June 15, 2011 in Uncategorized with 12 Comments

Sorry for the delay in updates but we have been at camp for the past four weeks!! As District Youth Directors we run the statewide youth camp for the Assemblies of God and it runs for five weeks at the beginning of each summer. It’s alot of work but so worth it! And, of course, our boys love being at camp! With an unlimited supply of M&M’s and nachos from the concession stand, a basketball game always going on and a creek running right through the camp what little boy wouldn’t be excited!? Unfortunately, Gray isn’t allowed to go in the creek this summer simply because he still has a port in his chest and so there would be too much of a risk of an infection but he’s still having a blast! Gray has been doing so so well!! He has had so much energy and we are really seeing the old Gray shining through! And that includes both the good and the bad! But, hey, we’ll take some classic three-year-old tantrums if it means a healthy boy! The most visible proof that Gray is doing well and feeling good is that his hair is growing back!! His eyebrows and lashes are completely grown in and they’re just as thick and full as they used to be! Let me tell ya, that’s a relief to this mama! Gray’s hair is making quite the comeback as well! It’s so cute because daddy has taught Gray to call his new hair “peach fuzz” and so when someone points it out or makes a big deal out of his new locks he proudly states “It’s my peach fuzz!” It’s so good to see Gray looking like himself and feeling like himself. We did take a short break from camp this week to head back to Oklahoma City for some routine tests to check Gray’s heart, kidneys, bones and basically his entire body and all his organs to see how they are holding up to all his treatment and most recently his radiation. They are doing a biopsy on his bone marrow again as well. Those tests happened yesterday and today and so we don’t have any results yet but we are praying and hoping for continued good news! Next week is our last week of camp and then Gray will immediately begin his last round of scheduled treatments. He will be admitted to the hospital a week from this Sunday and will remain admitted for six days. This treatment is proton therapy and will last six months. These treatments are set up kind of like chemo treatments where Gray will be admitted for each treatment and each treatment lasts anywhere from 3 days to a full week. We’re not looking forward to the next round of treatments but we’re definitely relieved that there is now a light at the end of this very long, very dark tunnel.

It has been a bit strange to actually slow down and take such a long break from Gray’s full time treatment schedule. For nine months, we have lived and breathed cancer treatment and being at camp has been both a relief but also a mentally challenging road where we have almost been forced to look back at what this year really has been for our family. We have had almost too much time to reflect. Through it all, though, we are sincerely grateful for everyone’s constant and continued support of Gray and our family. Your prayers mean the world to us and on our darkest days we knew that we were only able to put one foot in front of the other because of those prayers. Please continue to pray for Gray and for our family as we enter these last six months of treatment. We met with Gray’s doctors today and they again had to go over all the possible side effects (both short and long term) of the proton therapy and it was overwhelming. I think going over side effects can be more draining then our constant lack of sleep! After Gray completes the next six months of treatment he will technically be “done” fighting his cancer but we can only pray that cancer will ever be something we can completely put out of our minds. As soon as Gray finishes his proton therapy, he will be monitored every month which will then extend to every three months and eventually he will go in for tests a couple times per year. We also ask for your prayers in transitioning from full time cancer treatment back to “real life”. It almost feels as if Gray’s 2nd and 3rd year of life disappeared somewhere into thin air and yet as soon as Gray is healthy enough we are expected to just jump right back into a normal 3 or 4 year old’s life and let him go to pre-school and even children’s church on Sunday morning! That may not sound like such a hard thing but our lives were turned so upside down this past year that simply leaving Gray in a nursery seems so foreign.

Again, thank you to everyone who has offered us their prayers, gifts, thoughts and well wishes over the last nine months. We covet every prayer you can continue to offer.

“But you, O Lord, be not far off; O my strength, come quickly to help me.” Psalm 22:19