Merry Christmas to All our FODS and CODS

Dear Fods & Cods,

I hope that you are all having a relaxing and quiet day after all the crazieness that Christmas brings. I also hope that your Christmas was spent with family and friends and lots of good food. Blessedly, we had a quiet Christmas at home with Joey, Mike, Laurie, Pammie and we two after a very scary Christmas Eve.

As usual, we had to visit HUP on Christmas eve, very unexpectedly. I had sinusitis for the last two weeks and was pretty miserable. The sinusitis makes the dizzieness worse. Pam took me down the the ENT guy on Tuesday and my sinuses were looking better --but I complained to him about some hearing loss in my right ear. So at 1:00 AM on Christmas Eve, I woke up, sick to my stomach and vomiting if I moved and was crazy dizzie. I had to use the walker to get to the bathroom.

We called down to HUP for drugs -- even though they were closing for Christmas -- and three people stayed until we got there around 1:00 PM. The Doctor, a nurse and an audiologist stayed to take care of me. As I suspected -- with the hearing test and nerve studies -- I have completely lost the hearing in my right ear. And have only 30% hearing in the left ear. Because this just happened, the doctor injected steroids into my ear, behind my ear drum in hopes to bring the hearing back. So far, my hearing is not back but the debilitating dizzieness is gone and I am at my normal state of dizzieness and banging into things. They put me back on high dose steroids to help with the inflamation and my appetite is coming back with a vengance.

Probably because of the steroids, I could not sleep on Christmas Eve and was wide awake and making cookies in the middle of the night. We also had a nice brunch together and an early dinner around 5:00 PM which was very peacefull.

Today, I felt well enough to get out of the house and we spent a short time at the Philadelphia Outlets. I bought a ton of grandbaby stuff and hope to see them soon. While we are hoping to see the grandbabies, the kids are sick and their Christmas may be postponed until a later date.

Let's all say our prayers that the kids make a speedy recovery and we can all spend some time together soon to see what Santa brought to 912 too!

Thank you for the many Christmas cards and pictures of your family and wonderful inspirational messages. They mean a lot to me.

I love you all Debbie.

PS: Everybody should get some rest now. Especially the Moms!

December 12 Update

Dear Fods,
Hello everyone, hope you all had a great thanksgiving and are all getting reved up for christmas its joe and im helping my mom post tonite. My mom and i decorated the house this week, thank God only about half of what she normally puts up, but the house is looking festive. Mom has been really frustrated because she thinks her progress is slow, i on the other hand am still amazed everyday by her progress and her return this time from the dark side. We saw dr porter this week and he thinks mom is remarkable and really cannot explain her recovery except a delayed reaction to the Mylotarg. Unfortunately, he does not have any idea of how long it will work for and what lies ahead so we are taking a day at a time. The prediction that dr porter has is that by ground hog day my mom will be able to drive, and be out and about, im not allowed to comment on that one but i guess thats good news lol. Mikey and i took my mom to costco and she stocked up on lots of her essentials. She did great walking through the store on her own and afterwards had enough left in the tank to try on some clothes at j jill. But somehow she thinks her progress is slow, what do y'all think? Then took us for tacos at Moe's it was another great day. I can tell you once again that she loves reading the blog MDF your blog had me peeing my pants and my mom said she can picture you talking in hyperspeed because you were nervous. Congrats Bobby T for getting into PSU we are so excited for you and you will carry on the great family tradition. We know everyone is busy getting ready for the holidays but take some time to smell the roses and enjoy this joyous time of year. Jess and the khouri clan along with alli and izzy will be here the weekend after christmas and we are so excited to see them all. We got a little dose of Izzy last weekend and oh my God what an incredible little girl she is, running and climbing like a little monkey, i wonder where that comes from? She still eats and sleeps like a champ and seems to really love little boys. Actually she really loves everything she has a great little personality and is just so much fun to be with. We will try to keep up our posting a little bit more regularly. My mom and i thank you soooo much for all of your support and kind words it inspires her to hear about all of your families and whats going on with everybody. We love you all
Debbie and Joey