End of Chemo and more!

Ryan's chemotherapy ended about two weeks ago and can I just say, I am the happiest girl EVER.  The fourth round wasn't that great, but hey, it was better than the 3rd (which was the WORST), and just knowing that the treatment is over is a relief.  He got his cat scan and x-rays done and the doctor said that his lymph node is back down to normal size, which is great news!
I kind of feel, though, that there is a bit of uncertainty as to what is going to happen next, but we'll see over the next couple of months.  For now though I think it's safe to say that he's cancer free and that kinda makes me want to throw a party.

Here's a picture of Ryan on his last day of chemotherapy with his nurse, Joy.  We were pretty happy on his last day (although it seemed to last forever).  So happy in fact that I made cupcakes for his fellow patients, which was very brave of me but luckily I had my mother-in-law to help and thankfully they turned out pretty tasty.  The staff at Georgetown University Hospital were great!

A little cancer tip for you all:  Cancer treatment, aka chemotherapy is actually given intravenously.  Before Ryan got his treatment I thought he would have to sit in a room with other patients and get zapped or something, but that's not the way it goes. There's your cancer tip for the day : D

Elias' 5th Month

Well, I downloaded all these pictures and wrote a whole bunch of things about Elias' 5th month and I wasn't able to post it.  I got super frustrated and a couple of the pictures I downloaded have disappeared, so I'm not going to download them again.  Sooooo I present you, with no explanations whatsoever, pictures of Baby's 5th month.  Now I can proceed to blog other things with (hopefully) less hassle.  If not, I may give up on blogging altogether. The End.

Love,

Keiry

Another year older

Last week I turned 26. I feel kinda old, but the celebration of my oldness lasted almost the whole weekend and I can't complain about that. I got beautiful sunflowers (my favorite!) in the mail sent to me by one of my greatest friends in the whole wide world. I also got my favorite cake in the whole wide world (from costco!) and got to spend the evening with Ryan, baby and my wonderful fam.

It's getting harder to blow out all of those candles, whew!




Earlier in the day, Ryan and Elias and I went out to lunch and they gave us a little highchair that we decided to try out on Elias. He did really well in it for a while and he felt like a big boy, but he was getting to wobbly and was chewing on the side of the chair (you never know where those have been) so we switched him back to the carseat.

They put the bottom of the tomato in the second half of my sandwich, thus making it inedible (what were they thinking?), I had a BLT soooo we got free dessert! Happy Birthday to me!

Also, Silvia took us out to dinner the night before my bday for a birthday dinner at a VERY yummy pizza place in tenleytown, Pete's A-Pizza. It was really yummy. I told you I'm spoiled!


The day after my birthday I was spoiled beyond all other spoiling. Ryan took me to see Mary Poppins at the Kennedy Center!! It was SO cool! I have seen Annie on stage, but I think Mary Poppins was even better even though it's not one of the "classic" broadway plays. The company was definitely the best I could have, look at this guy!

He's soooo cute! I know, I'm a little chubby. I have a lot going on right now, give me a break! I guess with the baby being 5 months old now, I can't use the I-just-had-a-baby excuse anymore, haha.

Ryan in the Hall of the Flags at the Kennedy Center.

Inside the Opera House theater. The lights were so cool!

A rather fuzzy, but cute, picture of us....waiting for the show to start!

We had great seats! It was an awesome play, with amazing dancing and singing and the set was awesome! The play was different from the movie. It had more songs and it was extremely morally charged, which I really liked. There were a lot of kids in the audience and I think it was good for them to see a play that promoted family togetherness that teaches us all, adults as well as kids, how we should act towards one another and what is truly important in life. I was impressed!

2nd round of chemo and a special visit!

I'm kind of behind, but Ryan's second round of chemo went really well! I think it mostly has to do with the fact that his parents came to visit him and it really lifted his spirits. They spoiled us to pieces, as they usually do and we really enjoyed their visit.

Elias was also really happy to see his grandparents.

Baby and his Grandmommy

Baby in the pool for the first time with his Grandpa. I think he really liked it, although he was really serious the whole time. His superman arms came in handy :)

We all had dinner and fun and the Carroll grandparent's house the Sunday before they left and it was a lot of fun. Both of Ryan's parents helped us so much. They took care of the baby and Ryan's dad fixed a lot of things that needed fixing in the apartment. Those things wouldn't have been taken care of without him. Ryan's mom also taught be how to make rolls, one of my lifetime goals!

Cupcake Craze

This is crazy.

While we're in Georgetown for Ryan's chemo I get a free cupcake everyday. Not because I'm crazy about the place, but because they have a free one everyday. Why wouldn't I do it? Coincidentally, though, this little cupcake shop happens to have a show on TLC, which is by the way, a pretty bad show. Terrible acting and kinda boring, but hey, it's cool to see the place you go to everyday on tv, I guess.

But this cupcake craze is out of control.

Today I went to Georgetown Cupcake to get my free cupcake. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks because Ryan has been on his chemo break. We started his 3rd round of chemo today. More than halfway through!!

Anyway, as I got in line at 10:30am, the line was ridiculously long for that time of the morning. I figured that I had time to kill so I stayed in line. There was a lady ahead of me in line that had a few summer camp kids with her and a couple of the girls were be DC cupcake fans. They asked the employee that manned the door whether the owners were there that day because they really wanted to meet them. The employee told them that they might be there (which they weren't, and from what I can tell, they never are) and the girls were SO excited. Then when they were up to order their cupcakes they saw the girl on the register that is on the show and flipped and gave hugs and asked for autographs and squealed and OMG'd and did other things that 12 year old girls do.

It's a cupcake shop, people!!

As I left the insanity of the shop and continued up 33rd street on my way back to the hospital to eat my cupcake treats with Ryan, I saw this which is just a couple of doors down from the cupcake shop:

Baked and Wired is another cupcake place in Georgetown, which makes even more delicious overpriced cupcakes than Georgetown cupcakes, but doesn't get the publicity. If they gave away free cupcakes I would go there everyday too, but alas, I must save them for special occasions. Silvia has sworn off of Georgetown cupcakes in order to fully support Baked and Wired. Just another part of the craze, I guess.

As for me, I'll keep going as long as I can get a free cupcake. It gives us a special treat to enjoy in an otherwise dull hospital setting. And Ryan loooooves chocolate!