This past week contained quite the roller coaster of emotions. We are truly touched and humbled by the continuous outpouring of thoughtfulness, kindness, service, well-wishes, concern, love, and support. Thank you! Thank you! We know we may never have the opportunity to personally thank some of you, but know that you have impacted our family for good and it is so appreciated.

During a conversation this past week about ongoing treatment planning, it became evident that I obviously didn't know about recent findings from the post surgery CT scan done earlier this month for radiation mapping purposes. The scan revealed possible new tumor growth in his chest and right abdomen. It is not completely evident if it is really new growth or just something they didn't see before. It came as quite the shock because the doctors forgot to tell us about it. We never thought to follow up on the scan because we weren't expecting any information from it. It was supposed to be just for mapping. I suppose we could have been angry at such an oversight, but we are grateful for the happy week we had without added stress and anxiety. Knowing or not knowing didn't change any action, it just made the time less stressful. At this point, treatment isn't being changed. The follow-up scans that occur after every 2 chemo cycles will be done the first week of January. At that point, more information will hopefully be on the table and further decisions can be made.

Round 4 of chemo started Monday. It should be fairly uneventful. Hopefully. He started radiation on his abdomen Monday morning and he will be transported by ambulance each day for radiation while in the hospital. Nothing like mixing it up. Now we'll see if I can do something about the 8am radiation appointment time since it necessitates a 7:20 am transport pick up. Ugh. William should return home on the 24th, just in time to celebrate Christmas Eve as a family. We are so grateful Ryan's mom could come entertain the boys this week, especially since they are all out of school.

The hospital and holidays are never sometimes a nice combination. When William got off the elevator onto the floor for admittance, the hallway and playroom were full of police officers, a Santa, and carts full of boxes with presents for children. William scored a cool remote control car that is keeping him up and out of bed, racing it up and down the hallways.

 

Today an older brother of one of the patients brought 30 giant teddy bears and lots of smaller ones for all the pediatric patients. William scored a giant one. I'm not sure how I feel about it since I can't think of where we'll put it, but I know the boys will all be excited. And sweet William said, "I know we really don't need it, but my brothers will all love sharing it."