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Journal entries from 08/02/04 - 08/31/04

08/31/04

Last week we had some very sad news, an 8 year old friend of ours passed away. He had the exact same cancer as Jackson and also had a relapse after his remission. We have gotten to know him and his family over the years and have exchanged thoughts and stories many times. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them and we can only imagine what they are going through right now. Jackson and Staci left for Spokane this morning for a blood transfusion and we are hoping that he gets to go to school tomorrow, but we will have to see. We did have a great jet boat trip up Hells Canyon on Saturday. A friend of ours took us up and we had a great time and caught several bass and saw mountain sheep and deer. The boys liked the rapids and swimming the most and the weather was perfect. As you can guess with last weeks news we are praying even more than we have in the past these days. So many of our prayers have been answered, but we have so many requests left..

08/23/04

We were very fortunate last week with Jackson's counts going down, but he never had to go into the hospital. All of the rest of us got a cold and somehow Jackson stayed healthy, "answered prayers". Today he starts chemo again and will be in Spokane and then get to be in Lewiston for the remaining sessions. He is doing well these days and seems to be much happier than he was. He is starting to lose much of his eye lashes and eye brows, which does change the way he looks a little. This weekend we had a great trip to the Selway River and stayed in a cabin on the river with Brad and Deanne Ruddell and family. We fished, rafted, swam, and took drives looking at deer. We watched lots of movies and had a very relaxing time in a beautiful place. We have learned that Jackson would be in the water all day long if we would let him. Jackson and I even swam across the river together and he was very excited about that.

08/16/04

Jackson had a good weekend and hasn't had a fever all weekend. We anticipated that he would be in the hospital by Saturday with a fever since his counts are so low from the chemo, but we are very happy that we didn't have to go in and had a great weekend together and spent most of it at his great-grandpa Bob's house in Wieppe. Friday night, he and Wyatt wanted to go fishing so we went even though it was over 100 degrees when we started. We caught a lot of crappie and the boys were very happy. We didn't get off of the water until dark and it was still 96 degrees, but the boys didn't seem to mind as much as I did. Jackson will be getting more tests later this month to see how we are doing on the tumors and the bone marrow. We are praying that the chemo is doing its job on all.

08/09/04

Last week was a busy week for Jackson, he had chemo Wednesday through Sunday. We were fortunate enough though and got to have chemo in Lewiston the last four days. We had a good weekend and got to play outside a lot. We have to be careful with the sun with Jackson and with his hair mostly gone we have to put sun screen on his head now. Sunday we took the boat out and got to see mountain sheep and Jackson even caught a 15" smallmouth bass. He was very excited about that and even ate it later that night. He was also very excited to tell me that there were 4 big mule deer bucks below the house by the radio station. So we loaded up and went down and took some pictures. Today he is heading to his great-grandpa Bob's house and do some 4-wheeler riding. His counts will start going down later this week and most likely get a fever and go into the hospital for the weekend. We did get good results from his CAT Scan last week. The doctor reported that it showed significant shrinkage on the tumors. We can only hope that it is also working on the bone marrow and the thigh.

08/02/04

Jackson's first half of the week was pretty laid back after we got out of the hospital, but on Thursday we left to go camping on the North Fork of the Clearwater. We had a great trip and got to do a lot of relaxing and fishing. We even got to pick huckleberries and have them in pancakes the next morning. Jackson and Wyatt got to catch several cutthroat trout and we even ate a few. They both got to see several deer and even a large bull moose. Jackson was supposed to start chemo today, but we found out that his platelets are not high enough, so he should be able to start on Wednesday instead. We are doing our best to enjoy summer, even though cancer has dictated most every move of when and where we are. We are hoping that Jackson can still attend and do well in third grade with the current chemo protocol that he is under.