Celebrations

Monday was our Bon Voyage party at the Make-a-Wish house. Fifty of our dearest family and friends came to celebrate Jacob and wish us farewell on our trip. A few pictures . . .


Jake engraving his star that will hang in the
entrance along with all the other Wish Kids'
stars

Jake with Irene (in the blue) and Carolyn,

his Wish Granters (both strictly volunteer)

The theme was Cruise Night--I don't know

why we're pointing out the volcano :)

The Wish Room--only Wish Kids

have a key and they can visit

whenever they like

Part of the Saratoga gang--Jake, Josh, Matt,

Zach, Keefin, Lochlyn, and Teal

It was a beautiful party and a way to offer thanks to a few of the many people who have helped us this year. I wish we could have invited all of you--distance and time notwithstanding :)

After a busy week (state holiday, Spencer's 7th birthday, getting new front and back doors installed), we're only hours away from our trip. We leave home at 3:30 tomorrow for our flight to Miami.

That's 3:30 in the morning.

No, we did not arrange the flight.

Matt doesn't plan to go to bed at all, but the little ones are already asleep and I'm headed that way quickly.

Wish us luck and no hurricanes!

And Also . . .

I once again proved my clumsiness.

(I know that was a post I wrote on my other blog, but I assume some of you read it--if not, I'm clumsy. There, that's the gist of it.)

I didn't walk into any hooks on the bathroom door this time. Probably because this bathroom door didn't have any. But I did draw blood.

As I pulled out the chair to turn it into a bed, I first managed to completely pull apart the bottom half of the chair. And then, when I was putting it back together, I dropped it on my right hand.

Blood ensued.

Fortunately, there are plenty of bandages in a hospital room.

But it was a child's hospital room, so I wore two bright blue crayon-shaped bandages until I got home yesterday and could change them.

What do you think I'll manage to do next time?

The Verdict is In

Bruce Willis beats blended clams.

In other words, I thoroughly enjoyed Live Free or Die Hard.

The night was short, the morning was a little bumpy (dry heaves--Jake's, not mine), but we're all together again at home tonight. Jake has eaten dinner and is currently playing his brother's drum set. All is right with our world.

The next two weeks are clinic breaks (which is why we can leave for a cruise) and then we start the last third of the treatment protocol. When we return from the Caribbean, Jacob will have an MRI and CT scan and, barring bad news on that front, will start the last 14 weeks of chemo.

It can't come soon enough.

Here Again

I'm not sure who's getting more tired of these overnight stays--me or Jake.

To be fair, I don't have to be tied to an IV, have toxic drugs pumped into my body, and get up to pee every two hours or less. So Jake wins.

As his reward, he gets to pick what we watch. We've apparently moved off the letter S (no Supernatural or Survivor tonight) and on to feature films. First up--Live Free or Die Hard.

I'm not sure which is more exciting--watching people eat blended clams or watching Bruce Willis save the world. I guess tonight's my chance to find out.

All is well on the medical front--fluids are going, chemo's started, Jake looks great. More or less the same--more or less boring.

Let's hope it stays that way.

Summer Fun

We're well into our summer clinic break and loving it! Today was the second week with no doctor's appointments, no chemo, nothing but a blood draw yesterday. Sure, he has to be in the hospital next Monday and Tuesday, but that's so much easier to take when we haven't been driving up there every week for long clinic visits.

Jake's doing great. After a low hematocrit count 8 days ago and a few days' of worrying whether another transfusion was in his future, Jake's count came up 4 points in 4 days. So we were able to enjoy the 4th with no worries :)

The big fun of the last two weeks was the Vans' Warped Tour at the Utah State Fairpark. The Warped Tour is a wide selection of alternative rock bands (I'm guessing there were 30 or 40 playing the day we went) and Matt got tickets for his birthday. One for him, one for Jake, one each for Mom and Dad . . . As the day came closer, all I could think was, "It seemed like a good idea at the time." Of course, at the time I bought the tickets, it wasn't averaging over 100 degrees.

We were able to work out a good deal--two of Mat's friends bought tickets and so I took the 3 older boys up at noon shortly after everything opened. I walked them right to the entrance, made sure they had my cell phone number programmed into the cell phone they were carrying, and gave them two instructions: The one that said Don't Split Up and the one that said I Trust Each of You So Don't Do Anything That Would Make Me Change My Mind.

And then they were on their own for a few hours. I didn't go far--just to a nearby Barnes and Noble where I could enjoy a few hours of cool peace and quiet while still being close enough to rescue them. Chris and Jake came up at 4:30 and I met up with them to hear a couple bands. We found the big boys in time for the show we all most wanted to see--Angels and Airwaves. Jake, fortunately, didn't want to be in the pushing mass of humanity but was happy in a somewhat shaded spot where we could see the side of the stage and had a good view of the crowd-surfers. Which is when Jake proved his eyesight is indeed 20/20, as he said, "Isn't that Matt?"

Yes, it was. Sigh.

Believe me, it could have been worse. I haven't had this much fun people-watching since the Blaqk Audio concert. I did not see any corsets this time, but there were lots of varieties of "What were you thinking?" and "Does your mother know you're wearing that?" But there were also lots of kids that looked like my sons and his friends, teenagers who like music and like live performance and don't feel the need to pierce every available (and some not so available) body part.

So where is my Coolest Mom in the Universe crown?

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 :)

Odds and Ends

1. Chris has the magic touch where time management is concerned. He took Jake to his clinic appointment Monday and it was the fastest on record. They were out of there in 40 minutes and that included accessing Jake, drawing his blood, and giving him a full dose of Vincristine. How come that never happens when I'm around?

2. The reason I wasn't in clinic on Monday was because I drove Emma and Spencer to Camp Hobe that morning. Camp Hobe is a camp for kids with cancer and their siblings. This week was for those ages 6-12, so off we went to introduce Emma and Spencer to the concept of camping. (It's not like it's gonna happen anywhere else--at least not in our household!) I picked them up Friday afternoon. Judging by the amount of dirt engrained on them and their clothes and the non-stop high-volume chatter during the ride home, I'd say it was a smashing success.

If you want to take a look at Camp Hobe and its mission, here's the link: http://www.camphobekids.org/whatiscamphobe.html

3. Jake is inpatient today and tomorrow (that's Monday and Tuesday, ignore the part above where it claims to be Saturday, I got distracted in the middle of this post). I'll drive up later to spend the night and let Chris come home. Jake doesn't waste any time settling in these days--he just goes straight for the DVDs and "How long until I get out of here?" demands. Can't say that I blame him.

4. It's hot. I am grumpy about it.

5. On our summer vacation countdown, it's 3 weeks finished, 8 to go. School starts again on August 18.

6. And on a slightly more fun countdown (for the kids' sake, I'm perfectly happy counting down to school starting), 5 weeks from today we'll be somewhere in the Caribbean Sea doing nothing but eating and sleeping and generally relaxing.

I think I can make it that long.