Florida is hot - hot and sticky!

Florida is hot in July – hot and sticky. We knew that going into this trip, but we didn’t really know it till we got there. Humidity does weird stuff to the human body, like make it sweat from zero to saturated in 2.8 seconds flat. Be that as it may, we had a great time in Florida visiting the amusement parks there. We put a few pictures here for you to get the idea.
The boys loved their first limo ride (even though it was 4:00 AM).





The amusement parks were fun, but we couldn’t spend more than four or five hours there before we were melting into our sandals and the boys were moaning like they had just crossed the Sahara without water. I imagined we’d get there when the park opened and stay till the fireworks. It was not to be. We had to pace ourselves a bit so we could actually enjoy the trip. It was hard for me at first because there was so much of each park that we weren’t seeing. Never mind that we were able to go on a lot of rides in a short amount of time because we were able to go right up to the front of the line, there was so much we were missing! We got free tickets to all these parks and it was more than we could possibly do. We learned the art of skimming an amusement park, finding out what was going to be best for us and forgetting the rest.

We did the Magic Kingdom the first day, Epcot the second day, Disney Animal Kingdom the third day, the two Universal Studios parks the fourth day, and tried to go to the Disney MGM Park the fifth day. We didn’t realize the passes to the Disney parks were only for three days so we had to miss the Disney MGM park and we went back to our resort called "Give Kids the World" and spent the day there before going to Medieval Times that night.

The boys loved Give Kids the World. They would have been satisfied to stay there for five days and play. Their favorite part was an interactive storybook in the Castle of Miracles that projected the characters onto a screen on the wall that you could control. I think they also really enjoyed eating ice cream for breakfast one day by order of Santa Claus (it’s Christmas every Thursday there).

We are so grateful to the Make-a-Wish Foundation and Give Kids the World for providing us with such a memorable time together. We couldn't have done it without them. It was truly a magical trip.

The day after we got back from Florida, Kyler had a spinal tap and the following day an MRI. The spinal tap came back clean (Hallelujah!). And today we met with our pediatric oncologist today to look at the MRI, which was also clean! Very good news indeed. Thank you for praying.

Kyler is scheduled to start chemo August 8th. We’re not looking forward to it. They tell us it’s really going to wipe him out. And since he is so little, we does not have a lot of reserve to use while he is not feeling like eating. That has us worried a bit. He has not put on the weight we had hoped so far during this break. We have another week to try and get his body ready.

We are grateful for your continued prayers about his appetite and preparation for his first chemo treatment.

Bodega Bay & Disneyworld

July 13th was our 10-year anniversary. Since things have been a little crazy, I forgot that I had that Thursday and Friday off from FedEx. We were invited by Dorie and Aaron to join them for a few days camping on the beach in Bodega Bay, and since we had the time available we made the drive over to the coast. Believe it or not, it was our first camping trip as a family. In fact, it was our first camping trip as a married couple. We had gotten some camping gear for our wedding and it sat unopened for a decade to the day. I know, it seems almost un-American to never have been camping. But I think we got the bug.
We drove down Wednesday afternoon and left Friday just before noon. We froze our tails off the first night. The wind had picked up and there was so much fog blowing in that the trees above us collected water and it ‘rained’ all night on our tent. We awoke to a bit of a puddle on the floor but we were all on air mattresses so no one got soaked. Kyler, having no body fat to speak of, stayed very bundled up the whole time. The boys had a blast playing on the beach, getting their feet wet, and hunting for shells, starfish, and whatever else seemed interesting. After we shivered through breakfast we made our way over to the other side of the bay. (see photo)



I bought some kites from a great store called Second Wind that specializes in kites and other toys you might have fun with on the beach. I also picked up some salt-water taffy at Patrick’s, a pink and white striped building on the side of the road that caught my eye.
On one of our adventures exploring on the coast at low tide, we had made our way through some channels in the rocks to get to other places. By the time we started back, the tide had come in a bit and Sandie and I had to carry the boys through the water. We would have had to go swimming if we had waited much longer. We saw some beautiful starfish and lots of seaweed. The trip was really fun. A truly memorable experience.



When we arrived home on Friday we had just enough time to take a shower (we had somehow forgotten for a couple days) and get over to Lincoln Smiles, a new dental office in Lincoln. Our photo was to be taken for the Lincoln News Messenger with the dentists who are taking care of Kyler’s teeth and providing a drop-off place for people to give to Manna Relief on his behalf.
Later that evening the folks from Make-a-Wish dropped by to throw a party for Kyler to celebrate him getting his wish. They brought special backpacks filled with stuff to do on the plane for both boys along with a Make-a-Wish hat that will identify Kyler at the parks.



During this next week in Florida, please pray that Kyler had plenty of energy and appetite to really enjoy the trip. He still needs to gain some weight as well.
When we get back from our trip, we will have a post radiation MRI and spinal tap before chemotherapy starts in August.
We are praying that everything will come back clear. Thank you for continuing to pray for us.

Close of Chapter 1

Close of Chapter 1

Thursday we completed the first leg of a long journey - Kyler has made it through six weeks of radiation. They had a little graduation for him at the radiation oncologist’s office (without the cap and gown). They took his picture and had a little cake for him. We brought in a cooler full of chilled drinks for the guys outside who park the cars and homemade ice cream with toppings for the staff inside.


That's Stan, Kyler's friend at the radiation oncologists office. He and his co-worker Jen made Kyler feel welcome and safe during his visits.



We also videotaped the final procedure up to the point where they were ready to irradiate him. It’s fun to watch him prep his line before they give him the ‘sleepy medicine’.

We thought that since the last few weeks had gone so well that this last one would be just as smooth. That was unfortunately not the case. As he went unconscious, he lost control of his bladder and we had forgotten to make him go to the bathroom just before going in.

So, I’m off to the nearest Target to get some fresh underwear and pants. Well, I thought it would be fun if he woke up in a whole new outfit, so I bought underwear, pants, shirt, and a little jacket (since he gets cold easily with no body fat).

Upon returning I thought I’d get him dressed while he was still sleeping (at least his underwear and pants). That turned out to be a big mistake. I woke him up before his usual 40 to 60 minutes of sleeping and we had Kyler’s evil twin again. It reminded Sandie and I so much of the first day. It was so hard to hear some of the awful things coming out of his mouth and the violent thrashing and hitting.

Thank goodness we knew it would eventually wear off and we would have our sweet boy back again. Getting through that period was difficult. It kind of freaked out Kendrick as well.

By the time we got home he was pretty well calmed down and when people started showing up he was ready to have fun.

We are really looking forward to this month off. We’re going to plan some fun day trips and feed that boy as much as we can. We’re trying to get about 4-6 pounds on him during this time.

On Wednesday we got a package from Disney World. Inside was a special hat for Kyler and a vacation planning kit. We watched the video twice that day. It looks like we are in for an amazing trip thanks to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. They are providing a seven-day trip and they are taking care of everything, I mean everything. They are going to pick us up at our door, transport us to the airport, fly us there, meet us in Florida, rent us a car, take care of accommodations, all our park passes, all our food and souvenir expenses, fly us home and get us back to our house. They were even going to buy us luggage if we didn’t have any. They don’t want the family to have any financial burden during the experience. 100% worry free time to enjoy your family. I truly didn’t have any idea of how valuable that is for a family in this kind of situation until now.

The Lincoln Mom’s Club was able to raise $1400.00 dollars for our family selling water, juice boxes, and a kid craft at the 4th of July celebration in McBean park. Wow, that’s a lot of refreshments! Thank you for all your effort and love.

We have been given a month of free movie rentals at Hollywood. There is a pizza place in town that will be doing a fundraiser on a Friday night for Kyler (details to come).

Lincoln Smiles is donating dental work and accepting donations for Manna Relief on Kyler’s behalf. The M.O.P.S. group in Redding did a fund raising dinner for us.

So many of you have been helping and praying for us during this time. We are so appreciative. Your generosity and kindness has been wonderful.

When we met with our pediatric oncologist on Wednesday we found out much more about what chemotherapy is going to look like, the kinds of drugs, what hospital stays will look like, what it’s going to do to his body, all sorts of stuff.
We will provide more details later, but suffice it to say that we will be in desperate need of your prayers and support during these 11 months of chemotherapy.