From Mom again:

Big thanks to Dad, Laura, Stacy and Traci, Leslie, Nicole, David Fraser, Ramon, the folks at Parc Place, Goldberg & Osborne, and all those folks out there, thank you for all your donations. Every bit helps!!!

Thank you little Dave and Neda for all your help and support, Mom, Linda and Dennis, Karma and Jared, and all the other lovely souls I'm forgetting who have helped out in some fashion. Ethan and Brynn also truly appreciate the care packages as well. To Keller Williams folks, Lee Stern, Uncle Eric and so on. Thank you!!!

It's Tuesday and it feels like it's been a long week already. Everyone keeps saying, as parents, we need to get enough sleep, eat well, and yada yaday yada... um yeah, I'm exhausted and I'm certain Ryan is too. For some reason, I can't seem to fall asleep when Ethan does and then he wakes me up four or so times a night. He'll need to go pee, roll over, go pooh or his feeding session is over. I don't mind so much in the night it's during the day that I feel whipped. I mean it's only Tuesday and it feels like Friday! I need to manage my rest a little better, I'll admit. I never want to take naps during the day, but that's all I wanted to do today.

Ethan puked yesterday morning and early this afternoon. It sucks, but at least it's only been once a day. His hair is also coming out - majorely. Good thing we buzzed it over the weekend or he'd notice the clumps. He also has been coughing up a little blood, but his lungs sound clear. I think the radiation might be agitating his tract a little or it's just his bloody noses surfacing another way. He is prone to those. Anyway, the doctors are not concerned as long as it's just a little and not from the lungs. He had the hugest bloody booger come out this morning, I mean really big! (Sorry for those who don't want to read this, but nothing is going to be rosy about cancer talk.) The nice thing is, he no longer is going to be getting radiation to his spine.

Tomorrow we move on to just the tumor bed for the remainder of his radiation treatments. We got in a clinical trial which decreases the area of radiation to the tumor bed. They only radiate a slight margin around the tumor bed versus the whole posterior fossa region. We were extremely happy to be randomized for this particular change since all the elite universities have already instituted this change in their treatment regimen for Medulloblastoma. This change should help to reduce some of the long term effects Ethan may suffer from.

Originally, we were hoping for another randomization (lower ray emission) but after we were elected for this one we found out that it was what standard treatment was moving towards anyway. The lower radiation amount is still more in question, hence the trial.

Ethan is fairly tired today. After radiation treatment, I helped him walk around a little, then we went to the Natural History Museum for a short visit, and now he's just been laying on the couch watching dinosaur films. He didn't swing at me when he woke up from anesthesia, so that was a nice change. Actually, he's been in a fairly pleasant mood all day, despite the puking. He only fusses when I make him do his mouth exercises and oral care. And, of course, he's never happy when daddy leaves for work.

So far so good... Hope you are all having a lovely week.

Nikki





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