel that much more real.

So, to add to the adoption roller-coaster, we're still battling whatever mystery illness Chloe has. When we finally got to try reducing her Prednisone from 2x per day to 1x per day, she spiraled backward. Her neurologist is NOW thinking we may need to reconsider the original diagnosis and consider some of the other possibilties that he'd mentioned to us. Particularly... Lymphoma. This is obviously not good news at all. Our options are: 1) to put her through another spinal tap and send off more fluid samples - one to test for Lymphoma, the other to test for infectious disease, 2) give her a shot of aspariginase (sp?) which is the chemotherapy drug that would be used to treat Lymphoma - if it is Lymphoma she should show signs of improvement after 24-48 hours, 3) continue with the increased dose of CycloSPORINE and do no further testing.

It's obviously a difficult situation, particularly now that we're waiting for news on our court date and then travel. Lymphoma is a terrible diagnosis, because even with chemo, we're being told she'd have maybe a year. Putting her through chemo sounds awful, but apparently some dogs do great and it's only a few treatments, so most of that "year" she'd be feeling pretty good. Not doing anything doesn't sound fair to her either. When she's on a high dose of Prednisone and CycloSPORINE, she seems to feel comfortable. Tomorrow we drop the Pred back down since the increased dose of CycloSPORINE should be starting to kick in. It took a few days after dropping her dose before to see the negative result, so it'll be a stressful few days of watching her and praying she doesn't get sicker and feel so awful again. It's gut wrenching to watch her shivering and shaking in pain.

To top it off, she'd developed a mild ear infection, and definitely seems to be in a bit of discomfort from the 1/2" diameter bladder stone we've learned she has. I have added ear drops to our twice daily medicine routine, and the ear drops have left her beautiful, soft, long ear hair greasy and gross. Poor Chloe looks sickly and rather miserable. She's still got a fighting chance though... especially if it's not Lymphoma. Please keep her in your thoughts, your prayers, or whatever it is you do. She has been our little love bug for over 7 years, and I am definitely not ready to lose her. She's got so much attitude and spunk, if anyone could pull through it, it's her! She's got a consult with a new neurologist and an oncologist on Saturday... so hopefully we will be further enlightened after a new set of eyes look over her charts.

So, yeah. We've got a lot going on. My dad flies in late tonight for a visit and baby planning and celebration. While he's here, we hope to do whatever room re-arranging we need to do in order to start setting up for babies. That may include having him help us start prepping the mural wall with either a liner paper or a skim coat to smooth the texture. The tracking info on our mural shows that it's supposed to arrive on Thursday - Valentine's Day! That day is ALSO my dad's 50th b-day... so it'll be a fun and busy day! I also have to get the fabric for the baby quilts cut, and then get sewing! I have to paint the nursery, but can't pick out paint colors until I get the mural here. I think in a couple of weeks I'm going to be wrapping up a number of these projects and then I'll really start going nuts with waiting! Once the nursery is finished... I know I won't be able to stand waiting much longer to bring Ezra and Olivia home!