Andrew was admitted to the hospital yesterday with a fever of 101. They’ve been giving him antibiotics and he seems to be improving. He’ll be released once his blood count improves.

We made it through the weekend and we were pretty happy that there was little to report.  Andrew did have some gagging and a little nausea but nothing too bad.  He had a great day Monday with his Vincristine Chemotherapy and Occupational Therapy and he ate very well too!  However, today was not so great, Andrew lost his breakfast and didn’t really want to eat after that.  We are going to try some new medication to help with his nausea so hopefully we have less gagging and vomiting.  Amazingly Andrew is still as happy as ever after his nausea is gone, and wants to get back to whatever he was doing.  He has such a great attitude!

I have received an updated schedule from the doctors office, so it looks like without any illness getting in the way, Andrew will get Vincristine Chemotherapy next Monday and then 2 weeks off and admitted on February 23rd for his next round of Chemo cocktail.

Thank you for the wonderful notes you leave and for checking in, we will update soon!

First some great news, we got Andrew’s MRI results back and they said his scans looked good and showed no signs of residual cancer.

Andrew had his first round of chemo cocktail of Cicplatin, CCNU, and Vincristine.  Some of the side effects from these are low blood cell (which will happen), hair loss (he is waiting to lose his eye lashes and eye brows), kidney damage, jaw pain, weakness, pain in fingers, and nausea/vomiting or diarrhea.  He was admitted on Monday around 1:00 when the fluid administration began.  To protect his kidneys they need to hydrate him for quite a few hours.  He got this chemo around 10:00 at night and he was up more than once an hour to urinate which was to be expected but made sleeping impossible.  The chemo finished at 4:00 in the morning but he had to continue to get fluid for another 10 hours.  Luckily the anti-nausea medication they gave him was perfect and Andrew didn’t have any nausea while we were at the hospital.  Mind you he only ate a little breakfast early in the morning and nothing the rest of the day, but he was still pleasant as ever.  He was very gassy today and a little fatigued but other than that he is doing very well.  We have been incredibly grateful for his low side effects thus far, and are taking things one day at time.

Andrew has taken all of this with such grace and with such a positive attitude it has made me see that there are angels here on Earth.  Andrew will almost never admit that he does not feel well, is in pain, or needs anything.  He almost always meets everyone with a smile no matter what time of day.  He still loves cuddling, doing well on his school work, playing with his cousins, and beating up his sister.  We try to live as normal as we can, and funny enough he leads us in that.  He is an amazing soul, and I can’t express the joy I have to be his mother.  I am hoping that I can be as positive as he is dealing with this cancer, but until then I will just marvel.

We love getting notes from website and we know that Andrew has touched many more lives through this experience.  Thank you for your prayers and keeping up with his story.  He will update soon.

Happy New Year!!!

Everything was fine over Christmas – we were blessed with so many gifts, sweet words of encouragement, and all around love! He has already busted out many of the books and has started reading them. The legos have been put together, Wii games played, remote control cars raced, and movies watched. Taylor and Andrew were both pretty excited about their new nerf guns – the love for each other is shown in such sweet and loving ways. Plus we have had quite a bit of family time without a million appointments so we were very grateful for that.

He is still having fevers, and not drinking enough – his calorie intake is still low so we are logging all the food he eats and are trying to keep it above 1,000. Even though he gets mad when we ask him what or if he wants to eat, we can usually get him to drink a Boost drink to keep those calories up. I have started giving him 500ml of IV fluids every night at home to keep him property hydrated. Even though it is a long process, a little more than 2 hours, he looks much better after it has completed. We call it his happy juice because he is usually more pleasant as well.

His next round of chemotherapy is now scheduled for the 14th – 16th instead of the 7th – 9th. He just had another MRI of his brain and spine Tuesday and Wednesday to follow up from the radiation. We should get the results in a couple of days.

Thank you again for all your love and support, kind words, and prayers!

Andrew getting juiced up

Getting warm by the fire

Nerf Hunting

Andrew playing with Sammy, a friend’s puppy