October 2020 Update

Yeah…I realize I’m giving an October update on the second day of November. Time hasn’t been racing by exactly, but my heart and brain have been trying to reconcile feeling so much hope for our own family while grieving for another. My co-worker recently lost her son Shawn to cancer; he passed away two days before his 18th birthday. Reading her posts left me in ruins; her writing is so beautiful and raw, her pictures so poignant.

It’s a small, terrible club to be a part of: parents of a kid with cancer. It can’t be any better to be the siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It can’t have been easy to be our friends.

I found out recently that Shawn was featured in a Linkin Park video when he was younger. The video was shot at a Phoenix area hospital on the pediatric oncology unit. It’s brilliantly done. The video follows a little guardian angel, presumably a pediatric cancer patient that didn’t survive, as she cheers on patients while they are getting treatment. Of course, the patients look past her because they don’t know she’s there. Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LQWu6FHOoQ The kids in the video are getting real treatment while the camera is rolling so it’s a good glimpse into that world. The IV poles, visiting therapy dogs, people standing around with clip boards.

I can’t watch it without crying, but it really hits home for me, and in all honesty I cry about everything lately. I can’t seem to make it stop, even when things are going really good for us. And they are.

Tate is doing great. His numbers at his last appointment were all within range, and his weight has been steady. The steroids hit him pretty hard this time; there is no limit to the amount of food he can eat, and his joints have been “extra crusty,” as he puts it. Thank goodness for the baked goods that seem to arrive just when we need them. The Stakers brought doughnuts, the Wilsons brought blueberry muffins, and the Ross family (the Rosses?) brought cookies. My sister sent a mountain – a literal mountain – of snacks through Amazon fresh. Tate ate all of it.

Tate is still doing exercises three days per week and taking walks every day. He’s dealing with a recurring knee injury, so our focus the next couple weeks is to keep him moving without making it worse. Tate’s doctor said he probably has necro-something-or-other in that knee, and they will not address it as part of his Leukemia treatment. I was telling our neighbor who is a retired dentist about Tate’s bum knee, and he said something that gave me a lot of hope. From the advancements he has seen in his own field, he’s convinced science has advanced enough with stem cells, etc. to fix Tate’s knee when the time comes.

Back when we were struggling to get him to eat enough and he was super, super skinny, Tate grudgingly promised the GI doctor that he would drink a supplement. He was truly upset about it, but we got a laugh out of him when he opened the refrigerator and saw we decorated his Ensure bottles.

Tate’s next chemotherapy appointment is November 17th. He’s scheduled to get Vincristine and start a 5-day steroid pulse. We’re hoping his numbers and his weight maintain.