Summer Fun

Here is a photo journal of Joshua's Camp CoHoLo:
Josh's group (He is in the back, middle)

Being silly !

Joshua in the red swim trunks.

Ready for the dance. This was his favorite part and the older girls thought he was something else asking him to dance.

With his nurse from the hospital.

Off the high dive! With a lot of coaxing, he refused to get down once he climbed the stairs, he did it.

Summer fun!

Camp and Packing

Well, things are settling down. Rachel's foot is almost healed. Dorothy ended up with Fifth's disease and it is gone now. Josh is off at camp and hopefully having alot of fun He will be back on Wednesday and my next post will have all his adventures. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we are busy putting everything we own into boxes. I make boxes and fill boxes and then seal boxes. When they are done Gordon moves the boxes into the garage. It is a working, if not old, system. We are having a yard sale on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and selling everything we can. Some things are sad but we have to cut back to fit on one truck this time. We are selling our air hockey table and our patio furniture and yes, the piano. It is older and these moves are really hard on it so we decided it would not make the trip this time. Last time we moved it was fun, kind of an adventure, but this time it is more sad and hard to let go of these things but I keep telling the kids, it is just stuff and we are going to be fine. Gordon's job is a for sure and he has to start work on the 4th of August. That means the kids and I will be on our own till the house sells so pray that is quickly. We have very aggressive realestate agents and have priced it low so we are very hopeful. Anyway, I promised I would post when things got better but since I am not sure when that will actually be I figured I had better let you know that the kids are ok and we are moving forward. (no pun intended) We are praying your families are doing well............

I Am Not Sure What to Call This!

Well, I am not sure what to say. Joshua is home and sore and tired but ok for now. His hemoglobin is very low and they are going to check it on Monday. If it isn't better they will give him a transfusion. I don't know if I should be worried or not. Right now we are more worried about Rachel. She has a bug bite that is infected. We took her to the emergency room and they drew a line around the infection about 1/4 of an inch away from it. They said if the infection reached the line to start antibiotics. Well by morning it was 1/4 of an inch past the line and we started the antibiotics. If it does not improve we will have to take her in for IV antibiotics and be in the hospital. Also Dorothy isrunning a fever and I don't even know what that is. So for now we are just holding on and trying to keep together. I will post when things get better...............

Caught by Surprise!

Well things are going as usual here. Last night Josh had emergency surgery. He is doing ok this morning so let me tell you what happened.......Joshua's counts have been very low, that means that he can not fight infection and we need to watch him closely. These kids get fever and they have to put them on antibiotics so we have to watch for signs. Yesterday Josh was droopy and seemed down. I checked his temp after lunch and it was ok but I kept an eye on him. After that he told me his tummy hurt, but not anything specific. By about 5pm he started throwing up and he had a temp of 99.5. I called the doctor and they said take him in to get his counts and a culture to see if he needed antibiotics. We got to the emergency room and the doctor felt his abdomen and ordered a liver panel. That alarmed me a little but we waited for the labs and got an xray. Then the doctor came in and said his labs were good but he was concerned about is appendix in the xray and ordered a ct scan with contrast. Well things happened fast after that. They brought in a surgeon and he felt his tummy and said he needed surgery now. He started him on antibiotics because he was afraid it had already burst. I told him Gordon was on the way (I had left him home with the little ones) and he said he had better hurry, we would be in the operating room in 30 minutes. Gordon got there on time and Josh had a blessing and they wisked him away. The surgery took about an hour and the surgeon came out and said they got it before it burst! He even gave us pictures to give to Josh. All in all we were blessed, if he had not had low counts I would not have taken him in for such general symptoms and it could have been much worse. Also, when we got the counts they were up! So the oncologist said this was a great time if it had to happen.
I have been waiting to post in hope of having answers about our future, but I guess the present is all we can handle!!!! Today he is very sore and can't talk. The intubation irritated his throat and we will have to let it settle down. He should be doing better by his birthday on the 15th. Now that I have your sympathy I will make a shameless plug for his Bday. Send gifts! Itunes gift cards, webkins, or movie passes are the top on his list of things to ask for. Gift cards to purchase movies he can't get to the movies to see would be good too. There is not much else he wants but he is pretty down right now. He had been trapped at home for several weeks due to the counts and now they are up but he will be home for another week to recover. The nurse said she didn't know of another kid with a hot appendix on top of cancer. When the doctor told him he had to have surgery he said, "why does it have to be tonight?" As always what we need most is prayers. It seems the moment we feel secure with him something else collapses. I will post as soon as I know about Gordon's job, it looks like things are happening but we are still waiting. Thanks for always listening and caring about us and our sweet boy. Bless you.