We are beyond grateful to be celebrating Tate’s 17th birthday today. This evening Tate and his friends have taken over our dining room, and Greg and I have retreated to the back of the house. Greg is watching the State of the Union Address while I look at baby...

The last few days with Tate have been so precious. He has been cruising around the house in his wheelchair and leaving Greg and me shaking our heads or giggling at his sense of humor. Catching glimpses of our son’s personality as it was before cancer has been so...

I’m going to take a page out of June Lantzer’s book and say, “I’m just going to leave this here…”...

Tate looks and feels better than he has in months. He came out of his room several times today, wanting some food or to hang out with the dogs. Best of all, he has not taken any pain medication for more than two weeks. The other day I printed...

Tate was discharged from the hospital this afternoon after a 13-day stay. He is so glad to be home – we all are. Some good things happened while he was hospitalized, and we hope the positive trend continues now that we’re home. Tate looks really good. I peeked into...

Tate’s ANC jumped to 154 today after taking a little step backward to 110 yesterday. The goal is 200 and climbing. Everything is pretty quiet here. The appetite stimulants have kicked in, and Tate’s preferred food seems to be tortilla chips and Pace salsa. We’re hoping his ANC continues...

Today is a big day in Tate’s treatment protocol for two reasons. First, he got his last Erwinia injections today. That in itself is cause for celebration; Tate got 108 Erwinia shots over the last few months. Tate compared the experience of getting the last injections to finally finding...

Each time Tate gets any kind of chemotherapy or blood product, the nurses check the patient number on his wristband against the patient number on the label of whatever treatment he is to receive. The patient and the treatment must always match. Tate and Greg have had the number...

Tate looks pretty good today. His ANC is back up to 8 after dropping to zero yesterday. He got a unit of platelets this morning and Erwinia injections this evening. Tate is still getting a continuous stream of fluids and antibiotics every eight hours. For the first time in...

Tate is on day 2 with no fever, but his ANC dropped to 8. Today he got a platelets transfusion and Erwinia injections. Erwinia does not have an impact on his ANC, so the doctors were comfortable proceeding with treatment. Tate looks great today; he has been awake a...