Yesterday afternoon I finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to my two younger kids. Everyone was in the room as I read the final chapters, when they sail to the utter East, the end of the world. There
A Good, Normal, Busy Weekend in the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Peter was able to go home on Friday. On Saturday he spent the afternoon playing with friends. We tried out a new game called Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, in which you use a “Bomb Defusal Manual” to talk someone
Radiation & Resurrection
After a couple high doses of radiation and a few days on steroids, the tumor in Peter’s chest had shrunk by a third. His chest was visibly smaller and the blue veins radiating out from the bulge were much less
Radiation and Silliness
Peter got one dose of radiation on Friday. He will get another each day Monday to Friday. The swelling is less and he is feeling better. He should be out of the ICU and back on the oncology unit in
On the Edge of a Cliff (for the third time)
Three times we’ve received bad news. Each time there is a treatment that might get rid of the cancer, but each time the chance of it working is less. We are at that point again. I wrote about some of
Misery, Relief, Repetition
It has been about three weeks since Peter’s last chemo treatment, and two weeks since he got to come home, but still he is feeling the effects. Last summer he insisted on swimming all the way across a lake in
Money and Mail
Several people have asked us about money and mail. Do you need financial help? How can we send mail? Did Peter get the mail I sent him in the hospital? Oh, and I’ll give a quick update about how Peter
What the Doctors Can’t Explain
When the doctors can’t explain something it can either be bad (“We don’t know why the tumor didn’t respond to treatments”) or it can be good (“We don’t know why his neutrophils jumped up so dramatically”). We have now heard
Half a Hallelujah
Yesterday I asked the oncologist when they would do the X-ray that he had mentioned a couple weeks ago, before starting this new cycle of chemo. X-rays would give us a glimpse of whether the treatment was effectively shrinking the
Some Numbers & Vocabulary – March 12, 2017
10 days in the hospital. Maybe 20 more to go before a little break at home? 5 days of chemo 3 times vomiting (unless I lost count) Several slight fevers Precious few calories consumed 13+ hours a night sleeping 3 movies