The Good and the Bad

Today we went for Chemo + a broncosopy to see what was going on with Carosn's airway, we were planning on looking into this before he got diagnosed with Leukemia. We had a big day today. We had to be out of the house by 6AM to make it to PCMC by 715 so we could do our physical assessment test, Chemo, and get to same day surgery. The Physical assessment  required Carson to run for 8 minutes, plus doing some measurements, crunches, push ups and jumping... ALL of them I had to do in order to get him to do them. Running at 8AM was not what I had in mind, but we made a game out of it and he enjoyed playing.

When we are at PCMC he knows the cars are all up for grabs! HE Loves to play in them. I will be sad when he is too big to fit in them!

He got his Chemo and wanted to help hold his "tubie" while they pushed it in through his port. Thank goodness his "counts"(blood counts) were high enough to start this week!  I have to say the nurses in Oncology are amazing. They let him do his own thing. they are amazing people!

After this we were off to Same Day surgery to have his broncosopy. Just Carson and I went. So as soon as he went in I RAN down to get something to eat. Fried zucchini tasted great!

Dr. Mier came out and told me he had bad and good news. He said most of his air way looked great, but his left bronchial tube is small, about 1/4 the size it should be.(see the pic below) in order to fix it we first have to have a CT scan to see the outside of it, and second we have to wait for a good time during treatment to have a MAJOR surgery. He compared fixing it, to open heart surgery, something that is very invasive and a high risk for infection. We will have to wait till next week to learn how and when he can have this done. We may need to wait 3 years till he is done with treatment.

This is just a speed bump in the road. Overall he is doing amazing. He has a routine down for treatment. He likes to watch Mickey Mouse while we wait for Chemo, and is always eager to get home to see his Blakers :)

Riding, Pedicures, and of course Treatments

We are off Steroids yay! Carson has started acting normal again! We are so happy to have him back. His legs hurt him by the end of most days, but he loves to run, play and drive his car! His counts were too low last week to get his IV chemo so we will start those tomorrow when we go.

 They take his weight each week, he has the routine down, weight, height, blood pressure, and off to his room.

 He LOVES to drive his car. We are blessed my parents have a big yard for him to play and drive his car to his hearts desire. He wishes Blake was old enough to drive his car, he is working on it, maybe by the end of the summer he will learn!

 He loves when Uncle Travis or Shawn get out there bikes. He tells them "let's ride". Thank goodness he has some great uncles!

 We take his doctors things with us so he can play doctor while we are at the hospital. We do a lot of playing while we wait for our Chemo to be made, and the doctor to come in.

 I took some much needed time to go get a pedicure. I enjoyed the 1/2 hour to myself! I did orange for Leukemia and Green since that is his favorite color!

Don't forget Blakers he loved the cupcakes aunt Jay made for the yard sale. We had a great turn out from family, friends and strangers for the yard sale. I am so thankful for my best friend Lucy(aka Jessi) Aunt Jay, my mom, Bran's mom, my grandma, and other family members for helping set it all up.

People keep asking how we are doing. Carson is doing great, he does great with treatments and is pretty much got down the routine. He doesn't "like" going but does not have fits about it and for that we are thankful. Brant and I have no choice but to be strong. We were made for each other. Anyone who knows us;  knows that Brant does not make any decisions in our family, he leaves it all up to me. The other day in the car he told me he was thankful that I was the boys mom, that he trusted that I always know what is right for them and our family. We both agreed that cancer sucks; But we have 3 years of hell, but then we will have our little boy back. 

another week

We are on the down hill climb of steroids. It has been a hard 3 weeks. We have had many good days, but some bad days. Most of the time it is just bad moments.

My mom's coworker made "hats" for Carson. She did an amazing job and He loves them. We all put them on. I figure if we make it "cool" to wear the hats then he will want to; and if we all wear them he won't feel so different.

 Even Grandma got to wear one! My mom and Bran'ts mom have been wonderful to have around. It is great we live so close to family!

 Blake and I met a great friend Amanda Chadwick and her kids(Tessa and Tori) at the park, for a lunch date! I was happy to see Amanda and Blake was happy to get out of the house.

 Blake has to be a "duff ball". Love having him around to make us laugh and make light of everything.

He had to wait 4 hours to get food, since we are normally only at "clinic" for an hour and half I didn't plan for a meal. When the nurse asked him if he wanted to order lunch he said "nuggetts and pizza!!" And that is what she brought him :)

Carson had a temp of 101. So we got admitted for 24 hour observation. I think it was a combination of fever and his breathing. Since he is so "swollen" he is working harder to breath. He also had high blood pressure, so we got some medication for that and were sent home the next afternoon.

While we were at the hospital Uncle Travis watched Blakers. I was worried about leaving him with Travis but knew he would take great care of him. Blake had a #2 diaper, uncle Travis tossed him in the tub and "hosed" him off! Whatever get the job done! I am impressed he even changed him!

This coming Friday is our day 28. Meaning 1- NO MORE STEROIDS, 2- he will get his bone marrow biopsy, 3- he will have his broncoscopy so the doctors can make a plan to fix his air way!

We are crossing our fingers his counts will come up and he is able to spend some time at 7 peaks this summer along with doing some camping.