You are perfect to me

Eleanor is getting her cisplatin today. Her oncologist looked into alternatives, but found nothing that could fight her cancer in the same way.

She will almost certainly become completely deaf.

She will have the deaf voice (if she even speaks) and will need hearing aids. We will learn sign language.

It's a hard adjustment. Kris and I are again mourning the loss of the life we had hoped for our daughter. We were both athletic and artistic, and there is a bit of sadness that she won't be able to experience those things the way we did. That said, my high school drama teacher was stone-deaf and he had impeccable comedic timing and rowed for Oxford. It's not the worst thing, it's just a new and unexpected thing. At this stage, we just want to give her the best chance at survival, and if this is the only way to do it, then so be it. We will adjust.

I am also adjusting to how big she has gotten. Not in size, necessarily. I keep calling her The Incredible Shrinking Baby because she has lost so much weight and no longer looks Cushionoid. But she is growing up. She sits beautifully. She babbles. She is highly interactive. She won't eat unless she feeds herself and, much to my displeasure, she has weaned herself. I always said I would breastfeed until the baby got tired of it. I would have had no problems if she wanted to nurse til she was two, but she had other ideas. I have tried for the past three weeks to get her interested again, and she will have nothing to do with it. She is done. I am starting to get over it. It's been hard. My baby is growing up, and that is awesome. She is progressing, developing, getting better. And for that, I am happy. But if you had talked to me a week ago, I would have been in tears. I had no idea that it would make me this emotional. Emotional seems to be the name of the game these days. I can't help but feel different. Everything is changing and I am just holding on for the ride.

sleepwalking through the all-nite drugstore

baptized in flourescent light

i found religion in the greeting card aisle

now i know hallmark was right

and every pop song on the radio

is suddenly speaking to me

yeah, art may imitate life

but life imitates t.v.

'cuz you've been gone exactly two weeks

two weeks and three days

and let's just say that things look different now

different in so many ways

i used to be a superhero
no one could touch me
not even myself
you are like a phone booth
i somehow stumbled into
and now look at me
i am just like everybody else

I miss her. I miss my baby. I miss being the only one who could feed her, comfort her. I love who she is becoming, but I miss who she was. And she was stuck for so long, I thought she would never change - she would always be this four-month-old trapped in a nine-month-old body. So many changes.

But with all this, the time has come and I have ordered a "Cease and Desist" against the breast pump. It's over. No more. I can't take the abuse; nobody should have to go through what I went through. It's not right being pushed and pulled every which direction, or being squished into uncomfortable places. I am beyond relieved to be rid of the constant groaning and moaning that I put up with for far too long. I'm free at last!