Ben woke up today sick from his Chemo. He is such a big boy. He tries so hard to get to the bathroom on time, but right when he wakes up is the hardest time for him to get there quickly. His nausea came and went today. It was bad in the morning, then it let up for a while then came back around three o'clock. I think he will be feeling better by tomorrow but pray that he will have some relief.

November

Wow! We are really looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas! It is getting pretty cold here. It was 23 degrees last night.


Matt and I are taking Ben and Olivia to Mississippi for Thanksgiving to celebrate Christmas. We are going to meet his Mom and Dad and Brother's family at the family cabin. The kids are really exicted to go and have that time with their cousin.
I am still hoping to come to Phoenix with the kids in December. Ben has been really wanting to go and see everyone that he misses so much. I am hoping to find someone who wants to fly here and drive with me :) so I don't have to go alone, but I will come out either way as long as I can manage to make it work with our schedules of Dr. appointments and other things.

Ben's last appointment went well. His ANC dropped down again, but not to an alarming rate. He had Vinchristine in his port and he is due for a spinal tap again on November 30th.

I would love to ask for prayer for me. I am in a pretty agressive disagreement with Ben's Oncologist right now. I have been asking for paperwork to be signed to allow Ben to be able to recieve "Home Hospital Education". This is a program that would send a teacher to our home 2-3 hours to help with Ben's school. However, because the Doctor does not "believe" in homeschooling he is unwilling to sign it. I believe his reasons have nothing to do with anything medically reasonable, but instead has everything to do with this Doctor being personally against homeschooling. He even went so far as to tell Matt and I to our faces that "kids do not spread germs and diseases, they only get sick from bacteria from our own bodies." I have spoken to the hospital administration and I am pursuing this because I feel that they are violating my right to choose how to educate my own son. Anyway, Please pray that God will give me wisdom in this and that he will continue to guide me to resources (He has already provided so much help) that will help me state my case to the administration.

All my love Jamie

Ben's Doctor Appointment

We went for Ben's visit in Louisville today and it went really well. Ben received Vinchristine in his port IV. I really love the nurse he had today. He had her last time too, but she is lightning fast at accessing his port. Normally he screams and we have to hold him down, but she is so fast and gentle that he barely made any noise the last two times!! Thank you Jesus for Tammy!!
We saw Dr. Cheervo today for the first time and I really like her. She seems really interested in the natural supplements Ben is taking. Most of the Dr's have just kinda turned up their noses at us, which doesn't really matter because I know they are working but she took the card of the Naturopathic Dr. that we work with at Cancer Treatment Centers of America so she could follow up with him. I called the Naturopathic's office a few hours after I got home and she had already put in a call so I am really happy to see that she is genuinely interested in it.
Dr. Cheervo said that Ben does have a really bad cough and she thinks it is due to drainage from his congestion so it should go away soon.
Ben has not had a fever since the ER. PRAISE THE LORD!!! I am sure it is bound to happen again but I hope and pray that it doesn't.

I love you all. Thank you for your prayers.
Love Jamie

Thank you everyone so much for your prayers this last month. I have really felt the Lord by my side lately.

Ben had quite a time last week. He is still sick and we seem to be dealing with a really tough virus. Ben spiked a temperature on Thursday night of last week. When I took his temperature at home it was 103 degrees. We called the on-call physician and he had us go to the local ER so Ben could be checked out. By the time we got there his temp was 105.2 and climbing. They could not give him Tylenol until his blood was checked. They had to be sure he did not have some specific problems that the Tylenol would interfere with. Finally they were able to bring his temp down to a normal range. He still had a horrible cough, so they x-rayed him again. The x-ray came back clear. They aloud us to go home that night, but we were instructed to watch him closely for fever again.
So far this weekend he has not had any trouble with fever but his cough has gotten really bad this morning. Every time he coughs he says it hurts really bad. Poor guy.

Ben has an appointment with the Oncologist on Tuesday morning so I will update you on his situation when I get home.

Love you all

Jamie

This has been quite a month. I am sorry that I have not been able to keep up the blog as much. I still have limited access to the internet right now. I appreciate everyone's patience in this!!

Ben's appointment was on the 31st of August and it went well. He was scheduled for a spinal tap. They tested his spinal fluid for leukemia cells and injected chemo into his spinal column. This went well and so far has reacted well this time to this treatment. He also recieved another chemo drug in his IV port.
I had to take both Benjamin and Olivia into the primary care physician because two weeks ago they started having cold syptoms. Ben, Olivia, and I all had ear infections in both ears and had to be on anti-biotics. They are still having syptoms of this nasty cold and they also caught a viral infection that had them both sick with vomiting and diarrhea. We had to take Benjamin to the hospital on Tuesday night. We got there and he was dehydrated so they gave him IV fluids they also checked his blood for infections and found the gastroenteritis virus present. He had a bad cough from the cold so they x-rayed his lungs and they came back clear. Finally at about three A.M. on wednesday morning he kept down food and water so they released us to go home. He is doing better today and although Olivia is going back to the Doctor tomorrow because it seems that her ear infection is worse, at least Ben has not had the same problems continue.
On top of all of this I am dealing with Olivia having lice. We are not sure how she got it because we don't go out much around other people, maybe church or somewhere else, but we are dealing with and seem to have it all under control. The local news station just recently reported that not only is lice going around the schools and daycares really bad it seems to be that they are not getting this outbreak under control with over the counter options. Even though my kids are not in school or daycare it seems that this outbreak is pretty extensive for this little county. I feel like we have been through the ringer this month but here is the amazing news. Even though this has been a tough couple of weeks this is the FIRST time in over one year that Benjamin has gotten sick at all and I can only PRAISE GOD for this miracle. I find it amazing that a normal four year old not being sick in a whole year is really rare, not to mention a immune suppressed one!! GOD IS SO GOOD!!

THank you all so much for your support. Please keep us in your prayers!!

Love Jamie

1st Anniversary

I think it would be easy to be sad about the one year anniversary of Ben's diagnosis but instead We choose to Praise God for all the wonderful things this year so far!!

Lord we want to praise you for our beautiful son. We praise you for your plan and We are excited for Ben's future and the people that he will be able to share this awesome trial with. We hope and pray that you will use Ben as a vessel for spreading your name and awesome gift of salvation!!

Thank you Lord for controlling every second of the days before Ben's diagnosis and for having your angels in place to get Ben to the hospital on time. Without your mercy Lord we know it would have been too late and words will never express our gratitude as parents for you protection over him.

Thank you Lord for showing us your awesome power in drawing together so many people in prayer for our son, the best we can tell are prayer supporters are more than 150,000 strong!! PRAISE GOD!

Thank you Lord for all the wonderful people we have met this last year who have shared their amazing stories of hope and healing!

Thank you Lord for all our supporters who have joined the bone marrow donation list hoping for the chance to save lives. Bless John, Kate and Anne who have been called to donate and gave three babies their marrow!!!

Thank you Lord for our growth as a family!! Learning to lean on God for the strength to get through the bad days! And for the energy for the good ones :)

Thank you Lord for the opportunity to move closer to both sets of Ben and Olivia's Grandparents. They will forever be blessed to have such close relationship's with them.

Thank you to all our supporters for your prayers and love and encouragement.


Love Jamie and Matthew


P.s. Ben's next appointment is on the 31st so watch for the next update!!!!

August

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us all last month. Ben did not lose any weight last month and did so much better with his eating. He was 35lbs at his visit yesterday!!!!

Ben's appointment went well, he continues to respond really well to all his treatments. His ANC is 1400 and that is a great number to have before his steroid treatment starts. By the beginning of next week he should be well over 2000.

I am sorry I have not posted as much this month. Ben and Olivia were playing with the wireless extender and broke it. I am waiting for another one in the mail and in the mean time am trying to find time to sneak on to Dad's computer when I can :)

We are doing well right now and really appreciate everyone's prayer support.

We love you all and will post again as soon as we can!!!

Jamie