Andrew met his homeroom class at Monroe on Thursday, and it was fantastic!  His classmates were very supportive and excited to learn about Andrew, and made him feel very welcome.  He can’t wait until the Spring when he can join them fulltime.  Thank you Mr. Walkers class! 

He was admitted to the hospital Friday the 9th because he felt really sick and when we checked his blood counts, they had dropped in half from the previous day.  This usually means he has caught a bug, so he got lots of antibiotics, and we hoped his counts would recover by Monday for chemo.  However, his counts have yet to recover, but he is feeling much better.  He was released last night at 8:00pm and we will continue to check his counts and when they reach 1,000 we will do chemo.  He is very excited because he has been able to eat small, lowfat, snacks and have been keeping them down…WOO HOO Botox!!!  I will update soon, thank you for all the support and kind words!

Andrew returned home after 3 weeks in the hospital just in time for a big weekend. Andrew’s Grandpa and I went out to spend some time with him last Wednesday. He came home to find a big box from the wonderful people at the Pinwheel Project. I managed to snap a shot with my phone, and asked him to wait until I could get a photo with real camera, but the temptation to tear in to his new toys proved too great. It really lifted his spirits to come home and find some new toys waiting for him. They also sent his sister Taylor some neat stuff, including body crayons, which make an appearance in just about every photo I was able to take.

Courtesy of the Pinwheel Project

We spent Thursday and Friday relaxing, watching movies, playing with his new DSi and assembling a Lego set he got from The Pinwheel Project. Andrew was feeling a little sick, and didn’t want to tell us, for fear of going back to the hospital. Once we figured out what was going on we gave him some more drugs and he cheered up quite a bit.

On Saturday we had tickets to got to the BSU vs UC DAVIS game at Broncos stadium. We were with the “Bronco’s Bunch”, through St. Lukes. Both Taylor and Andrew were excited, despite the fact it was only about 56 degrees outside. We spent about an hour getting ready to go cheer on the Broncos. After Andrew was all dressed he even tried to tackle me, a rare burst of pure energy.

(Be sure to take a closer look at this one)

As we got to the game we could tell it was cold, but didn’t really mind, since we dressed for the weather. Unfortunately, about 5 minutes in it started to rain, and continued to rain for a good amount of time. Eventually Andrew decided he’d had enough and told me, “If Taylor want’s to leave, we can go.” So that was it. One and half quarters on a cold rainy day is plenty for a sick kid.

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key, although I did get Andrew to draw a picture of Lolo, the purple chinchilla that he alluded to at the end of his last video. Not sure where that one came from, other than a bored kid stuck in a hospital for 3 weeks.

Sorry for the delay in an update!  So Andrew was released on Thursday with an “ok” bill of health.  He now only has one nose hose – the feeding tube, which had to be replaced on Tuesday since he threw the other one up at school on Monday.  He has gained 7 pounds since he was admitted to the hospital last month, all this weight cased us some issues with his port.  We were unable to get it to flush and kept reaccessing to no avail, the good thing was it was just that we needed a longer needle – phew!!!  We went to the doctor today and his blood counts look pretty good and we are on track to get chemo on Monday.  This is number 8 of 9!!!!!  Only one more to go after that, we can hardly wait!  He has started counseling to help him cope with all that has been happening to him.  He is trying so hard to get through things, but has been having a lot of breakdowns and gets upset very easily.  His poor sister, Taylor, only needs to open her mouth and he is ready to attack her.  Bless her heart she is so understanding and is doing all she can to try to help him not be mad at her.  Thank you for all the support and kind words, and I will update soon.

Today is the one year anniversary of Andrew’s resection and diagnosis.  Wow…one whole year.  So he is still in the hospital but hopefully will get out in a day or two, it was three weeks on Wednesday.  The procedure done on Monday, injections of Botox in his stomach, seems to be a success!  He is only throwing up once a day and his jello and drinks are not coming up.  We are so excited!  He is still having abdominal pain and the doctors are sure it because his nerves are raw and we will just have to wait it out.  He is also having colon spasms which are attributed to the nerve damage and we are hoping are short lived.  However, if we can get his pain under control he should be able to leave in a day or two.  We are still on track for chemo on the 12th, yay!!  He has done a webcast to thank everyone who has sent him little notes and cards, he wanted to answer some questions he has been asked so look for it later.  Thank you so much for all the support!

Andrew is still in the hospital.  However, yesterday some decisions were made to switch things up and hopefully this stay is coming closer to an end.  His red blood cells and neutrophils were low again so he got a whole blood transfusion last night, and the medication to help his body produce more neutrophils.  It was also decided that he needed a feeding tube, so he would have dual nose hoses; one to suck the fluid out of his stomach the other in his digestive tract to feed his gut which has had no feeds for 5 weeks.  He had it installed this morning and did such an amazing job…he seriously is one of my heroes!  There is talk about different medications and procedures to get him back to where he was so we can go home, including steroids to help decrease the inflammation in his GI tract, botox injections in this stomach to help it move more, and switching other meds to see if they work better.  So keep those fingers and toes crossed and I will update soon. 

Dual Nose Hose

Andrew is still in the hospital, his counts are slowly coming up with the help of some medications and beginning to heal the infections in his GI tract, which is causing inflammation and pain in his abdomen.  He has a medicated pain patch and additional morphine when he needs it.  He has continued to have little emotional breakdowns, but is content and pleasant most of the time.  Yesterday his stomach did put out more fluid than we he had on earlier days.  This is kind of set back, but we are hoping his stomach will empty enough to no longer need the stomach vacuum before he leaves the hospital.  Over the weekend the Children’s Hospital closed visitation down to anyone other than parents and grandparents because of the Swine Flu, darn piggies, they don’t think this will lift until after winter, and makes me sad but we know it is to help.  Here’s hoping for just one more day at the hospital then HOME!!!!

Andrew is in the hospital right now…but I would like to update you on the fun stuff first.  So Andrew had a pretty fun weekend, we went to Stanley, Idaho and stayed at a friend’s cabin.  It was absolutely gorgeous and even though he had a rough time on Saturday, Sunday he was able to go see the sites and enjoy the beauty. 

Andrew and Wendy at Custer Ghost Town

Taylor and Andrew enjoying the beautiful backyard

Andrew and Momma loving the sunset

Andrew wearing his pj's on his head and posing for Wendy

Andrew and Jack enjoying the live music concert at Redfish Lake

Andrew will be released from the hospital today YAY! He had some fun visitors and our good friend Nadine, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy as well. She brought her wonderful faux eyebrows to share with Andrew. I laughed so hard!!!! He also had visits from friends and family which helped him pass the time.

Old Man Brows

Not So Angry Angrybrows

Unibrow

I just met with the GI specialist, and he was a bit shocked to hear all that has been going on with Andrew. He is scheduling a time to go in and look at Andrew’s digestive tract and do some biopsies, as well as look at his stomach and take some biopsies there too to try to find out why all of this is happening. He wasn’t able to give much more information about what could be causing and how it could be fixed since it has so many symptoms and has been going on for almost two months. He will be going in to do it tomorrow morning.