January 24, 2011
Tanner’s big day finally arrived. She had her stage debut at Rosie in Alice in Wonderland Jr. on Sunday. She did great and had such a good time. She just loves performing and is definitely in her element. It is such a cute show!
We had a whole row of people there to see her. Thanks to everyone for coming; it meant a lot to her.
If anyone still wants to see it, she’s performing Wednesday and Thursday nights at 7pm. The show runs about an hour and 10 minutes and you can buy tickets by calling the Boiler Room Theatre in the Factory in Franklin at 794-7744 (that’s my shameless plug for Act Too Players!). It really is a cute and campy version of Alice in Wonderland.
Next up… Sleeping Beauty. We decided not to do Annie after all. The schedule was very tough and, after much agonizing, we just decided she couldn’t handle it. Tanner actually seemed a little relieved and agreed that she might rather do Sleeping Beauty with Act Too. They just rehearse once a week, which frees her up to go back to dance lessons. She is doing hip-hop and ballet. Sadly, she had gotten very worried that she would get sick and miss an Annie rehearsal or, worse yet, the show. It was causing her visible anxiety.
Frankly, Tanner is experiencing a lot of anxiety right now, for one reason or another. I’m not sure whether she’s just so sick of all this or what, but we’ve started seeing the play therapist again and are hoping she’ll get some relief (and then John and Jake and I will get some relief!).
Daisy Mae joined our family officially on Saturday… she’s our official adopted dog and she’s doing great. The kids adore her… especially Jake.
Tanner has clinic Friday morning with the dreaded lumbar puncture with chemo. It is the worst time for this to fall… she is just so anxious to begin with. We haven’t even told her because we don’t want her to worry about it and ruin her two shows this week. It will bring a crashing halt to her elation from the shows, I fear. The childlife specialist at the clinic, Sara, is going to accompany us to the OR again to help distract Tanner and keep her from working herself up as much. She will be tired from doing two shows two nights in a row on school nights so I’m not hopeful about it turning out all that well. Sigh. HOWEVER, this is the second to last one. Only one more spinal after this (fondly known in leukemia world as the “final spinal”). Truly a landmark.
An update on little Alli who I wrote about last time — she has FINALLY come off the ventilator and is breathing on her own again, but not really out of the woods yet. She still has a ways to go to recover from this and keeps getting other infections in the process. I can’t imagine how excruciating this has been for her little body to endure and for her family to withstand. But… progress nonetheless for her!
Love,
Beth
