Saturday, November 29, 2003

Saturday, November 29, 2003 11:14 AM CST

Susan here...

I finally added new pictures to the photo album so take a look. We have had a good morning. There was a breakfast in the dining room this morning so we all went down and Nathan nibbled on a biscuit and seemed to enjoy himself. Afterwards he and Luke went to the drug store to pick up some supplies. When they got back Nathan just wanted to say in the stroller and so we all went for a walk. We went to central park and into a few shops. We tried to get some lunch at the end but Nathan said he was too tired and we came back and he went to sleep immediately. Luke and I are taking turns going out to get ourselves some food.

He is definately in better spirits today and feeling better too. He is still very tired and doesn't want to walk at all. We are trying to make him do so because it is good for him. After his nap we will probably make him walk around a little.

Friday, November 28, 2003

Friday, November 28, 2003 4:53 PM CST

Susan here...

We had a very nice Thanksgiving. Nathan slept in some and then took a nap a while later - basically sleeping the morning away. We then went to my aunt and uncle's apartment. Nathan spent a good amount of the time sleeping in their bed but he sat at the table for quite a while and thoroughly enjoyed the pumpkin pie.

This morning was pretty rough. We awoke to him talking to himself in his bed about how much he wished he was at home in Colorado Springs. This went on and on and after he was up he continued to be very sad about it and then it turned into a fit where he was screaming at me to take him home. Eventually he stopped and watched some TV and ate. He then took a nap and when he got up we went for a long walk to Barnes and Noble and Circuit City. He really enjoyed getting out but it tired him out. We just had some dinner and I imagine he will take a bath and go to bed soon. He is very very tired. He is also very sad about being here and it doesn't help that we are essentially in a hotel room because there is no couch and he just seems to think of it as a bedroom and wants to just lay there or go to sleep.

We will do our best to get him out and about as much as possible. We are considering finding an apartment to rent for a month because it may help us all get through this. I got kind of down again this afternoon when I went to try to make some food and there is no silverware and the dishes in the cabinet are filthy. The floor is sticky as you walk on it and everything just seems to have a layer or grime on it. It is really hard to prepare food and enjoy it that way. I feel bad about complaining about it because it is a great service to have such cheap lodgin g but it is really hard to live in such dirty dreary conditions. I have been really trying to tell myself to get over it and be positive. Sorry for venting about it to all of you!

I am going to try to post some pictures of Nathan later. I am using the computers in the computer room. We can only dial 800 numbers for the rooms and so that means to use my laptop I have to use a calling card and then dial a local number. That is really frustrating. Anyway - I know you all would like to see some new pictures so I will try to do it soon.

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. I know Luke and I had a wonderful time and it meant the world to us to have a normal family thanksgiving with people we care about and who care about us. A special thank you to Joan and Bill. We cannot tell you what it meant to us to have such a wonderful holiday with you.

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 8:08 PM CST

Luke here...I started this post and had to start over. I was basing my post on us having a couple of things to be thankful for tonight going into the holiday tomorrow. I started listing the "couple" of things and the list got too long. It was nice to remind myself of all of the good things we have going for us. Tonight the top of the list has to be that Dr. La Quaglia removed "all" of Nathan's tumor and that as I write this he is in the Ronald McDonald House room with Susan and I. He was released today much to our surprise. Susan still isn't feeling great, so I stayed with Nathan last night. We didn't sleep great. He is having some trouble with his bowels (I'll spare the specifics on this one) so it was a restless night. I woke up to find that they had cut off his IV fluids and seriously rolled back his oxygen. Susan came in and I went back to RMH to shower and change. She called saying that they thought Nathan might be able to leave today. She got him up and walking, which was a struggle because he really didn't want to. He was coping with this stay by sleeping and he didn't want to work at anything. He walked just fine with no incision pain. The day was a little annoying as some of the docs seemed to want him to stay and some wanted to get him out before the holiday. Finally it came down to whether or not his oxygen saturations were holding on room air and it turned out they were. We had one major episode. He was supposed to have an echocardiogram in prep for his trial. He threw the biggest fit. He screamed and screamed. They can't get a valid test when he is like that, so much to our chagrin he won and we didn't do it. He will have to have one, and I suspect it will go fine the next time. It has turned out that getting out was great for him. He played and was happy here and in general was acting normal. Typically in one of his hospital stays he reaches a point where being in-patient holds him back. He was there on this stay.

We are very happy to have him out, that he handled and recovered from this very serious surgery so well, and that we can have Thanksgiving with family and friends here in NY tomorrow (Joan, I know you are reading. Please consider that our "thankful" for tomorrow).

We miss Julia terribly, but we know that she is doing well and with people who love her. I don't think we will hold out until Christmas without her. We'll have to see how it all works out.

Please have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Despite everything we have been dealing with, we will and I want all of you to have a great one too. Eat a little too much. Drink a little too much. Enjoy your family and friends.

We are so thankful for all of the support and love that we have gotten from our friends. Thank you all.

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Tuesday, November 25, 2003 8:37 PM CST

Luke here...Nathan is out of the ICU. He moved from the ICU just after noon. He continues to recover well. This morning he just wanted to sleep and we pretty much let him. The trip over here was pretty good. It is a short ambulance ride, but that is pretty exciting. The room here is okay. It is nice, but small. The amenities on the floor are very nice. They redid this unit and just moved kids into it yesterday. Nathan has done pretty well here. He was tired and cranky after the move. He ate pretty well and is on a normal diet now. The surgeon really wants him up and about, so we forced him to walk. He did pretty well although he wasn't at all happy about it. They turned off and then pulled his epidural today. He is having some pain. Earlier it was bad, but now it seems to be controlled. Tomorrow we will push the walking even more.

We talked to the study doc some. He stopped by. He hopes to schedule Nathan's tests for next week and forsees a realistic start date of 12/15. That would put us still here in NY on Christmas. The logistics of that will be tough, but overall we are okay with it. Nathan will not yet be discharged on Thanksgiving. We will make the best out of it. Apparently they cater a very nice Thanksgiving meal here.

The big news is really that Nathan is continuing to recover well. He is bounding back from this surgery very well.

We are hoping to have some pathology on the bone marrow tomorrow and maybe the tumor by the end of the week. With this being a holiday week I'm not counting on seeing any results until early next week.

Thanks to everyone for following along so closely.

Monday, November 24, 2003

Monday, November 24, 2003 8:26 PM CST

Luke here...Nathan continues to recover well. He is either right on target or a little ahead of the curve. Today they decided in the morning that his chest tube could likely go and that he would move back over to Memorial. We had to wait awhile because the surgeon had to make the call on the chest tube. It was removed and not a big deal at all. In fact, the x-ray right after the removal looked better than the morning shot. Later in the day we found out that they didn't have a bed for Nathan over at Memorial. They were moving their pediatric in-patient ward this past weekend and hadn't finished today. The resident here called over to the surgeon because Nathan really wanted his NG tube out. He was hungry and thirsty (which is great) but couldn't really eat with the tube and didn't even want to try drinking. We got that out and he drank some apple juice and then started getting very upset about having some food. I fed him some soup and jello and he ate really well and tolerated it. That is really great. The surgeon stopped by and said he will move tomorrow. There is a slight chance we can get out before Thanksgiving. The key will be that Nathan will have to be up and walking some. We shall see. He did some good exercising with blowing on a pinwheel and blowing bubbles. He also sat up for awhile which was great. He still needs some help with oxygen though. He still has the epidural and foley catheter. I think he will lose both of those tomorrow.

Susan felt horrible all day. She slept off and on here and didn't feel strong enough to get herself down to a taxi and certainly not to walk home. Luckily, some visitors came this evening and made sure she got back to the Ronald McDonald house. Hopefully she will feel better after a good night sleep.

Things are going well. Recovery hasn't been bad. He slept off the worst of it and is in good spirits.

Sunday, November 23, 2003

Sunday, November 23, 2003 6:21 AM CST

Susan here...

Sorry I didn't update again last night. They finally decided to wake Nathan up yesterday afternoon to remove the breathing tube. They were waiting fo him to wake up but we could tell he was just staying asleep to avoid being conscious while it was in. He was responding to us by nodding when we would ask him things but then would just go back to sleep. After the tube came out (which was no big deal to my surprise) he started talking to us. He took a little nap and then woke up asking us to read a book. We then put a movie on for him and he stayed awake for awhile watching. He had a good night and doesn't seem to be in very much pain. He still has the epidural for pain control but is not on any sedating medications. I slept in the hospital and Luke went back to the Ronald McDonald House to sleep since he was very very tired due to being up some the night before being talked to by another parent in the "quiet room".

We expect Nathan wil be awake more today and they may try to sit him up a little.

He had a sponge bath and linen change this morning which he didn't like but it was very good for his lungs to complain a little. He still can't be very loud.

This time I promise to update later!

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Saturday, November 22, 2003 11:05 AM CST

Susan here..

Nathan had a good night and is doing well. They intend to extubate him when he wakes up from sedation and that is taking a long time. He has been sedated since the surgery so we haven't been able to communicate with him. The PICU is very good. We are in a room with 3 beds and a nurses station right in the room so he is very closely monitored.

Luke and I are just sitting around sort of hoping he will wake up but being grateful that he is asleep and comfortable. Other times they have forced him to wake up from sedation and that is always bad.

We will update again at the end of the day.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers for Nathan.

Friday, November 21, 2003

Friday, November 21, 2003 5:23 PM CST

10:35 Easter Time: This is update three - see below for previous updates from the day. This is Beth typing as Luke dictates to me.

Nathan is out of surgery, doing fine, and in the ICU recovering.

Nathan's surgeon came out around 8:20 this evening and said that Nathan did well, and that he feels he got everything he could see. Everything indicates that he was extremely thourough. The pathology report won't be back for about a week, but the surgeon feels that some of the tumor removed was live cancer.

They took Nathan straight from the OR to the PICU at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is still asleep, and they will keep him sedated mainly because of all the things he's attached to. He's intubated, has an epidural, a chest tube, an arterial line (for monitoring), an NG tube, and a catheter.

They have him restrained so that if he should wake up, he won't pull anything out. They may extubate tomorrow depending on how many fluids he gets tonight and how his lungs are doing (the various fluids could collect in his lungs).

He will be in the PICU until Probably Monday or Tuesday.

Luke and Susan are doing fine and feel they have made the right decision. One of them will sleep in the reclining chair in Nathan's room, and the other find a place to sleep in the waiting room, as there aren't two comfortable chairs in Nathan's room and they both want to stay close by.

From Luke "As always, thanks for thinking of us."

----------

Susan here...just an update - Nathan is still in surgery.

Nathan went into surgery around 11:15 and they did bone marrow biopsies and aspirations and placed an epidural. The surgeon made the first incision around 1:15 and as of around 3:30 he will still making his way to the tumor. Our latest update at 6:00 has the surgeon still working away at removing the tumor and he expects it to be several more hours. There are actually computers available in the waiting area which is why I am able to update. My aunt Joan has been with us the whole time and has been a great diversion and company to us.

We will try to update later or have someone do it for us.

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Thursday, November 20, 2003 2:51 PM CST

Susan here..

## just an updated note to the entry below -I forgot to say that this morning Luke noticed that Nathan's eyelashes are growing back in. We were very excited by that!##

Well a couple of long days. Yesterday Nathan slept in until about 9:30 (he had not slept well in the night) we hung around and then we went to my aunt's apartment and she watched Nathan while Luke and I had lunch and then we sat around and talked. It was very nice and we hated to leave but we needed to check into the Ronald McDonald House. The room is very dirty. We were kind of appalled and could not give Nathan a bath because the bath mat had tons of mold and mildew underneath it. The carpet is filty as well. They had a catered dinner so we ate and then put Nathan to bed. Today we got up and I asked Nathan if he wanted something to drink and the mere though made him throw up. We really don't know why he is so nauseous. We went to the clinic at 8:30 this morning and spent a lot of time sitting around and got back around 3:00 this afternoon. We met with the surgeon. He explained the tumor's location and showed us the scans in detail. They also explained that he will go across the street to the pediatric ICU in another hospital afer his surgery. He will have a chest tube (the surgeon likes to go in on the patient's side to get a better view)a nasal tube, an epidural, a foley catherter (for urine) and an arterial IV (to check blood pressure). We feel good about him doing the surgery and he definately is going in to try to get it all versus getting all he can while being very safe. This means it is a riskier surgery for Nathan but we feel it is the right one and the right surgeon.

We also met with a patient insurance advocate who is helping us with insurance (we don't kno the current stauts of that right now). We met with the social worker and also an oncologist on the neuroblastoma team. The study doctor poked his head in to introduce himself to us.

They are going to do a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration while Nathan is under during the sugery. After he recovers they will do the rest of the tests for the study. The surgeon thinks Nathan will be in for a week or so. After he is released from ICU he will go back to sloan-kettering and they are opening up a new inpatient ward this weekend so his room should be nice at least.

Luke went out to buy cleaning supplies and we are going to thorouhly clean the room. We are surprised they don't have volunteers to clean the rooms at least. I am sure they could fine some. It is a pain for us to have to do this after being at the hospital all day.

It is a very busy clinic there will not enough seats for all. They have a nice playroom that is staffed and so Nathan spent a lot of time in there and we sat in the waiting room.

We did get a break for lunch and ate at a nice cafe.

Well - I might add more later because I know I am missing something.

Oh yeah - the surgery will be around 11:00 and they will have nurses go in and check on his status every two hours and let us know how it is going. We expect it to be several hours of surgery but who knows if that is 3 or 8.

We'll update sometime tomorrow. Please keep Nathan in your thoughts.

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Tuesday, November 18, 2003 6:14 PM CST

Susan here..

Today Nathan wasn't feeling so great. We had breakfast with our hosts and then took a cab to FAO Schwartz. Nathan had a good time there. Afterwards we went to the central park zoo and Nathan really enjoyed the Sea Lions.

As tired as he was he didn't nap though we made him rest in his bed for an hour or two. When he got up we went to my Aunt Joan's apartment and she watched Nathan for an hour while Luke and I got a cup of coffee. He was feeling better this evening and ate really well and had a fun bath and we put him to bed early.

Luke is out getting some Thai food for us. We don't know what we are up to tomorrow. We will check into the Ronald McDonald house in the afternoon.

Still waiting to find out about insurance but it does seem they will at least pay some of the bill.

We will post an address tomorrow night if you want to send any cards to Nathan.

Monday, November 17, 2003

Monday, November 17, 2003 8:43 PM CST

Luke here...I should probably write more than I will have tne energy to do, but here goes. Today was a very good travel day. We left home at about 8:30am. When we got to the Jet Center in Denver the pilots came out to the curb, introduced themselves, and took care of our baggage. Our flight left on-time at around 11:00am. After Carolyn dropped us off, we realized we had forgotten Nathan's car seat. This was no big deal for the flight, but we knew the car service wouldn't drive us without it. The pilot of the flight called the flight center in Morristown and had someone run out and buy us a booster seat while we were in flight. If you have never travelled in a corporate jet, I strong recommend it. It was an incredible way to travel. The jet was very nice. There were only two executives on the flight and they sat in the front. We had four seats, two across from one another facing with a table inbetween. The seats were big and suede and everything was nice polished wood. The flight attendant made us lunch and everyone made sure Nathan had a good time. He loved it. He was thrilled by the whole experience. The car was waiting for us and we had a quicker drive into the city than we thought we would have. We are staying for a couple of nights with friends of Susan's aunt and uncle who live in the same building and have extra space. It is really nice of them to have us and we all had a very nice dinner. Nathan had a great day and even though it was long, it was an easy travel day. We got some good pictures of Nate on the plane. We have two days to sight see and have a good time and then we go to see the surgeon on Thursday morning and Friday is the big day.

Today was fun and exciting, and a little sad. Julia handled our departure pretty well from what we could tell, but we really don't want to be away from her. Tonight in Nathan's bath he said, "I wish Julia came with us". We'll all be together soon again and in the meantime we are going to have a good couple of days here in New York before we get the fight started again.

Friday, November 14, 2003

Friday, November 14, 2003 5:40 PM CST

Susan here..

Well - there is second hand news (from the patient financial dept. at the hospital in New York) that our insurance company is very close to agreeing to pay their "contracted rate" for Nathan's surgery. This means they would pay the amount they pay hospitals that they have a contract with and we would pay the difference. So we are crossing our fingers that this is true and we won't have to pay nearly as much as we might have!

We have arranged care for our dog with our neighbors so that is a relief. I made about a zillion phone calls today and I think we are in good shape to go.

Nathan and I met with the radiation oncologist today to plan his radiation therapy. It needs to happen in the three weeks between rounds of the antibodies. There is a good chance this will include Christmas week but the doctor said they would not be officially open on Christmas but would radiate him that day anyway. I really liked the doctor and he was very accomodating.

Thursday, November 13, 2003

Thursday, November 13, 2003 7:13 PM CST

Susan here...

We have a corporate flight to New York on Monday. We are so releived not to be flying commercially packed in with all kinds of sick people! We have alot to do before then to get ready. I will be returning emails of those New York folk who have offered help when I get a minute. We definately want to see you all even if we don't need specific help. Hospital visits are always good to break up the monotony. We don't know how long he will be in ICU though where he may not really be able to have visitors. Anyway - we will get in touch with phone numbers so we can meet up.

Nathan just came up to me and asked for his bath now so I have to go. We'll update in a few days.

Wednesday, November 12

Wednesday, November 12, 2003 9:00 PM CST

Luke here...Well, there actually isn't much to report. We have had a pretty good week so far. Having made the decisions regarding surery is a load off our collective backs. We feel very good about our decision and are working on plans. We are working on details of the trip. We will likely leave on 11/19 as we will meet with the surgeon on 11/20 and have the surgery on 11/21. We don't know if the antibody treatment will start on the same trip because they don't know how quickly or how well he will recover from surgery. We hope to start antibodies on the same trip. We shall see. We will be in New York over Thanksgiving and we already have a family to spend the holiday with if Nathan is out of the hospital. We have great friends from DC whose extended family will be celebrating in the city and they thoughtfully extended us an invite. We are excited to have plans lined up. This Friday we will meet with the radiation therapists here in the Springs to plan out the therapy Nathan will receive between antibody treatments in NY. No real news since the last update.

Nathans is doing well and enjoying being back home. He handles the mask and restrictions well and is having a good time here. Julia is doing well too. She was sick, but feeling fine now. We are dreading being separated from her again, but we have wonderful loving care lined up for her. Susan and I are hanging in there. There are a lot of details to take care of, but we are working on it.

Thanks to everyone for their support and letting us know they think we made the right decision. A special thanks to those New Yorkers who read who have already offered their help and company while we are there. We are looking forward to seeing you.

Monday, November 10, 2003

Monday, November 10, 2003 5:18 PM CST

Susan here...

Well - the decision has been made - we will be going to New York for the surgery. They will not be doing the radiation during the surgery but the surgeon says he has seen tumors like Nathan's before and has been able to remove them. That is not something the other surgeon was willing to say. He of course gave us no guarantees that he could remove it but we know he has had lots of experience with neuroblastoma surgeries. It came down to the fact that if we did the surgery here and they didn't get it all we would regret not going to New York. If we go to New York and they don't get it all at least we can be confident that we had one of the best surgeons attempting it and at least we gave it a shot. I contacted Nathan's insurance case manager and she is working on getting approval. We have no idea how difficult that will be but we are committed to doing the surgery in New York whether insurance pays for it or we do. The durgeon says there are different ways they may be able to help us deal with insurance of the costs if neccessary. The surgery is scheduled for November 21 and we need to be there by the 20th. We have emailed the study doctor to ask him if we can expect to stay in New York and do the scans and antibodies all in the same trip. If so, we will be there for about 4 weeks.

We are going to start working on all the details now, but a weight has been lifted from us now that we made the decision.

Nathan was at the clinic today and doing just fine!

Sunday, November 9, 2003

Sunday, November 9, 2003 2:19 PM CST

Susan here...

We are having a relaxing weekend. Julia is feeling much better and the rest of us are feeling fine so we will hopefully not get her sickness.

Nothing much going on but waiting for tomorrow when we will try to have everything figured out by the end of the day.

I have updated our family web page. I have made just one page for September and October so click on either month so see the pictures.

We will try to update tomorrow night.

Friday, November 7, 2003

Friday, November 7, 2003 9:53 AM CST

Susan here..

Well - here is the latest. I got a call yesterday from the Dr.'s office in New York telling us of the surgery in New York (which we already knew about) but I asked her about the intraoperative radiation and she said she did not see that on the schedule. She transferred me to the surgeons office and his assistant said she didn't see it on the schedule either. We sent an email to the study doctor and got an out of office auto-reply. So basically Nathan's doctor who left me a voice mail about the surgery and radiation is unavailable at the children's oncology group meeting as well as the study doctor and the surgeon. So we have no way of finding out. If there is to be no radiation in New York we will probably just do the surgery here. We haven't heard back from the insurance company about doing surgery in New York. If we do surgery here it will be next Wednesday. We would then hope to go to New York in two weeks or so to start the antibody trial testing. We are hoping we might hear something from somebody today but it is not likely.

Nathan is doing well. He did sleep very poorly last night - he seemed to be stressed out about something - he is probably picking up on the stress in the house and he has heard us talking endlessly about surgery. Julia is sick. She had the stomach flu on Wednesday and then was better yesterday and is bad again today. We are hoping Nathan doesn't get it. We have no idea where she may have gotten it since she has been isolated. She is currently sleeping and we hope sleeping it off.

Well - Nathan has requested some more toast so I'd better got get him some. He has been eating a drinking very well and we are very pleased with that. Some children stop eating after tranplsant.

Wednesday, November 5, 2003

Wednesday, November 5, 2003 4:52 PM CST

**** News Flash****

The insurance company has approved the antibody trial!!!! We are shocked to hear this. This is a huge relief.

We are currently trying to figure our where and when he will have the surgery. It will be either next week here or the following week in New York. It appears they are willing to do interoperative radiation in New York which sounds like a good idea to us. Right now we just don't know. We will see if our insurance would pay for the New York surgery or not and then make our decision. We had pretty much decided to do the surgery here next week and we received an email from New York saying they had him on their schedule and would do the radiation. This decision will have to be made ASAP. hopefully we can get the needed information quickly.

We will update again later with any more news.

Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Tuesday, November 4, 2003 10:29 AM CST

Susan here..

Sorry for the lag in updates. We had a good weekend as a family. We had nice weather on Sunday and went for a walk together and played basketball. Yesterday I took Nathan to the clinic to see his doctor in Colorado Springs. It was good to be back there. He examined Nathan but didn't do blood counts since they were good last Thursday. We looked at his MIBG scan together and looked at the spot in his face thet seems to be lighting up a little bit. It is very faint and so we really don't know if it is anything. The doctors will have to decide if they want to radiate the area or not. We discussed his urine test because one of the cancer markers is slightly high. We are going to keep watching it. Once again - we don't really know what it means but it could mean the the remaining piece of tumor still has active cancer cells in it and is excreting the hormone that shows up in the urine test. When he had his last surgery and they examined the pathology there was one very small area of active cancer. Unfortunately this area is right by where they now realize there is more tumor so it is a possiblity there is still active cancer there. We will meet with his surgeons today to discuss what they feel they can do. We will then wait to see what the surgeon in New York think. Unfortunately this week is the Children's Oncology Group semi-annual conference and most pediatric oncologists will be there; including the surgeon in New York. This is going to make it hard to get things figured out this week.

The insurance company is legally supposed to have an approval or denial of the antibody trila by 1:30 this afternoon. State laws give them 2 business days. They officially got all the materials on Friday. We will see if we hear from them. We are fully expecting a denial and then will appeal right away.

We still don't know about how the surgery fits in the with trial since it would probably delay Nathan beginning it. He has to do it is a certain time period after tranplsant so it could cause problems. We have posed this question to the study doctor but all he told us was to send the scans for surgery to him and the surgeon so we don't have an answer to that yet.

So in summary - nobody knows anything and everything is still up in the air! We hope this changes soon and we will let you know.

Saturday, November 1, 2003

Saturday, November 1, 2003 7:41 PM CST

Susan here..

Thanks to everyone who sent emails to us in regards to Thursday's posts. Things have calmed down a little and we are HOME!

Friday we awoke to some freezing rain and snow and Julia and Luke made their way up to Denver. We all spent all day packing and cleaning. I had called my best friend Lisa Thursday night for some moral support and she in turned called our friend Tonya who offered to come up to Denver and help us clean. She was a lifesaver. We would have never gotten it all clean or all of our stuff home by ourselves. It was a LONG hard day. We got on the road around 3:00 pm in time to make it home before dark as the weather was still bad.

Our insurance now officially has the request for the trial and so we await a response from that. We have had Nathan's scans sent to New York for the surgeon there to look at and we are also meeting with our local surgeon on Tuesday.

We got home in time to go trick or treating to our neighbors' houses. It was freezing rain and very cold but we all had fun. Since we had given Tonya alot of our stuff to take back we were without many things we needed such as Julia's halloween costume. I drug up Nathan's costume from two years ago (superman) and she was very happy to wear it and it actually fits her personality to a T. Nathan was a doctor. He has the motion of slinging the stethascope around his neck down pat from all his observing of doctors. He had a good time doctoring Luke and I.

Today we have had a relaxing day at home.

It is bath time now so I must go. I will be adding some halloween pictures later this evening.