AN UPDATE!

I guess it’s a good sign that I should have updated sooner when people see me and say, “Oh, you’re not in NY anymore.” 🙂 Sorry, once we got back home, it was hard to take the time to update! So to catch everyone up, we finished out the week of 3F8 and the pain was intense, but at least on Thursday and Friday Eli seemed to have a shorter amount of pain than at the beginning. Last week was a really bad week for hives. At one point, I went running out of the room to find a nurse because they came on so strong and I wanted Benadryl, pronto. The 3F8 nurse (Casey, we call her the shark nurse because she went to South Africa and saw sharks in the wild from a cage) looked at Eli and said, “Now that is a good Halloween costume!” He looked like he had reptile scales all over his arm and face! However, the nurse practitioner reminded me that Hives are a good sign that HAMA is less likely to be setting in. We’ll see.

It was kind of rough showing up on Sunday night, doing 3F8 all week, then leaving first thing on Saturday morning. Eli wasn’t really up for playing much this week since he was basically exhausted until 10pm each night. Then most of his friends were usually in bed by then. He did get some time to play with a few other night owls like Kieran and Justin, but on our way home Eli said, “Dad, I don’t like going to NY for a short time, we didn’t do anything fun.” I explained that the trade off was getting to come home faster! We had a great send off on Saturday morning as Eli’s friends came down to say goodbye. It was the only time Eli got to hang out with all of those friends at once! Thank you Justin, Ber, Griffin, Coleman, and Caden!

Click the photo thumbnail below to see some shots of our short stay in NYC where Eli actually got to see some of his friends!

We arrived Saturday afternoon in Omaha right on schedule. A HUGE thank you to BJ from Midwest Airlines that got Eli and I free tickets to fly Midwest Air by using miles donated by people from their Miracle Miles program. It was so easy, no paperwork, and one of the best cancer care programs I have experienced. BJ and Midwest Air have been a real blessing to several families we know and we are so grateful for them. Since Lacey can’t fly (and of course we wanted to go to the ISU game on Saturday and wouldn’t have had time to drive), it was just Eli and I. So you can bet we were VERY anxious to get to see mommy and Isaiah again after not having them with us all week. They were also missed by all of our friends at the Ronald McDonald House in NY!

Saturday night we stayed in a hotel (thanks again Allis) near the Omaha airport. It had a pool, which was a requirement for Eli, and we had it all to ourselves all night. Before it got dark, we went to the drive through wildlife safari 30 minutes outside of Omaha. We saw elk, wolves, deer, cranes, and bison (one of which came right up the truck and stuck his head in the bed to see if we had any snacks back there). We all really enjoyed that. We did some virtual hunting at the Bass Pro Shop, which is Eli’s newest favorite form of game. Sunday we went to the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo, which is always a fun time. It was threatening to rain, so it wasn’t very crowded and we got to enjoy the zoo without the usual overabundance of homo sapiens.

So we are back home, and enjoying being here! Thanks for all of your prayers. We will be returning to NYC for another round of 3F8 (assuming HAMA negative) and scans November 3-7. Right now, we are doing round 2 of Accutane. We noticed Eli’s hands were peeling from the first round, so moisturizing his face and hands might be a bigger deal than it was last time. We will continue to ask you to pray that the Accutane side effects will be minimal.

I don’t know if anyone caught the AP photos from the ISU vs. Kansas game that we were at, but I was checking them out and noticed that in a few shots, you could clearly see the players wearing Eli bracelets! Check out this one from Marquis Hamilton catching a touchdown pass. See that on his left wrist? Yep, it’s an Eli bracelet. 🙂

From

I also noticed that some of the players were still wearing them at the Baylor game as well. I know they wear them on campus, because I’ve heard reports that they not only wear them, but are telling people about Eli. The visitor count to Eli’s CarePage increased by over 200 people after Eli’s weekend with the Cyclones!

Thanks again for your prayers. We are so thankful for all of Eli’s friends.