May 22, 2011 in Uncategorized with 8 Comments

Gray completed his radiation treatments this week!! Whew!! We cannot even tell you how great it feels to finish one more portion of Gray’s treatment plan!! Gray endured the radiation treatments very well. In fact, they made him a bit hyper! Besides the lack of sleep and obvious rigor of being put under anesthetics every single day for two weeks and enduring having his port accessed and many many needle pricks Gray did awesome! For his last day of radiation treatmetnts all of the nurses had purchased Pray4Gray tees and wristbands as a surprise and were wearing them when we arrived. They also threw a party for Gray! He received two lego sets as gifts and they served shredded cheddar cheese and chocolate milk! Ha! They know Gray all too well! We truly are blessed to have such a great staff working so hard to get Gray back to health. They truly care and have been so nice to us! Thank you all! I don’t think it hurts, though, that Gray is such a little charmer and has every single nurse wrapped around his little finger!

Currently, we are at Turner Falls Camp Grounds preparing for our first group of campers to arrive tomorrow afternoon. Life goes on. We are looking forward to the summer and also looking forward to a break from treatment. Gray’s next scheduled tests are mid-June when he will go thru the full battery of tests again to see how his heart, kidneys and hearing are holding up to everything. We have to admit that these tests always make us nervous. Then in late June Gray will begin his immune therapy, or proton therapy. This is administered much like chemotherapy treatments but the side effects are expected to be a bit different. Gray will likely suffer flu like symptoms and also have some pretty severe pain. Apparently, the proton therapy attacks not only the protons surrounding Gray’s tumors but, at the same time, attacks his nerves causing widespread pain. He will be admitted for each treatment and will likely be on full time pain medication during the entire treatment. We will also have to go back to giving Gray shots at home. Those are all things that, for the moment being, we are trying to keep far from our minds. For now, for today, we are working! Youth Camp begins full force tomorrow and continues for the next five weeks! We are  eager to pour into the lives of Oklahoma’s students and know that while we are caring for our son and fighting the hardest battle of our lives we are also called to Oklahoma and called to it’s young people. Please pray for us as we do our best to draw on what little strength we have left to work hard, give of ourselves and lead each week of camp to the place God has in store. Our desire is His desire and we simply need the rest, physical strength and emotional strength to do our part. Also, please continue to pray for Gray! He’s such a fighter and has been in such good spirits lately! He’s so much himself and we couldn’t be happier about it! He has peach fuzz growing on his head and his eyebrows and eyelashes are all beginning to grow back in! It’s great to see him looking, feeling and acting more like himself! He does need continued strength, though, as we enter the next month of tests, treatments and medications.

As Gray completed his radiation treatments he was allowed to ring the bell in the hospital proclaiming to the world (or at least the hallway!) that he had completed this portion of his fight! You wouldn’t think something like the sound of that bell could mean so much but it truly does!

Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers. Thank you for not forgetting us or Gray. Cancer is such an isolating disease. The world continues to move on around you and we often feel like we’re standing still in the midst of the noise. We’re paused while everyone else moves forward. Cancer takes it’s toll on Gray’s body and on our hearts and minds. We completely trust, though, each and every day in the power of our God and in the physical and emotional healing He brings. Thank you for standing with us even if it’s simply in prayer, thoughts and spirit. We love you all!

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:28-31