Smooth Sailing and Shirt Update

12/7/2011:  1:28 PM

contributing some weight gain to lots of cake

Davis did a fantastic job at chemo yesterday. Kyle drove him down to St. Louis, and I took the opportunity to stay home.  It was probably one of the best visits to date. Davis has gained a pound.  55.3 pounds!  Yay! We received word that Davis would be able to back off his medication for the next week or two. We will have a stretch of about a week where Davis will be completely side-effects meds and chemo free.  While they were in clinic, Davis celebrated Christmas early. He came home loaded up with toys and a blanket. He was pretty excited.

Davis gets two weeks off before he starts his next phase. It is called Delayed Intensification, and the name pretty much explains it.  The next round is pretty intense. However, if Davis can fight his way through the next three months (that is how long the phase is), he will have made it to the maintenance phases. Maintenance phase is 2 1/2 years of monthly or bi-monthly chemo. He will still have to take side effects meds and oral chemo at home, but our trips to SLCH will stretch out a bit. It feels awesome to be inching ourselves in the right direction.

Davis will go back to Children's, pending no illnesses between now and then, on December 23. He will receive a LP (spinal tap) along with a mixture of new and old chemo meds through his port and orally. Shortly after Christmas, we will head back down to St. Louis for the dreaded peg shots. Then, we will return to the weekly routine of going to St. Louis on Fridays. I have enjoyed having the chemo spaced out a bit (every ten days) these last couple of months. It allowed for Davis to miss different days. It seems that there are so many fun activities planned on Friday. And although we purposely chose Friday for that reason initially, we didn't know that Davis be so saddened by missing the "fun" days.

Other than that, we have fallen back into a semi-normal routine of nightly homework and the hustle and bustle.

Annakate lost a tooth on Monday. One of her teachers was kind enough to yank it out. By Monday night, she had literally lost her tooth. We looked everywhere.  She cried buckets. Even though she knows that the tooth fairy isn't real, she still buys into the novelty of it. And she refused to accept her dollar until that little tooth was under her pillow.  Luckily, Shane, her cousin, found it in her backpack on Tuesday. Thank Goodness.  I was pretty sure I had sucked it up in the vacuum, and I was dreading the dig through the vacuum cleaner bag. 

The house is looking a bit more Christmasy every day. The tree is up but not decorated, and the cold weather has encouraged trails of stalking caps and gloves everywhere.  I don't feel ready for Christmas yet. Not to whine, but I am still waiting to finish my summer. In some ways, it feels like we were robbed of summer because of the diagnosis. And not to perpetuate a stereotype, but teachers and kids live for summer vacation; we are no exception. I know that we will have plenty more summers to play away, but still. . .

The t-shirts are in. Yay!  Well, kinda. Let me explain. There was a bit of a mix-up - an easy mistake - and the company from which they were ordered accidentally printed the incorrect color. No worries. Since the mistake was theirs, they were kind enough to reprint them in orange, the nationally recognized color for Leukemia Awareness. I am not sure when the orange shirts will be in, but we will be sure to get them to you as soon as we can. Sorry for the delay.  We are still getting the last of the first order of deliveries out.

Prettiest model I've ever seen

With that being said, if you know Mandy Hanner, please pass along a thank you. The t-shirts were her idea. She was in charge of all of the organization, promotion, and distribution of over 500 shirts!  And she did this all while raising a family, working a full-time job, and working on her practicum for her master's degree. She has been quite a blessing to us.  And thank you to all of those who ordered shirts and all of those who helped Mandy (Jill Shrader, Ashmore School, and many others). I melt at the outpouring of support for Davis. We always joke that he thinks he is a celebrity of sorts. I think that all of those Team Davis shirts out there may confirm his beliefs.  :)

I would like to do something special for Davis - something to encourage him through the tough times. If you ordered a Team Davis shirt, or even if you didn't and would still be willing to take a photo of yourself, please feel free to take a picture and email it or mail it to me. I would love to put it in a slide show set to music for him. I think it would be a nice reminder of all of those who think about him everyday.  Please let me know if there are special instructions (a picture that can't be posted on the internet, etc). Children are very visual, and I think that the slide show could be quite an encouragement to him.  My email is abcoffey77@gmail.com and my address is 9208 N Co Rd 2270E, Ashmore, IL 61912.



We will keep you posted.