I realized this morning that I haven’t done a blog update since May!  I get so used to just putting up info on Facebook that I think I have done it here too…oh where has my mind gone!?

Let’s catch up on the past few weeks!  Everything has been going well for Jack since his scans.  We are so thrilled that he has crossed the 2 year mark post treatment!  While we don’t really live by statistics over here, we do know that “statistically”, Jack’s chance of relapse decreases dramatically after the 2 year mark so now that we have that on our side we can feel a little bit better about time passing inbetween scans.  Jack goes back on the 11th to see Dr Eshun for a checkup and then we don’t go back in until November for his next scans!  That is such a long time!!

A week or so after his scans, Jack celebrated his birthday with his buddies and family here at the house with his “Wipeout” themed birthday party.  The kids had a blast!!

Notice Braden doing a little photo bomb in the back!

After the party was over and the kids had all gone home, Jack was out back playing with his cousin when he decided to jump off the slide on his playset and hurt his right foot.  We ended up taking him in to Urgent Care and they took an x-ray and let us know he broke his foot!!  Since it was a holiday weekend they put his foot in a splint and we had to go and get a boot on Tuesday and then follow up with an orthopedic on Wednesday.  We couldn’t believe this happened again!  He broke his left foot doing almost the exact same thing last year.  We let Dr Eshun know that he broke his foot and he wasn’t thrilled with the fact that he broke 2 bones in a year.  Most say, “Oh boys will be boys!” and while that is very true, we always have to go back to cancer and treatment to see if it was a factor with really, to put it mildly, sucks.  So Eshun wanted the orthopedic to look at his bones and possibly do a bone density test since the cancer, and the treatment, can cause thinning of the bones.  Jack was still in good spirits even though he couldn’t walk and was in a bit of pain.

Jack went back to school on Tuesday and we had his classroom party for the end of the year.  We asked all the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up and most kids said teacher and doctor, but Jack said:

Of course I found this to be funny and just so Jack!

The next day was his last day of Kindergarten…notice the boot on his foot…and we are so proud of this little guy.  He has grown so much over this past school year that it really blows my mind!

So I couldn’t get Jack in to see the orthopedic at PCH so I went searching for a new doctor.  I wanted someone who was familiar with oncology and I found this amazing doc who is an oncology/orthopedic!  There are only 3 of them in AZ and she is located very close to us so I called and she said that she would never turn away a child and even though she was fully booked, she got Jack in.  I wanted to go and see her because she would be able to tell if there was any damage done because of cancer or treatment.  So off we went to see her.  Jack had told me that his foot didn’t really hurt anymore and that he felt fine now and I told him we would see what she said.  She pulled up the xrays from the urgent care and looked at them and turned to us and said, “Um, his foot is not broken. There is not a break here at all and maybe, if anything, he was bruised.  His bones look great and very healthy.”  She took off the boot and examined his foot and he let her touch and bend it all over the place.  I just sat there with my mouth wide open…seriously.  This kid has been on a boot or a splint now for 5 days and it wasn’t even broken!  She said we could take off the boot and see how he does…well, he was running by nighttime so he apparently didn’t need anything anymore! Thank God it wasn’t broke!!  I felt so awful that he was going to have to spend his summer in a boot!  The little Ninja got his wish…he gets to swim, do karate, go to the beach, and have fun this summer!

So all in all, everything is going really well.  We will have a few updates coming soon about some events coming up!  Jack had a great idea of something to do this summer and we want as many of you to get involved as you can so details to follow!!!

Just a little update to let you know that Jack did really well yesterday with his scans.  We got to the hospital and he was in great spirits.  We were able to deliver some of our “Stronger Than Cancer” shirts to some of the PCH employees since we had a little bit of time on our hands.  Walking back in to radiology used to feel like you were walking into the hallways of doom because it’s simply terrifying but now, even though we are still nervous about it all, we walk back there and we are greeted by our second family.  The nuclear med team, the CT team, nurse Angela, and of course Dr Maze are all there waiting for us and with open arms.  They care so much about Jack and our family and knowing that they will take such amazing care of him while he is under, makes a huge difference.

Jack fell asleep well, with a smile on his face but with a very strong grip on to Zac’s shirt.  We gave him kisses and ran up to the oncology floor to deliver some more shirts while he was asleep.  The scans didn’t take any longer than needed and we were back in recovery in about 1 1/2 hours.  Jack was sound asleep and after about 20 minutes, he woke up well, ate his popsicle, and we headed home….with a small stop at Toys R Us of course!  Once we were home he had another snack and out he went to play in the backyard….all was back to normal again!

Now we sit and wait for Dr Eshun to call.  We know we won’t know full details until Tuesday but I am really hoping that we get some preliminary results today at some point.  My birthday is on Saturday and the only thing I want is for Jack’s scans to be clear and for him to be cancer free forever.

Thank you all for your love and support…it means so much to us…

Jack is back in school and doing really well with getting back in the swing of things after a pretty rough week.  We went back down to PCH for a checkup with Dr Eshun and at the same time, we were doing the check presentation from the “Comedians for a Cure” event so it was an exciting day!

First for Jack’s checkup…we still do not really know what sort of an infection he had removed.  It was a node but that is about all we know.  All his labs look great, his urine analysis is the most “normal” it has ever been (which is really good!), he tested negative for Valley Fever but we will be doing another check for that next week.  Dr Eshun wants to send labs out to CA for a more in depth look at it to make sure he doesn’t have Valley Fever.  I promised Jack he wouldn’t be getting a poke yesterday so I wanted to keep that promise and would rather make another trip down to the hospital to get labs drawn so we will be doing that on Tuesday of next week.  We will also be doing another CT scan next month to follow up after the surgery and at that time, we will be having an MIBG scan done for extra precaution.  If you don’t remember what an MIBG scan is, it is the scan where we go in the day before and Jack is injected with a radioactive isotope that circulates through his body for 24 hours.  The next day we go back for a full body scan and if there is any active Neuroblastoma in his body, the isotope will cling on to it and it will light up on imaging.  We are confident that nothing will light up but we want to be as cautious as possible.

Everyone was thrilled that Jack was still cancer free and that the mass tested negative for tumor.  We walked in to clinic and almost every nurse and doctor (including Dr Eshun!) was wearing Jack’s “Stronger than cancer” shirt.  It was such an amazing feeling to see how much they all care about Jack and about all of the kiddos that walk into that hospital.  They are constantly rooting for all of them and you can see on their faces just how much they love these kids.

We were able to all gather around and I told them all how much we love and appreciate them.  How we know that the protocol that Jack was on obviously killed the cancer in his body but there is no way we would have gotten through the past few years without the compassion and support they have given us.  These people are more than incredibly intelligent doctors and nurses, they truly do become your family.  After we thanked them for everything and presented them with the check for just over $37,000, Dr Eshun said he wanted to say a few words.  This is where Nikki and I became a tad teary again!  He thanked us for all that we are doing to raise awareness for Neuroblastoma and Childhood Cancer in general.  He told us how much he loves our “Comedians for  a Cure” event not only because it is a fun night but because it brings together so many families that have gone through treatment at PCH.  He loves how he saw so many parents and employees of PCH in attendance.  It really felt amazing to know that he, and the rest of clinic, support us and what we do.

All in all, it was a good day.  It was great to be able to give back so much for Neuroblastoma research and it was even better to know that Jack is still cancer free.  This child amazes me with his strength and resilience.  He has once again confirmed for us that we are dong exactly what we need to be doing.  Fighting for him and for all of the kids and families that have had to face cancer.

Jack was a tad shy so he didn’t really want to take the pic!  Look at all the shirts!!  So amazing!!!  I am going to be putting in another order soon so if you want to show that you believe we all are “Stronger than cancer”, you can go to the donate tab at the top of the page and donate the amount for the shirt.  Short sleeve shirts are $20, long sleeve are $25, and children’s are $15.  The short sleeves are more “fitted” so they do run a little small and come in both woman’s and mens sizes.  The long sleeve are unisex and both are so comfy!!  

We only have 2 weeks left until our 2nd Annual Comedians for a Cure!!!  This year is so exciting because not only do we have a great comedy show lineup with Jill Bryan, Travis Thurman, Monique Marvez with the show being MC’s by Boomer Nichols, but the Diamondback’s Luis Gonzalez and The Cardinals Adrian Wilson will our special guests for the night!  They will be joining Tribute Art Live’s artist, Randall Hedden, on stage to kick off our evening!

If you want to score some amazing seats to the Coyotes vs King’s game on March 12th…stay tuned and we will tell you how to tomorrow!!

Thank you for all of your support and we cannot wait to see you all there!!!  Go ahead, click on the link NOW and get your tickets!

The closer the event is getting, the more excited we are getting!  I really think this year will be amazing and I hope you all join us and help us give back to Phoenix Children’s Hospital.  The night begins with a happy hour and silent auction followed by not only a hilarious comedy show, but Randall Hedden from Tribute Art Live will be opening the show with Luis Gonzalez and another special guest that we will announce next week!  Check out Randall’s work at http://www.tributeartlive.com/ …he is amazing!!!

Simply click at the link at the top of the website and it will take you to Stand Up Live’s site to purchase tickets!