One more day left!!  Sooo excited!!  Jack did great today…we got up bright and early while our wonderful friend Ali came over to stay with Braden so he could sleep in.  Nikki, Jack, and I headed off to Banner for his second to last radiation treatment.  Jack did great and we went straight to clinic at Phoenix Childrens right after to have his levels checked.  The Dr came back and said that his levels “couldn’t be more than perfect” so we were able to get a move on and head right home. 

After getting home we made some cupcakes to celebrate tomorrow and Jack made some thank  you cards for his nurse, Marla, and Dr Maze.  I am sure they will be thrilled to get them tomorrow.  They really have been great with Jack and have made us feel very comfortable while we are going through such a sneaky treatment like radiation. 

It’s true…radiation is sneaky.  You feel as if you are just going about your daily business when you go to radiation because it is over so fast and there are no visible signs that anything is happening.  It is the strangest feeling.  Radiation is the type of treatment that can have side effects 7 years after you are done.  Hopefully Jack will not have any of these awful side effects that they warned us about, but still…I have decided that I don’t like radiation.  I like it because it is getting rid of the rest of Jack’s active cancer, but it is just different.  I am sure that sounds a bit odd, but it’s true.  I guess it’s hard to explain unless you are going through it.

Once again, please do not forget to sign up for the 1st Annual Jack Morton Foundation Golf Classic!!  We are so very excited and can’t wait for our big day on December 5th.  It will be so much fun and of course it will be for such a great cause!  If you don’t want to mail in your form, let me know and we can arrange to drop it off to us or Nikki or we can even pick it up!  Just let me know!!

Also, since we have been going to treatment we have met a wonderful little girl, Mia, who is battling brain cancer.  She is such a beautiful little girl and her family is wonderful.  Mia’s parents are so strong, loving, and just plain wonderful.  Mia has a little brother who is about Jack’s age and a baby sister who is 10 weeks old.  To say that they have their hands full is more than obvious.  Please follow Mia and pray for her and her battle.  She is strong little girl who has a lot of spunk.  She it taking this cancer on, and she will win.  http://humantribeproject.com/tribes/princess-mia

Well Braden’s runny nose from teething turned into some sort of a virus because Nikki, Jack, and I all got it.  Since we all were feeling pretty down here, Zac came home from work last night to be with Jack so there is at least one healthy person taking care of him.  I talked to the nurse at the clinic at PCH yesterday and as long as he doesn’t run a fever of 100.4 or more, there really isn’t much we can do about it.  Since it is cold season, they expect the kids to get sick at some point so they aren’t too concerned.  He had a very low fever of 99.1 yesterday when he was sleeping, but it hasn’t gotten any higher than that.  We are allowed to give him something for the cold as long as there isn’t a fever reducer in it so he took some medication yesterday afternoon and it seemed to help a lot.  Hopefully we will all start feeling better soon and get back to “normal”.

Zac got up early this morning to take Jackers to his 17th day of radiation so I could try and sleep in a little to get rid of this cold.  Braden has been up since 5:45 this morning wanting to get up and play so sleeping in really didn’t happen!  About 15 minutes after they left for the hospital, I get a call from radiation telling me that the machine is down….again.  It has been “down” the last 5 days in a row.  Since they already left and we live so far from Banner, there wasn’t much we could do about it.  Jack and Zac are still waiting to go back for his radiation (45 minutes late so far) so who knows how long they will have to wait.  It just really stinks that we have to get him up so early and he can’t eat or drink anything and he just has to sit there.  Once again, what can you do….not much! 

After today Jack will only have 3 more sessions left!  Thank God it’s almost over.  I can’t even explain how proud we are of Jack and how well he handles everything.  He really does have more courage than all of us put together and he is the true definition of a survivor.  He is going to beat this.  Cancer doesn’t have a chance.

Day +39

Well we haven’t written in 5 days and we have just been so busy and sometimes just busy doing nothing. Does that even make sense???

Nikki and Shawn had a safe drive from Idaho and arrived late Saturday night. Zac was at a golf tournament for work so he wasn’t here when they arrived. Jack was so very excited for them to get here. We went out to see them as they pulled up and our new neighbors across the street were outside decorating for Halloween so we were able to meet them. They are so very sweet and have two young boys. They ended up putting up lights on our house for Halloween and we thought that was so sweet. Jack loves having the lights.

Sunday we all got up nice and early and Jack, Zac, and Shawn took a ride in the neighbors golf cart to Starbucks to get us all coffee (it’s right across the street and yes they went through the drive thru) and Jack thought that was so much fun. After unloading Nikki and Shawny, Shawn had to hurry off to the airport so he could get back to work.

Zac had to go back to back to Tucson for work Monday and we tried to get things accomplished around the house. We were able to get out and Jack got to go to the park for the first time in so long. He was so happy being outside. I was also able to connect with a family that I used to nanny for years ago. They were such a huge part of my life and I just have always loved all of them. I didn’t have their number and I was honestly scared to tell them about Jack because it has been a few years since I have seen them and they are like family to me. It is hard to talk about Jack with people that you are close to because it always makes it even more real. I was able to tell them everything and they automatically said that they were stopping over today even if they had to stand outside just to see me. I thought that was so sweet of them. You really realize when you go through something like this who you can count on and Melanie and Barry are 2 of those people. They stopped over tonight and were able to meet the boys and they loved them. For those of you who know Jack, he doesn’t warm up to everyone and he totally did with them. He tried to make Melanie play the Wii and Braden was all smiles and flirty with her as well. I just can’t tell you how happy I was to see them tonight….thank you so much for stopping over to see us!!

Zac was able to come home tonight and he will be taking tomorrow off to go to Jacks’s first radiation session tomorrow morning. We have to leave around 5:30 am so that should be interesting. Please pray for Jack that he get through this with as little side effects as possible. He is our fighter and he will do this with such courage as he has with everything else.

I heard this the other day and I think this is how we have been able to get though this journey….”we all have problems but we also all have triumphs. If we focus on on the triumphs and the positive, we can get through our lows that much better.”. So true.

Day +27

Jack had another clinic appointment today and all went well.  He is holding steady with all of his counts and is doing great.  He gets to stop one of the medications that he went home on so he is only down to an antiviral that he will have to take for a year.  He is also staying at his weight…not losing, but not gaining.  He eats all day long, but he is also running all day long.  They said that he has always had a high metabolism and they expect it to stay high for awhile after transplant.  We are going to start him on his protein powder again as well as some other supplements that he used to take so hopefully that will help him put on a pound or two!

As of now, the transplant Dr’s have released him and he will start to see his normal oncology Dr, Dr. Eshun, as of next week.  We will see him on Tuesday and then we will go to see the radiologist on Wednesday.  They are hoping to start the radiation the week after that.  We are a little nervous and don’t really know what to expect, but we will just take it one day at a time. 

Jack will meet with the transplant Dr’s again around Day +100 (Dec. 12th) to have all of his scans done again.  That will be the first time he will have scans since he stopped chemo so we are really looking forward to having that done.  That would be a great Christmas gift…NED.

There was a news story on CBS last night that talked about Neuroblastoma and the immunotherapy that Jack will be starting in December.  It was great to see that the news is FINALLY talking about NB (and childhood cancer at all actually!) and hopefully it will go on from there.  I will attach the link so you can watch it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/29/eveningnews/main6912677.shtml

Also, we told you how Adrian Wilson had a ad for his foundation and Jack in the Cardinals program this weekend and we wanted to post it for you all to see!  Once again, thank you Adrian, Evon, Ann, and the Cardinals!!