Thanksgiving, Clinic on Black Friday, CureSearch video

Holding hands...I can't remember why they started holding hands but it was pretty cute at the time...I think Ty was crying that he had a headache or something...UPDATE!  I just remembered why they were holding hands, it is because they were watching Harry Potter and it was going to be a scary part he he!

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend! Tyson had a CBC on Wednesday to determine if he was eligible to get his next treatment on Friday the 25th. His ANC has to be .75 or 750 and his platelets have to be 75. We got great news!! His ANC was 1200! PLTS 189, WBC 2.2, HCT 24.8. Not only did he qualify to go in for his next treatment, his ANC was high enough to play with cousins and join in the Thanksgiving fun! Yay!

Enjoying Thanksgiving feast number one.  He actually ate a little turkey and almost that whole roll. : )

See that little girl in the middle of all those bargain crazy gamers??  She (my 11 year old) asked to go black friday shopping as one of her Christmas presents.  Let's just say she likes to be involved in anything that is exciting...well she definitely got a story to tell this night.  The Walmart XBOX games went on sale at 10:00 Thanksgiving night and so I said I would take her then since we would be headed to Utah early Friday morning.  We didn't really need anything so we told my pregnant sister we would try to get her some games.  See how she is in front??  You would think she would have scored a game, what you can't see is the 100 or so game crazed psychos behind us who practically smashed us to death trying to get to the games as soon as they took the cardboard off.  Let's just say I'm glad my baby is alive...and although I too think black friday is fun...it is definitely smart to stay away from the gamers if you value your life. 

Bright and early at PCMC.  We made the earliest appointment possible so we could be back in time for Thanksgiving feast #2 with daddy's side of the family. 

Technically the clinic was 'closed' this day, they only saw the people who absolutely had to be there (like Ty who's protocol is every 10 days right now and they try to stick to that as much as possible.)  At first we couldn't find where they had hidden the video games tv's so we got him some markers.  The child-life specialist (who used to get him toys and fun stuff to do) hasn't said boo to him in months now, I'm not sure why, maybe cause he's pretty mellow and doesn't attract a lot of attention...but it's ok cause we know our way around pretty good now and video games are the best distraction tool for him. 

Ahhhh we found the xbox : )  He didn't even notice his port access much, and didn't cry when they took the sticker off, he did flinch a little but kept playing so it worked out good. : )  It was a pretty routine visit other than the fact that his HCT was pretty low Wednesday so they took another CBC to see if they needed to do a transfusion while we were there.  To our surprise his HCT had risen a little to 27, but his ANC had dropped to 600!  That changed the amount of methotrexate they were giving him that day so he stayed at his most recent dose instead of increasing it.  For my records...WBC 1.7, PLTS 145. Weight 14.9kg, same as last visit
He slept the whole way home and wouldn't eat anything that day, though he did have a little root beer at the feast

And Grandma brought the scooter thingys so he had a great time racing around the church gym where we had our Thanksgiving #2 feast. 

Today he is super grouchy so we decided to keep him home completely from church.  Usually if his ANC is high enough we will take him to Sacrament meeting with his mask on, not Primary (sunday school for kids) cause that is too much exposure to kids...He hasn't been to primary since April : (   but he did get to say a part in the Primary presentation last week and he did a great job.  They let him go first before all of the other three year olds 'ate' the microphone.  We appreciated that a lot. : )
 He had a 4 hour nap today and a nap yesterday so that along with the super crankiness are giving us hints that his blood counts are probably pretty low.  We'll probably ask for a CBC in the next couple of days if he continues to be sleepy and grumpy.  He might just feel like crap cause chemo does that to you and he doesn't really know how to vocalize that he feels like crap.  He didn't eat anything yesterday or this morning, but tonight he has had about 6 celery's filled with peanut butter so who knows?  maybe that means he is starting to feel better and maybe won't need a transfusion this time.
His news story about Bristol the Football tee fetchin dog aired on Thanksgiving...and I think a couple more times this weekend too.  They did get a few of the little factoids wrong but that's ok cause they did such a great job and we are so thankful they aired his story and included the part about CureSearch.  We are so thankful for the Children's Oncolgy Group who CureSearch raises funds for!  Ty is on a study for them right now and they are a major contributor to Ty's high chance of survival! 
Thank you for the prayers, love, dinners, care for our kids, and contributions to childhood cancer research.  We are in awe and humbled by the amount of good we get to see and experience because of Ty's cancer.