We had the amazing opportunity to spend 3 days at the Caring Cabin! The Children's Cancer Association owns this awesome place and they let families of cancer-fighting kids go stay there free of charge. It was so great. This is what we found on the table when we first arrived. A blanket for Carter made by some volunteers in Pacific City (where the cabin is), disposable camera to take pictures for CCA of our stay at the cabin, and two name stones - more on those later. So here's a lot of pictures - enjoy :) And notice Carter's hair is coming in nice a thick now. I love it!
There was so many ladybugs in the house! Carter had a blast catching them and carrying them around.
We celebrated this little guy's birthday while we were there.
We got him a super hero cape and mask because he LOVES everything super hero. He didn't even want to put it on. He just today, 3 days later, put it on for the first time. Carter, on the other hand, has been wearing it around everywhere.
The rec room. The boys just wanted to stay and play with all the toys all day.
The rec room is on the left. The building in the front right is the "meditation room" and the main house is behind those two buildings. It was absolutely beautiful.
There's this little private lake on the property. We spent some time in the row boat and canoe.
View of the cabin from the lake.
Entry hall
This is the room the boys slept in. There was a loft with two more beds. They loved it. A lot.
View from the deck
Most of our time was spent just relaxing and the boys played and played with all the toys and games there.
We went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and got some ice cream cones.
We ran from the waves.
The boys rode their bikes.
So the rocks. Every kid that goes to the cabin with his/her family gets one of these rocks with their name on it and year they visit the cabin. Sometime during our stay we are supposed to pick a place along the path to the lake to put his stone. The other stone is for us to take home with us. Carter chose this spot because it's where he fell off his bike the first day. Placing your rock can be symbolic of all the hard things you've been through. We asked Carter what was the hardest thing he's had to do and we talked about some tough things he's been through. He doesn't get very sad about it anymore when we talk about it. He's become so brave.
He threw his rock down right next to the path.
There were tons of name rocks all along the path. Then there's this big cluster of them right near the lake.
It was pretty humbling to see that many names, some of which we recognize from being in the hospital.
Carrying an oar down to the lake.
We saw bear tracks! Yikes!
They got a little tired walking back up the hill.
After we left the cabin, we headed down to Newport to check out the aquarium. Thanks to Candlelighters for Children with Cancer we got an awesome "behind the scenes experience". We got to go see these harbor seals up close. They even did some cool tricks for us.
Like sticking out her tongue :)
And giving me a kiss.
We also got to go to a big shark viewing window. There were so many sharks and it was really awesome to just stand there and watch them swim around. After that we went back out with the "commoners" (haha) and just walked around the aquarium and enjoyed the nice weather.
Sting ray
Have you ever seen a Super Dad? I have. I'm married to one.
It was a fantastic weekend. We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and were sad to leave. But we have another trip to look forward to in a couple weeks! Carter goes back in for his monthly visit on Thursday - more updates to come.
Carter is doing great! However, I had a bit of a nervous break-down the morning of his last clinic visit. The night before he woke up complaining of leg pain. That scared us a lot because that was a big complaint he had right before he was diagnosed. The next morning his legs were still hurting him and he also said his head hurt and his stomach. He was very grumpy and vomited on the way to the hospital. He threw up again in the exam room. His chemo pal was there and Carter hardly said a word and didn't even pretend to be interested in all the toys and games he brought. He had a sedation so I was hoping that his grumpiness and feeling ill were due to no breakfast. But I was totally freaking out, thinking the worst. Despite having a rough day, Carter was still so brave for his port access. He didn't say anything and later told me, "I was as still as a statue!" Finally they took him to the procedure room and started the sedation medicine. He started to vomit again as he was going to sleep. SO SCARY! I quickly left the room and said a little prayer and put my trust in the doctors. A long 10 minutes later they came and got me and said he did just fine. Right after he woke up he wanted his juice which he quickly drank and was then back to his normal happy self. He has been totally fine ever since. His numbers are good: White blood cell count 13,400 and ANC 11,600. Hemoglobin 10.4 and platelets 329,000. His ANC is higher than expected and we figured out it's partly because I'VE BEEN GIVING HIM THE WRONG DOSE OF ONE OF HIS MEDICINES!!! I've been giving him one pill once a week and he's supposed to get FIVE pills once a week! I felt like a really bad mom. Luckily it's only been 3 weeks. The doctor was really nice about it, he just laughed and said, "So THAT'S why his numbers are so high!" So, lesson learned: Read the prescription labels and then read them again! Other than that morning, he's been doing awesome. Every now and then he'll say something like, "I'm so happy I squished my dragon!" or "I'm so glad my dragon is gone. He was eating all of my blood! Good thing I squished him!". He's amazing. And we don't have to go back to the hospital for another month!
Oh, and we're going to DisneyWorld/Seaworld in November, courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation!!!!!!!
This was so awesome I just had to share it! A few nights ago Carter was drawing with his new stencil. He drew a heart for Mommy, Daddy, his brother, sister, and himself. He told us that he drew them for us because he loves us. Then he drew another one, drew a circle around it and then drew a line threw it (like a "no parking") sign. He said, "This one is for my dragon. I drew a circle with a line through it because I don't love him at all." (you can see it in the lower left hand corner, kinda between the two blue hearts) Then he drew a check-mark (just to the left of the green heart, close to the middle - looks like a backwards 'C') and told us, "There! That's a check-mark to say I don't have a dragon anymore!" At the end of the movie "Paul and the Dragon" the doctor erases the red circle around the cancer and puts a green check-mark instead. What a smart and funny boy!
We went in yesterday to check Carter's counts. His bone marrow has been working very hard this past week to recover. And recover it did! White blood cell count of 9500 and ANC 7400!! Hemoglobin 10.1 and platelets 276,000. The steroids he was on last week probably helped with this huge jump. But no matter, this means that maintenance is 100% on. He started his other two oral meds last night and will continue on those for a really long time. SO here we are! Aahhhhhh maintenance, you taste so sweet :)
Can you see his hair growing back?!?!
Just a few short weeks ago we were wondering how long it would take for him to be back to "normal". As in, doing things for himself again like getting dressed, getting himself a drink of water, getting himself in and out of the car... things that he used to do but hasn't for a really long time now. And other simple things such as playing with his brother or friends, have enough energy to stay off of the couch for more than 20 minutes at a time, walk from one room to another without asking to be carried, and just be happy and act like he's feeling good. These last couple days he has been doing so AWESOME! I guess I kinda forgot how emotionally and physically taxing it is caring for a sick little boy because it had become my normal. But these last couple days, we have been overjoyed with how happy and energetic and fun he is again. Throughout this journey we've had glimmers of happy healthy Carter shining through but didn't want to get too excited, knowing it would fade with the next dose of medicine. Now, there's no foreseeable end in sight of feeling good and it feels amazing. He feels it, too. Yesterday, his brother drank his whole glass of milk way too fast and then threw up. We were talking about it later and Carter said, "I don't throw up anymore!" like it had just occurred to him how good he feels now. Him and his brother talk about how he smashed his dragon all the time. Jude might be more excited than all of us - he has a friend and playmate back for good! Two days ago was just a really great day. He came out in the family room from the hall and announced that he had cleaned my room. I had sorted the laundry on my bedroom floor so there were piles of clothes everywhere and he'd picked it all up and put it on my bed. I honestly don't remember the last time he helped without being asked first. He used to do stuff like that all the time - little kids love to "help". At the end of the day, he got hurt and started crying a little bit and I noticed that he hadn't cried all day long until then. I hadn't realized how much crying I'd become used to. It's great to hear laughing all day long instead. We're all just enjoying the moments around here. I could get used to this.
We (mostly) started Maintenance on Thursday! More about that later, for now.... the PARTY! First, he saw the cakes and asked for some candles in it. Then he told me "we can't do candles without a song" and so we sang Happy Birthday to him. Haha, silly boy. Then we headed outside among friends (some of which came all the way from Utah!) where Carter saw these on the ground waiting to be stomped on:
He's been waiting 8 months to do this!!!!
(Smashing his dragon is symbolic of killing the cancer.)
ALL SMASHED!
(My face was covered in tears by this point.)
A beautiful sight!
Then he took a break to play his new game while everyone else had some yummy dinner.
After that, we brought out this guy:
Carter slaying his dragon:
It was an amazing night. Thank you again to all of you that were here (physically and in spirit :) ) and brought food and celebrated with us. We've been waiting for the day we could have this party and it feels good to be here. It's been 8 months since Carter was diagnosed with Leukemia and it doesn't seem that much more real now than it did then. He's been admitted to the hospital 9 times, has made 6 ER visits, has had 15 sedations, and about 10 blood/platelet transfusions. It's very apparent to us how much Carter has grown and matured throughout all this. It's the most obvious to me when he gets his port accessed. He is SO brave. He doesn't cry or even say "ow" anymore. It might seem like a little thing to some of you but this is HUGE to us. I am utterly amazed ever time. Two clinic visits ago, we were driving up to the hospital and Carter said, "when the nurse does my poke I'm going to say 'Yeeeooowww!', it will be so funny!" I thought for sure he would forget or be too focused on being brave but sure enough, he said it right when she put the needle in. He immediately started laughing because it scared the nurse. It was SO AWESOME! I never thought he would get to this point with being accessed. We are all just so happy to be past all that junk and only have smaller junk in front of us. I just hope and pray that Maintenance will be highly uneventful.
So here's a couple videos also. The first one is some pinata action. The second one is Carter stomping a few dragons. Sorry most of it is sideways - if there's a way to fix it, I don't know about it.
Now to maintenance. On Thursday Carter's ANC still wasn't up to 750. It was only 676. His doctor decided to go ahead with the Intrathecal Methotrexate (the one he has to be sedated for - it goes in his spinal fluid) and the Vincristine (IV) since neither of them lower his counts very much. The two oral meds that he'll take at home haven't started yet since they do lower his counts. We'll go back in Thurdsay to see if his counts are good enough to start those other two. We did, however, get to start the steroids, or "yucky medicine". Do you all remember the yucky medicine??
Solution! Cut em up and stick em in a gel cap! Best thing that's ever happened to us.
So here's how Maintenance works. It's 3 month long cycles that just repeat until we're finished. At the beginning of each month, Carter goes into the clinic for IV Vincristine and sometimes Intrathecal Methotrexate in his spinal fluid. At home, he takes Mercaptopurine every single day until April 13, 2014. Also, Prednisone (steroid) 5 days every month, and oral Methotrexate once a week except the weeks he has the Intrathecal. And that's it. Sounds pretty easy, right? I sure hope so, cause here we go!
Oh, and Carter starts preschool tomorrow!!! I, of course, have mixed emotions about it, but I'm mostly just so excited for him because I know he will love it.
