Just a quick note to let everyone know that we got word on Friday that Eli’s bone marrow biopsies and aspirates were clean and that his urine tests were normal! We are certainly grateful for that news to add to his normal MRI and MIBG scan results. Next week we will find out Eli’s HAMA status and that will determine what steps will be taken after his final “real dose” of 8H9. The next step of the 8H9 protocol actually calls for 4 rounds of 3F8, but we won’t be able to do that unless Eli is HAMA negative. For now, we hope to do Eli’s “real dose” on Wednesday and head home on Friday where we will watch his counts fall and hopefully recover. Thank you all for your continued prayers regarding Eli’s treatment.
I also wanted to share a photo album from the combine demolition derby. I realized that the photo I shared required a facebook account, so many of you might not have seen it. Here is the album from that night at the Boone County Fair in Boone, IA.
Finally, I wanted to let everyone know about a project that several parents in Iowa have been working on, including myself. September 12th, 2009 is going to be National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day in the US. For people in Iowa, that date might have some other significance. It is also the date for this year’s huge in state rivalry between the football teams of Iowa State University Cyclones and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes! Most people in Iowa will recognize the black and gold “Beat State” and cardinal and gold “Beat Iowa” shirts that can be seen all over Iowa, specifically in September. This year, we are fortunate to be hosting the big game in Ames! We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try to create awareness for childhood cancer on the day when some of our biggest supporters are playing their big game. I’m not kidding about them being some of the biggest supporters of our kids. Hayworth Hicks is 6′ 3″ and 346 pounds and Ben Lamaak is 6′ 4″ and 318 pounds! Those are the Cyclones, I don’t know about the Hawkeyes, I think they are all 5′ 9″ and 200 pounds or so. 🙂 Just kidding, we love (that might be strong, at least like) the Hawks as well. In fact, Tyler Sash (safety for the Hawkeyes) has asked for a bunch of Eli bracelets for his teammates, which we certainly are glad to provide! Anyway, there are LOTS of ideas floating around and we are talking to all of the appropriate folks to make things happen (Jamie Pollard was supportive and that means a LOT since he is the Athletic Director for this year’s home team)! I’ll talk more about those as we get them confirmed, but essentially we are working with CureSearch.org to raise awareness.
The one thing I CAN tell you about now is the tshirts that we have come up with. They are going to say “Beat Cancer” on the front and “National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day” on the back with our URL (beatcancertoday.org) and they are going to be available in black and gold or cardinal and gold. I have no doubt we will sell FAR more cardinal and gold shirts, but most importantly, they are only $10 (plus shipping) and the proceeds are going to go to CureSearch! The t-shirts can now officially be pre-ordered on our website. Just click on the “Order a T-Shirt!” link and you’ll have two options. You can download and print out an order form and mail in a check, or you can check out with a credit card using our PayPal shopping cart. Even if you don’t have a PayPal account, you can pay with a credit card and it will sign you up for one. You can actually see the mockup of the shirts on the website. A big thanks to our webmaster Joe for helping us get the site up quickly so we can start taking tshirt orders! The site will continue to evolve, but we wanted to get online ordering up ASAP because I know a lot of people will want to order shirts that way. The cutoff date for ordering a shirt in time for the big game is August 25th. The shirts will be shipped out around September 1st and you will have them in time for the game. Eventually we are going to have the ability to offer “Pickup” as a shipping option so that if you live around Iowa City or Des Moines and you want to order a LOT of shirts, you can save on shipping by selecting “Pick Up” and we can make arrangements for you to pick up your order when they are ready. The Pickup option isn’t available right now, but hopefully it will be soon. So if you want to order a shirt and have it shipped, head on over to the website! I know it will be cool and hopefully effective to have “Beat Cancer” shirts at this year’s game. More to come on our Beat Cancer Today campaign, but feel free to start pre-ordering shirts if you are interested!
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