Healthy Hill Update- By Dad

***This is from a man who told me as a child I had brown eyes because I had "shit-for-brains."*****
Hi to all
Where has the month of November gone. I hope everyone had a greatThanksgiving. It's my favorite Holiday and I finally found out why. I was born on a Tuesday and came home on Thanksgiving. It took me 52 years to learn that piece of Trivia. As always I will start with the good news.
I didn't gain any weight this Holiday. The bad news is neither did Hillary. The good news is how many people do you know that have survived 2 bone marrow transplants. I only know of a couple that have survived 1. Hillary is doing it! As sick as she is right now she is always looking ahead to better days. As after the first transplant we had a healthy Hillary party. She is starting to plan the next one, It beats planning the alternative. Her 100 days are up on Jan 18th. It just happens to be the same date as her 1st bone marrow transplant!! How much of a coincidence is that! She has decided that her party should be on Broom Hockey weekend at the Charlestown Winter Carnival. The first weekend in February. We always have a lot of people around and have a good time.
But here is the coincidence. I was on the charlestown Recreation Committee 26 years ago when we decided to re start the winter carnival.
A friend, Tim and I had watched the movie Hot Dog and thought it would be great to have a broom Ball tournament to get all the people out of the warm homes and enjoy the winter. Heather and Hillary were just 6 months old. We decided that our kids should have more to do in the winter than just play basketball. We want to be sure that we had enough things to do to keep the community involved in cold weather sports. This Year is the 26th annual Charlestown Winter Carnival.
We have had Magicians, Story tellers, Sleigh rides, sliding contests, dances, etc but the biggest draw has been Broom Hockey. Hillary wants to play again in 2009!! She told me that yesterday and i bet she does that!
I hope everyone is reading Hillary's Blog. I honestly believe her will to live is being helped by the fact that she has a story to tell. You can see the many emotions she is going through each day. It's a good thing she is writing because she has amnesia from the adavan. She has been very sick for the last 3 weeks.She is painting a much more rosy picture. She has gone in to the hospital for fluids because she gets dehydrated because she is throwing up so often. She still has a fever and they can't find what is causing it. They think it is in the sinus.
Can you imagine having a sinus headache for weeks straight and not have any relief except sleep She says her bones ache. I wouldn't want to remember either. Some how she is finding the strength to continue.I watched her on Thanksgiving. She was starving, ate well but couldn't hold it down. It very hard for me to see her like this. The next minute it seems all is well and she is back typing on her blog.
Thanksgiving was tough around here. We had everyone home as we had
hoped. Pierce had a bad cold and his fever spiked at 11:00pm Heather and Allen took him to the ER where they noticed his chest was swollen so they took an X-ray. It showed an enlarged heart. OH shit here we go. They rushed him up to Dartmouth where the cardiac specialist told them that it is normal for someone that has had open heart surgery to have an enlarged heart. They followed up with their doctor today. All seems ok.
It was just a bad cold. When I was told that at 2 in the morning I thought my heart would stop.
It's never a dull moment anyway. I think my updates help me get it off my chest so I can deal with the next things. At least I have work ahead, things to do to keep my mind busy. I don't need to think how bad the economy is. I have enough to worry about so I'm not going to sweet the small stuff. I was supposed to take Hillary to Boston for her weekly check up today but I got sick. I can't be near Hillary. Nancy took another day of work. The trip and test takes about 10 hours and exhausts
everyone.
Well Hillary is more than half done the 100 day isolation. I think it's day 53 now. Thank you all for caring. Hillary says she does not want to look at how many hits she is getting per day on her blog but I will tell you it's a lot. Her writing is giving her relief. Thanks to everyones great input. She loves to get comments back. Thanks for helping all of us. Your prayers and support have been sent from heaven. We are being carried right now by our friends and by god. We just have to keep
looking for good times to come back.
Thanks: Vic, Nancy, Grace and Patrick, Allen Heather and Pierce, Jon Xander and
Hillary