Tater Tales

A Quick Update

Following up on the last post, I just learned that A is out of ICU!!!

Is this a great way to start the weekend or what?

Thank you for your prayers for A and her family.  And please keep them coming.

I hope your weekend is full of blessings.

The Fight of Her Life

Four weeks ago a tow-headed eight-year-old walked to my classroom with her mom and dad.  She was shy and a bit hesitant to leave her parents, so they went inside to help her find her seat and put her things away, which isn't unusual at all on the first day of school.  It was clear that she didn't want her parents to leave.  She wasn't so sure about her new classroom whose roll didn't include many of her friends from first grade.

Finally, her parents hugged and kissed her goodbye and as they left we all assured each other that she'd be fine once the day got rolling.

A, as I'll call her, didn't perk up, though.  Several times during the day she put her head down on her desk.  Okay, I thought, she's tired.  It's hard to get back into the school routine.  Maybe she didn't get enough sleep.

But something kept nagging at me.  A had absolutely no color to her skin.  None.  She was almost beige, even after recess when most kids are completely red-faced.

Her first grade teacher passed her in the hall at the end of the day.  She stopped by my room after dismissal.  She'd noticed how pale A was, and apparently she'd lost weight over the summer.

The next day we corralled all the second graders into the cafeteria to go over the rules and procedures.  One of the teachers pointed A out to me and asked if she were mine.  When I said yes she asked if A was always that pale.  

None of us could get over the color of her skin.  It just wasn't right.

That afternoon one of the school nurses stopped by to see A.  She talked to her for a little while and then A came back to class.  She still seemed tired, and finally I let her put her head down while I read aloud to the class.  She drifted off to sleep, which normally would have bothered me, but this time it didn't.

When A came to school Wednesday morning still not having much energy nor color to her skin, I was more than concerned.  The nurse came by again for a few minutes and decided it was time to call her parents and let them know that we were concerned about A.  A few minutes before we left for lunch, A's parents checked her out of school and took her to the pediatrician.

Shortly after drawing blood, he sent A and her family immediately to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital here in Memphis.

A was diagnosed with Leukemia.

The doctors at St. Jude wasted no time, and she started chemotherapy that afternoon.  

From what we heard, if you have to have Leukemia, this form is the one to have.  It is treatable and highly curable.

However.

As we all know, it isn't always the cancer that poses the biggest threat.

After a few days of inpatient treatment, A was sent home.  The plan was for her to go back and forth to St. Jude each day for six weeks of chemo.  As I understand it, after those six weeks she would take a break for a few weeks and then start another round of treatment.

About a week and a half after being diagnosed, A spiked a fever.  She had developed pneumonia.  It was decided that she would stay at St. Jude for the remainder of the six weeks.  Then came an additional infection in her lungs.  She was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit where her condition worsened.  Thankfully, children are quite resilient, and A made it through the night.  A CT Scan later that day showed that the infection had not spread to her brain, and the doctors decided to operate and take part of her lung.  

The surgery went beautifully, and there was reason to hope that A was on the road to recovery.

Unfortunately, we learned Monday night that A is back in the ICU.  Her body isn't fighting off the pneumonia as hoped.

This sweet and precious child is in the fight of her life.

The rest of us are completely helpless.  None of us can make things better for A.  We can't make her well.  We can't battle the illness for her, as much as we wish we could.  We can't channel our strength and give it to her.

But there is One who can.

I beg you to pray for A and her family and for her doctors and nurses.  I beg you to ask your friends, your Sunday School classes, your Bible study groups to keep them in your prayers.

Please pray that A will win this fight.

Please...

 

The Day I Wept in the Produce Department

Let me start out by saying that OH MY GOODNESS I HAVE MISSED THE OLD BLOG!  School started for teachers on the 1st and students on the 8th.  Then Tater Tot started Junior Kindergarten at his new school on the 17th, and our lives have been crazy I tell you.  Just crazy.  Anyhoo, I'm glad to be back and I soooo appreciate the sweet comments and emails.  The eight of you who still read Tales are the best.

Allrighty then.  Sunday night David told me a bit of news that made me sadder than I've been in a good long while.  It appears that my dear, dear, wonderful Schnucks has been bought out by -- gulp -- Kroger.

Let us pause for a moment of silence.

...

My love affair with Schnucks began about four-and-a-half years ago when Tater Tot was a mere, well, tot.  After too many times of shopping at the Kroger close to our house and experiencing the rudest employees known to man, I made the switch and started driving a whole eighth of a mile farther to Schnucks.

I've never looked back.

The store is always clean.  The food is always fresh.  And the people... Oh sweet heavens, the people.  Many of the employees have been there at least since we started shopping there, and most of them since way before then.  We've gotten to know each other over the years.  They've watched Tater Tot grow up (as much as one can grow up in four years, but still), and when we took Small Fry for his first grocery shopping trip, three cashiers came over to see the new baby.  If I pop by the store alone, the first thing I'm asked as I unload my things from the cart is where the boys are.

It feels like a small-town grocery store in the middle of a bustling city, and I just hate for things to change.  And change they will.

They boys and I did our weekly shopping Monday afternoon and as we entered the store I knew that something was very wrong.  The produce department was next to bare.  There were huge empty gaps on the shelves.  I went to the meat counter to have pork chops cut.  Nothing.  In the dairy department there were no eggs to be found and only a few random bags of cheese were left.

We passed several employees on our trip around the store, and as always, they smiled and asked how I was doing.  I couldn't help but respond that I was very sad.  They all nodded in agreement.  They are sad, too.  It appears that the buyout came as somewhat of a surprise.  Their jobs are not secure, and many of them have to interview to try to keep the jobs they've had for years.

I hate the thought of walking into the same building in a month and not seeing these sweet people.

Adding insult to injury was that, because they're unable to stock so many of the things I needed, the boys and I were forced to stop by the aforementioned Kroger on the way home.  I felt like such a traitor.

The store has been remodeled since the last time I was there.  It's very bright, very nice, blah, blah, blah.  But the unfamiliarity was nearly overwhelming, and I couldn't help but shed a few tears as I searched for the asparagus.  Pitiful, I know, but true.

Our cart loaded with what we needed, we headed for the checkout lanes.  As I remembered from times past, all were full and had lines.  We waited about 10 minutes to reach the cashier.  There was no "Hello."  There was no "Did you find everything alright?"  There was nothing, other than the physical renovations, to make me believe that anything had changed since I stopped shopping there years ago.

I'm hopeful that Kroger will redeem itself and keep the Schnucks employees, but I fear that's wishful thinking.

So as of this coming Friday, my Schnucks will be no more.  It's as though an old friend were moving away.  And as we all know, good friends are hard to come by.

(Sigh.)