Day 50...

Okay, so yes, it's been nearly two weeks since we were released from the hospital, and I have been MIA during that time. With good reason. Since the day we got home, it has been non-stop trying to put the house back in order, trying to keep up with the new responsibilities of Sarah's post-BMT cares, trying to complete Sarah's brand new Lalaloopsy room as she makes a constant mess behind me. I have been going to bed by midnight every night (which those of you who actually know me, know is unheard of where I am concerned, even when I had a day job) with my ankles swollen to the size of grapefruits and every muscle sore. After nearly two weeks of working on the house every day around Sarah's appointments, and fighting with her to clean up her own mess, the house is almost (almost!) back in order, and I think by tomorrow, her Lalaloopsy room will be worthy enough to photograph and post on facebook or in a blog. But not yet. It's pretty, and Sarah loves it, but it's not complete.

Tomorrow, I will do what I can, but I am going to try really hard not to tire myself out too badly, because my husband and I are supposed to go out to celebrate our 6th anniversary tomorrow night. Nothing fancy, just a drive-in movie (or possibly an actual movie, because I want to see The Hunger Games ever so badly) and a picnic, the real celebration is that we finally have some time together, to remember why we got married six years ago.

Today, we had labs and a doctor visit, then we went to visit Julian, but they were sleeping, so we visited Nurse Kara instead. She was happy to see Sarah, of course. It was good that they got to see each other, and that Sarah is doing well.

Today is Day 50, and Sarah is doing amazingly well. No vomiting, she is eating fairly well, and I am going against everything I know as a mother and I'm actually trying to make my daughter fat, because for the first three days she ate nothing but bacon and eggs three meals a day, and she dropped weight. So yeah, my daughter basically put herself on Atkins for three days, and the doctor said if we kept that up, she'd buy herself a ticket back to the OICU and an NG tube. So, I've been tempting her with carbs; we made mini corn muffins with bacon pieces mixed in; I made my special pancakes, french toast, and getting desperate because she went from 15.4 kilos Wednesday to 15.3 kilos today, I offered her potato tacos, which she happily accepted.

Now, for those of you not familiar with this Mexican delicacy, tacos de papa, or "potato tacos", are just that.  Tacos made out of potatoes instead of meat. Each family seems to have their own way to make these, but I dice and fry the potatoes, then put them into the tortillas and fry them as you normally would a regular hard-shell taco. Condiments are also a matter of taste. I eat mine with cheddar cheese and Tabasco sauce. Mike eats his with cheddar cheese and Tapatio. Mariah, cheddar cheese, Tapatio and ketchup (because she puts Tapatio and ketchup on everything), and Michael ate his with mustard, don't ask me why. The youngest two seem to be somewhat normal, and they eat theirs with just the cheese (although Sarah eats hers upside-down!). Disgustingly fattening, but so delicious! The kids love them, and they have sort of become a staple around here, although I haven't made them in a long time, since we've been in the hospital (duh) and Mariah can't eat them with her braces.

Like I said, I was getting desperate to keep this child fed, and she was denying everything I offered her because this week she has abandoned the bacon and eggs for her new food of choice, Popsicles. I offered her the potato tacos, and she accepted with enthusiasm, thank God. She ate two of them.

THEN, there was the hummus fiasco. Miss Boots got it into her head that she would like for me to make her favorite red pepper hummus at home, not buy it from the store. So I looked up a recipe online, and since it seemed easy enough (you dump everything in a blender, and you're done) and my mom was going to the store anyway, I agreed to make it.

I roasted the red bell pepper myself, gutted it, sliced it, and threw that in. Chickpeas, lemon juice, garlic, and this recipe called for cumin. Here's where things went awry. I dumped the cumin in, not thinking to look at it first. I blended all the ingredients and we created a gorgeous red-pepper hummus at the perfect temperature and consistency. It even tasted good. Until Sarah shouts "BUG!" at the top of her lungs, because she thinks that bugs constitute emergencies around here. I honestly think some times that if the house were on fire, she would tell me calmly and rationally, and wait until I was off the phone, but a bug is an emergency of epic proportions. The bug she was referring to was a tiny little... I don't know, some sort of teeny creepy crawly thing that looked like a seed of some sort that was crawling across the top of the cumin tin. I opened the tin and found a whole bunch of them in there. Obviously, I threw the tin out, then realized, that I had just dumped a whole bunch of cumin into the mixture of our perfect home-made hummus and there were God knows how many ground-up creepy crawlies in there! Luckily, my mom bought extra stuff in case Miss Boots wanted more, but only one red bell pepper, so there was enough stuff to make another batch of plain hummus. We made that, Sarah ate two bites, and the rest is residing in all it's probable deliciousness at the bottom of a trash bag.

She picked up her toys on her own, bugged me to get off the computer so we could pick out her pajamas, and got into bed after her bath with no kicking, screaming, biting, or fooling around. She has been blissfully asleep for the past hour.

Today is Day 50. We are halfway there, halfway to Day 100, which is when we are considered more or less "out of the woods" although we will always have to be on the lookout for graft-vs.-host and relapse. We are halfway there, and it passed so quickly! Now that things are more or less back in order, or as much as they can be with Miss Boots, I will try to write more frequently to keep you all more updated on how she is re-adjusting to life at home. For now, let's just say that we are both so happy to be home, even me, despite the lack of maid and room service! :)