January 10th, 2008

Yesterday was a GREAT day!!!  Once again, Connor continues to amaze the doctors!  He was running around terrorizing the 8th floor at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa.

He was very upset when we first got there because he knew they were going to access his port.  This means we put numbing cream on the spot of his chest where the port was surgically inserted under his skin.  The nurse will then put a large needles with an I.V. tube attached into that spot so that she can flush it, draw blood for labs or whatever needs to be done.  Well, this time Connor did it all by himself!

Courtney, his nurse, is FABULOUS!!!  Connor is absolutely in love with her and she lets him do whatever he wants.  So, she let him flush his port.  He even drew his own blood for his lab work.  I don't know that I could do that to myself!  Needless to say, that was the best he's done with having to access his port.

Then, he harassed Dr. Shah while she tried to check him out.  But the best news was when Dr. Shah told us that St. Jude's and Texas Children's were actually doing another tumor board on Connor as we spoke!  This meant a variety of specialists from all over were looking at Connor's MRIs.  The more the merrier!!!  She said, for now they are still saying no to surgery.  However, just the fact that they were even discussing surgery is a HUGE step!!!  Because, originally when Connor was first diagnosed everyone said "NO WAY" on surgery.  So, the fact that they're even discussing it is really exciting.  She said right now, they are all anxiously awaiting Connor's MRI from February and then they will re-assess!!

Of course, we all know that tumor is going to be even smaller than before and we can't wait to see the results ourselves!!!

After we caused enough chaos on the 8th floor, we stopped by the 7th floor to see all of our friend in the PICU.  There were a lot of folks there that had taken such wonderful care of Connor for nearly a month!  Many of them were shocked to see him running up and down the halls.  Of course, no one was surprised when he convinced nurse Sarah to raid the snack machine for him!!  He still remembered where they kept all of their food!

We were then almost to the car when Connor needed to make a "pit-stop".  So, we stopped by my office to say hello.  Needless to say, Connor stole food from there too!!!  You would think we don't feed him!!!

After a long day, Connor crashed out on the way home and slept right through dinner.  We woke him up long enough to eat and then he went back to sleep.

Today, was his second day at school all by himself!  And he did FANTASTIC!!!  He actually asked about school all yesterday and couldn't wait to go today.  He said he wanted to go "All by myself!!!"  We tried it with Daddy dropping him off today and he gave Daddy a quick hug on the leg, said I love you and off he went to play!

I cannot tell you what a HUGE relief it is for him to be doing so well with this.  Finally, we all have a little bit of normal!

Mackenzie is doing better and better each day.  In fact, tomorrow she has to take a stuffed animal to school to put in "Hibernation" for the winter!  She picked out the biggest bear she could find and asked me if she could call it "Mackenzie Bear".  She said it would be just like "Connor Bear" when it went to school for Connor.  She said this one would also go for a little while and then it would come home.

Hugs and Blessings,

James, Brandy, Mackenzie & Connor