A Request

Jacob has a favor to ask of everyone who loves him, who likes him, or even merely tolerates him :)

He knows you love him and worry about him. He knows you want to know how he's doing. He knows that every time someone says, "How are you feeling?" or "How's the treatment going?" or even "Hey! Your hair's starting to grow in!" that it's a gesture of your love and concern.

But here's the thing: He just wants to be Jake. He wants to be 12 and talk about what 12 year old boys talk about. He can't do much about the fact that he has cancer. But he doesn't want to talk about it all the time. And when he gets asked for the seventeenth time in an hour "How are you feeling?" he'd really like to scream.

He won't. Probably.

But to be on the safe side, try asking him "What did you do last weekend?" (Answer: Saw Angels and Airwaves at the Utah State Fairpark.) Or "What are your plans for today?" (Answer: Clean bedroom and watch the 100 Best Songs of the 90s on VH1.) Or just merely say "Hi. Glad to see you."

I know this puts a burden on all of you. Believe me, when I promised Jake last week that I wouldn't ask him how he's feeling, I didn't realize how many times a day I did it until I had to stop myself.

But Jake's burden is the big one here, and the one that matters the most to me. Whatever will help him bear it, I'll ask. So I'm asking.

But I am allowed to tell you all how he's doing on the blog, so here goes:

Inpatient went well last week. No nausea and no middle of the night queries about garbage bags.
We've just started our 6 week clinic break, which means no weekly visits between inpatient admits. So instead of driving to Salt Lake today, he just had to have a blood draw at home.

Our travel documents for the cruise arrived. We're all very excited. Only 26 days to go!

Jake saw the eye doctor at Primary's for a follow-up ten days ago. Still 20/20 vision--can't get any better than that.

And Jake and I have agreed that Seattle summers beat Utah ones hands down. The two of us were not cut out for the heat. We want clouds and 75 degrees.

But I guess we don't always get what we want :)