Andrew is doing pretty well, and is enjoying wearing a different hat everyday.  He still has radiation every week day.  He has begun his “boost” radiation which means that they have high intensitive radiation just on his brain.  This has caused him to get some blisters on his head.  It is also making him increasingly tired, but he still plays hard.  He is using his laptop to do much of his school work since writing is still pretty hard with his lessened fine motor skills.  He is very happy to have his tutor coming to help him with his school work and is handle a larger work load despite his increased fatiginess.

We have been would like to thank all those people who have been praying for us and supporting us.  We have been incredibly blessed and appreciate the special notes and messages of encouragement we have been receiving.  Andrew will be doing another webcast soon, so keep watching.

I don’t know know how many of you have taken the time to sign this online petition, but I wanted to post a few facts from it and urge EVERYONE to fill it out.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/CureChildhoodCancer

Did you know: 

- Childhood cancer is the #1 killer disease of our children, more than from asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenital anomalies, and pediatric AIDS combined

- 1 in 300 children will be diagnosed with cancer before age 20

- Each year 3,000 children die, and 35-40,000 are in treatment

- The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) federal budget was $4.6 billion. Of that, breast cancer received 12%, prostate cancer received 7%, and all 12 major groups of pediatric cancers combined received less than 3%

- Childhood cancer has a huge societal impact – 180,000 potential years of life are lost to it EVERY year

There’s a longer post here, written by AJ’s dad, but on another site. Unfortunately I don’t know the original site where his article appeared.

Monday morning Andrew still had a lot of hair on his head, but after a shower and getting combed it really started to thin out. So, it’s official, Andrew has lost his hair. His head ended up needing to be shaved because he was leaving so much hair everywhere.

This post will follow through his Wednesday routine. Wednesday he has radiation and chemo, so its a busy day and fairly taxing for him.

Andrew tries to sleep in, but its hard for him when his sister is bouncing around getting ready for school. Some days he likes to eat breakfast but on this day he didn’t have much of an appetite. His spirits were still high as he wrapped up in his prayer shawl to watch some morning cartoons.

After a couple cartoons he took a shower and got dressed for the day.

Just in case Wednesday wasn’t busy enough, Andrew had to take two math tests, work on a word search and study for a spelling test.

After he aced the math tests he got to play Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii for a while before lunch.

After lunch it was time for Andrew’s radiation appointment. Idaho is starting to get cold, but he didn’t want to wear a hat just yet. His head is tender from the radiation too, so a hat may hurt a little.

He got some business cards for his website, and he really enjoyed handing them out to his doctors and nurses.

Here he is on the radiation table, before the put his mask on.

And with the mask.

After radiation he talked to the Dr. Smith, then headed back upstairs for his chemo.

Accessing his port still hurts him quite a bit, but he’s getting better at it. The other problem is they push a lot of salt water through his port and he can actually  taste it, which he hates. When they’re done setting up the port he gets to pick something out of the treasure chest. This little red smiley face caught his eye.

After they set up his port he got to go back to the lobby and play Nintendo 64 until it was time for the chemo. Luckily, since the lobby had emptied out he was able to keep playing and get the chemo right there. Having the distraction, he didn’t even seem to notice the taste when they flushed his port for a second time.

After the treatment he headed home, where he played video games for a while then had dinner. He felt a little sick later that night, but not too bad.

All in all he’s doing great. His spirits are high, which is awesome. He really does like the attention he’s getting from his family, and doesn’t spend any time feeling bad for himself. He loves hearing about the different people who send him notes on this site or through the mail.

People seemed to like Andrew’s video, so hope to get Andrew to start doing them on a weekly basis.

Thanks for everyone’s love and support!

November 17th Update from Dave Vanderploeg on Vimeo.

Andrew turned 9 on Tuesday and what a fun day it was. He visited his classmates again and enjoyed learning trivia about past US Presidents. He had a party with his family that night. His favorite present was a canister of Frito’s, the silly kid! He loved his Nerf gun he got from Taylor and harassed everyone with it the whole night. He played some Harry Potter Scene it and even chased his cousin down when he stole the remote.

Undergoing Radiation Treatment if you can read this you are standing too close!

Andrew's favorite!

He also started chemotherapy this week. He is having much larger lows now, but still does a couple of highs a day. He is also getting a lot more unstable after his treatments, but is still trying to be a strong as he can. He is reading quite a bit better with his new camouflage glasses that we fog out one side which makes him pretty happy. He is anxious to start doing more school work even though it will be hard with him becoming more fatigued.

Andrew harassing

Andrew in radiation with his mask on

It seems like Andrew has been a pirate for weeks. Halloween came and Andrew dressed up to trick-or-treat at the hospital. He after his radiation session. He really didn’t want any candy though, so he just took one candy from each station and when they told him he could have more he just said “no thank you.” When he got to his cousin’s house to go trick-or-treating he was too tired and asked if he could just stay home, although that didn’t stop him from tormenting Taylor with his sword every chance he got. So Taylor went out and brought back some candy for him, but he was been very hasty to share them with everyone else. It was apparent that Friday’s treatment was a lot harder on him, and we are enjoying his weekend break from radiation. He helped plan his birthday party for Tuesday and did a good job helping prepare a grocery list and helped gather the groceries at the store last night. He read all the guestbook posts today and really enjoyed them so thank you everyone who has dropped a note.

Taylor the bunny, Andrew the Pirate, and Momma the 70's night clubber