Wrapping up July Month 3 of Treatment

July was a crazy month. I wanted to make the best of the next summer months since he will be in Delayed intensification Starting in September and his white blood cell count will be lower.

So we Dressed as buzz to go to the grocery store!

We wore half PJ's and half normal clothes to go take Cousin Jeff to the airport.

We played in Laundry Baskets!

We Celebrated the 4th of July in Style!

He enjoyed sitting on Uncle Shawn's lap watching the "big" fireworks.

He had to have ALL GREEN. For some reason he had to have everything green this day! it was crazy!

He LOVED the Farris Wheel.

We rode the Farris Wheel. 1st time for both boys, they loved it. Grandma and I not so much.

He rode a big slide and loved every minute of it.

The love the Mary-go-round.

The Grandma took us to BEAR WORLD! VACATION! All of us were sick of staying home so when my mom offered to take us to Bear World Yellowstone, I was more than thrilled. The boys didn't know what was going on. But soon learned they loved "Vacation" too!

Don't mind Carson picking his nose! :)

They loved the rides at Bear World.

We got to ride on a truck, that Carson called a Bus and see the bears up close, and feed them.

They sat up and clapped for the "treats" that we got to feed them.

There was a petting zoo that Carson loved. We used lots of hand sanitizer and washed our hands after! I had a little anxiety about him touching the animals, but he loves animals just like his dad.

He thought this mask was fun. But instead wanted to buy stuffed snakes for "brother" and him.

On our way home we stopped by a place called "soda springs". It was cool to learn about carbonated water that comes from the earth.

Carson loved to play in it. You can drink it.  but it tastes nasty!

The it was back to reality... back to the hospital for an appointment. Carson blood counts were still great he was at 850! YAHOO!

We had to be at the hospital at 8AM. No time for breakfast, and they always have snacks so I wasn't worried, he picked chocolate pudding cheese and water.

Then Grandma had a great idea to go on a stay-cation in Park City. I needed to get the kids clothes for fall anyway, so off to Park City and the outlets we went for 2 nights!

We had a great time riding the Alpine slide. Carson loved riding the chair lift up... Blake on the other had is a total dare devil and tried to jump off while we were 100 feet up in the air! We got in trouble when we got to the top and told that if Blake couldn't sit down he wasn't allowed to ride again.

We came home to eat "Taco Amigo" Blake enjoyed his "fry sauce" a little too much! it was in his hair, all over his face, and the chair.

The back to reality sucks! I would love to vacation to the max while his counts are good. I know we will be stuck in the house for months especially since it will be cold and flu season. Carson is such a trooper. He has the routine down for hospital. He takes his "chemo pills" like a champ, and doesn't let being "sick" phase him! He is an amazing kid. Blake is a trooper as well he tugs along and just goes with the flow.

I didn't think we would be able to get back to a somewhat normal life. It has been nice. But I also know that we will be staying home more and more as the next phase of treatment starts! It was fun to vacation and enjoy life, and see him smile and love the adventures we went on.  I wish Brant could have joined us, but he was unable to take off work.

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. 

Shaving his head... and Car Wash!

The time has came... We shaved his head he had some spots starting and I didn't want him to loose it spot by spot. I shaved his head along with one of our foster boys heads in the afternoon. It meant a lot to our foster boy to shave his head when I did Carson's. I wish I could post a picture of him before and after, since he had long "skater" hair. When daddy got home we shaved daddy's.

We are not sure why he thinks this face is so funny, but he does! It is his own little face that he loves to pull. He is camera shy now so when we can we take a picture!

He was watching me cut daddy's hair. He enjoyed watching daddy, get hair like him!

Some amazing friends of our family did a fund raising car wash for Carson. We can't even say THANK YOU enough to Sam, Cindy, and Parker Adamson them for all the hard work they did! Also a big thank you my mom, and brother Shawn and Travis, my aunt Jayleyn, Jesse, Gabby, Jersey, and all the foster boys(I can't mention names for privacy reasons) who came to help, we could not have done it with out any of you! We washed what felt like a million cars, but it was only maybe 150. Carson enjoyed sitting in his camp chair and getting up to walk over and help for a minute and going back to his chair. The doctor on Friday said we didn't need to wear the mask unless he was playing in sand or dirt. I was thrilled since the mask is hot for him.

Since he is on steroids he has gained 9LBS. They said he will loose 90% of what he has gained a few days after stopping the steroids.

Even his little brother jumped in to help.

I am sad to see his hair gone, but now he is my little cancer cutie(a saying I learned from other moms). He is an amazing strong little boy.

Day 9... It has had time to sink in. He has ALL Leukemia, our chance to beat this is 90%! I have no doubt we will win this and he will be stronger and love life so much more! He is on steroids. When they told us he would have "tantrums" they were not kidding. Tantrums is not even the word, rage seems more like it. They only last minutes, but those minutes are hard to get through.

But the good news is the steroids are making him EAT. The first day home I asked him what he wanted for breakfast(10:30am) he opened the freezer and said "nuggets" I cooked 6 and he ate them all gone. I cooked 3 more, and he still wanted more 3 more and he was good. 12 chicken nuggets for breakfast wasn't something I expected. From there on out, he has done a great job at eating anything he wants!

 This was dinner tonight. Taco Amigo, Chicken Nuggets, and Sprite!

 Blake's serving! This little guy is adjusting to life back at home. He is such a goof ball. He lightens the mood with his smile, laugh, and funny behaviors.

 Earlier in the day I went for a walk while the boys drove their car.

Carson loved being outside!

We now have 2 Cozy Coupe's. Since Carson loves his CAR, and Blake wanted one as well. Our small house has been taken over by toys. Since we are inside most the time, anything goes, including big cars! 

The Start to our Journey

May 10th, 2012 will be a day I will remember forever! After being in the hospital for the 2nd time in under a month; I was anxious to find answers of why my little boy was so sick. Our first visit was in April they said Carson has got Parvovirus and that suppressed his red blood cells. After 2 bags of blood he was feeling good and we were able to go home. On May 7th, 2012 I called my dad to let him know he wasn't going to watch the kids, since Carson wasn't feeling good and I was taking him to the doctor. I burst in to tears sending my dad in a rush to get to my house. I knew something was wrong with Carson. My dad agreed that I should take him to the ER. So I rushed him to the American Fork ER. There they did testing and said he had "0" netropeana (spl?) part of his white blood cell. I would latter learn that is your "soldier" cell that fights infection. After 4 hours of waiting they told me I had to take him to Primary Children's. Luckily by that time my mom was able to be with me. We got settled in at PCMC that night and waited for answers. Wednesday we seen a hematologist named Dr. FluChel. He did a bone marrow biopsy. Thursday about 10AM he came to tell me the results. He walked in with a chair and sat down. The look on his face told me it wasn't good. "He has leukemia" came out as he sat down. My heart sank. He continued to talk, as I sat there in a blur. Why my little boy? Why has life been so hard for him? He asked me to call my husband, I feared that call. I pulled myself together and called Brant. He was quiet on the phone, and the doctor explained to him what he had just told me. We set a meeting up for noon to meet with the doctors. I then had to call my parents, and Brant's mom to come to the hospital to meet with us and the doctors. Carson slept through the phone calls thank goodness. And that is how our Journey to beat Leukemia started.

This was our first visit to PCMC while we were in the PICU.

This was our visit to American Fork ER

Carson and I waiting for answers.

Our escape outside before we got answers.

How is he sick? He is so happy!

Off to surgery to get his Port in. He was so brave and had to wear moms glasses. He made things easier for me. Though I should have been making things easier for him.