"Our patient has the cutest smile, Our patient has the sweetest heart, Oh, we Love to see you everyday, but now's the time we get to say, Pack up your bags, get out the door, You don't get chemo anymore!" He even blushed a little bit. He is doing great, he hasn't had a nose bleed in almost 2 weeks, so that means his blood counts are coming up. He doesn't have to do blood draws for cbc's anymore, he is really happy about that! He has finished school for now, he will go back to school after Christmas break, he is very happy about this. He is, for the most part, caught up with the rest of his class, so he should be fine when he goes back, at least once he has gotten used to getting up early that is. I will be eternally grateful to Miss Heather for keeping him on task and pushing him through, we could not have done it without her, she is an angel! He wasted so much of her time and yet she kept showing up, thank you Heather!!
I have been keeping up with a couple of boys that both had their leg amputated and I am coming to the realization that Caleb has been blessed beyond measure! Now, I will say, both of these boys have osteosarcoma, not ewing sarcoma, so they are on a different treatment plan and that probably has a great deal to do with how they are affected physically, and they are 4 and 5 years younger than Caleb so there also is a major difference. Through this entire battle Caleb only threw up one time and I know this was because he had eaten nothing the entire day and took bactrim on an empty stomach, with water. He would get nauseous but but not horribly so. After a couple of battles with mouth sores he never got them again and the phantom pain that he had for about 3 or 4 weeks following his surgery seems to have vanished. He still makes jokes about his leg, like today he wanted me to get something for him and I said "no you can do it yourself" and he came back with, " no, I can't, my leg is broke" and this morning he came in the room and said to me "mom, I think I forgot how to wash my hair!", how he keeps this sense of humor and good attitude is absolutely amazing to me! He still won't wear the prosthesis though unless I just pitch a fit and force him. He is more confident on the crutches, he has better balance with the crutches and isn't afraid of falling with them. I keep trying to tell him that if he'll just wear the leg and get used to it that he will get around just fine, I guess he'll do it in his own time. If I were him I would get tired of everyone asking why I am wearing shorts, he won't wear pants unless he is wearing the leg. I guess it will work itself out.
I have decided that I am going to make some changes to the blog. We started the blog to keep everyone updated on Caleb, I kept that up but it also became something of therapist for me, and now I want to stop focusing on the cancer and start focusing on life. Caleb does not have cancer anymore! They cut off the part of his body that had it, it is dead and gone and I want, we all want to look forward, get on to the business of living! So... I am going to start writing more about our family, all of our lives, not just Caleb and I. We have survived this living hell and we are better and stronger for it. We are and have been blessed beyond measure, God has taken care of us above and beyond anything we could have imagined. Rick Scott Construction Co. came in redid our bathroom so that it was more accessible for Caleb and Mock flooring donated new vinyl flooring for the bathroom. Rick Scott Const. also took care of a problem with the living room floor so that Caleb didn't trip over the thresh hold. Anderson Carpet provided new carpet and installation after the floor was levelled off, they also donated new flooring for the kitchen, I'll get to that in a minute. Darrell Mendiola, who owns Watermark drywall and painting, came in and tore out the living room ceiling, (because we had leaks around the chimney and the ceiling was ruined) and replaced those nasty tiles with sheet rock, and painted, not only the ceiling but they painted the walls also and Lee Alderetti did new crown moulding in the living room. It looks like a brand new room! Now for the the floor between the kitchen and dining room, it is not level. There were 5 layers of flooring plus a 1/4 inch masonite board in between all of that, so needless to say the kitchen floor was slightly higher than the dining room floor and with the thresh hold it was a hazard for Caleb. Soooo, this week, I decided that since chemo is over and we won't be running back and forth so much it was the perfect time to do this one last project. I mean how hard could it be, right? Riiight! Oh my goodness!!! I thought, go in there, pull up those old layers, lay down another one and be done...HA! Once we started ripping and finding wet stuff I got a little concerned and the smell was bad, I sneezed until today when we finally got it all out of here. We have ripped out the floor down to the diagonal boards (whatever that is called) and the lower cabinets, so we could see what was under there and how bad it was, there is a bit of mold and oddly enough there is mold on the wall in a spot where there is no water! We would never have seen the mold if we hadn't started tearing this stuff out, so now it is gone and the real work begins. Tomorrow we are skipping church so we can try to get the floor back in and hopefully next week we will get bottom cabinets back in. Then the inside of the house will be finished and safe for Caleb, both environmentally and accessibility wise. We are STILL waiting on the roofers, 3 months later. We had the chimney fixed before Darrell did the ceiling so the leaks are taken care of for now. It is like being in a whole new house. Now, the bathroom and living room cost us nothing, the kitchen repairs are coming out of the Caleb fest money. Like I said, God has been so very good to us. He has taken care of us through this entire year in ways we never dreamed of. He not only supplied our needs but a lot of our wants. When Aimee started this blog, I didn't like the name of it, but it has grown on me, through Christ, I am strong! We did this! We got through this! With God ALL things are possible. Tonight I will leave you with one of my very favorite scriptures, I am standing on it for the future!!!
Isaiah 61:1-3
The Year of the LORD's Favor
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.
I have decided that I am going to make some changes to the blog. We started the blog to keep everyone updated on Caleb, I kept that up but it also became something of therapist for me, and now I want to stop focusing on the cancer and start focusing on life. Caleb does not have cancer anymore! They cut off the part of his body that had it, it is dead and gone and I want, we all want to look forward, get on to the business of living! So... I am going to start writing more about our family, all of our lives, not just Caleb and I. We have survived this living hell and we are better and stronger for it. We are and have been blessed beyond measure, God has taken care of us above and beyond anything we could have imagined. Rick Scott Construction Co. came in redid our bathroom so that it was more accessible for Caleb and Mock flooring donated new vinyl flooring for the bathroom. Rick Scott Const. also took care of a problem with the living room floor so that Caleb didn't trip over the thresh hold. Anderson Carpet provided new carpet and installation after the floor was levelled off, they also donated new flooring for the kitchen, I'll get to that in a minute. Darrell Mendiola, who owns Watermark drywall and painting, came in and tore out the living room ceiling, (because we had leaks around the chimney and the ceiling was ruined) and replaced those nasty tiles with sheet rock, and painted, not only the ceiling but they painted the walls also and Lee Alderetti did new crown moulding in the living room. It looks like a brand new room! Now for the the floor between the kitchen and dining room, it is not level. There were 5 layers of flooring plus a 1/4 inch masonite board in between all of that, so needless to say the kitchen floor was slightly higher than the dining room floor and with the thresh hold it was a hazard for Caleb. Soooo, this week, I decided that since chemo is over and we won't be running back and forth so much it was the perfect time to do this one last project. I mean how hard could it be, right? Riiight! Oh my goodness!!! I thought, go in there, pull up those old layers, lay down another one and be done...HA! Once we started ripping and finding wet stuff I got a little concerned and the smell was bad, I sneezed until today when we finally got it all out of here. We have ripped out the floor down to the diagonal boards (whatever that is called) and the lower cabinets, so we could see what was under there and how bad it was, there is a bit of mold and oddly enough there is mold on the wall in a spot where there is no water! We would never have seen the mold if we hadn't started tearing this stuff out, so now it is gone and the real work begins. Tomorrow we are skipping church so we can try to get the floor back in and hopefully next week we will get bottom cabinets back in. Then the inside of the house will be finished and safe for Caleb, both environmentally and accessibility wise. We are STILL waiting on the roofers, 3 months later. We had the chimney fixed before Darrell did the ceiling so the leaks are taken care of for now. It is like being in a whole new house. Now, the bathroom and living room cost us nothing, the kitchen repairs are coming out of the Caleb fest money. Like I said, God has been so very good to us. He has taken care of us through this entire year in ways we never dreamed of. He not only supplied our needs but a lot of our wants. When Aimee started this blog, I didn't like the name of it, but it has grown on me, through Christ, I am strong! We did this! We got through this! With God ALL things are possible. Tonight I will leave you with one of my very favorite scriptures, I am standing on it for the future!!!
Isaiah 61:1-3
The Year of the LORD's Favor
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.
