Another Milestone Completed!

I am glad to say that Nick's final treatment went without a hitch and he is now resting comfortably at home. It has been a long six weeks and even longer 11 weeks (Nick had only been home 8 days in the past 11 weeks). While the sunny and warm weather of Florida was nice, it sure is nice to be back home again. It was even nicer to come home to a little bit of snow! We arrived home late last night, weary from a long day (both physically and emotionally). It was nice to have all 3 kids back home again (we even welcome the bickering and bantering of siblings as they jockey for position in the bathroom, or argue over who gets the syrup first). Nick was so excited to see snow that all 3 of them went out right after breakfast, still dressed in their PJ's, to play for a bit before getting ready for school. With the temps hovering around a balmy 15 degrees (It was 67 in Jacksonville yesterday), the frolicking did not last very long.

While I am here with the kids, Deb will begin the long journey back from Jacksonville. If you remember, we drove down, just after Thanksgiving. She will be driving back, with Mary Ferrer riding shot-gun, and a packed car full of stuff. It is amazing what you can accumulate in just a mere 6 weeks. Anyone who has ever seen Mary and Deb together, will certainly appreciate how interesting that car ride will be. Personally, i wanted to record the whole thing since i am sure there would be enough material to write a couple of best selling novels. I will leave it to them though to fill you in on how the trip went.

We now will begin to re-integrate back into our normal routine, at least for the next 6 weeks. We are very much looking forward to some time off without doctor's visits, plane rides, etc to re-group as a family and just face the normal drudgery of every day life (oh how appealing that sounds).

As for Nick, he survived the radiation treatments well, with only some loss of hair and a tan line down his back. He is very excited to be back home. I will try and update things every week or so over the next several weeks, but hopefully there will be not much to tell other than everything is OK. Thanks to all who continue to follow Nick's progress. Your hopes and prayers are very much appreciated.

Heading for the Finish Line!

Today marks the 29th treatment......that means only 1 more to go! Unfortunately the way the timing worked out, this treatment won't happen until next Tuesday (monday being a holiday and all). As much as we would have liked to have the weekend to pack up and head home, we have decided to make the most of it and are all heading to Florida for the long weekend (and escaping this insanely cold weather!). Nicholas is very excited to be coming home. It's hard to believe, but he has only been home a total of 6 days since October. I know he is missing all of his friends and we are hoping that over the coming weeks, we will be able to catch up with everyone we haven't seen in a while.

Once the radiation treatment has ended, Nick will have about a 6 week break before he begins the final phase of his treatment (chemotherapy). This will be the toughest part, but at least it will be done at CHOP and there won't be as much traveling involved. I do know that Samantha, Peter and I are really looking forward to having Nick and Deb back home and getting our whole family under 1 roof again.

Everytime Deb or I see folks, they all ask whether or not there is anything that they can do to help. To be honest, right now things are going as well as we can hope. Since most of the time, we have been traveling, we have not been around much ourselves. We greatly appreciate everyone's concern, and willingness to help out. Most importantly, we ask that everyone keep Nick in their thoughts and prayers as we continue on this journey to recovery.

I look forward to the next posting when we are all back together in PA!

Heading for the Home Stretch

Nick is into his last third of his radiation treatments! Aside from being close to the end, this also means that his treatments will now only consist of the boost to the original tumor bed in brain as well as the tumor site in his spine. Hopefully since they no longer need to do his entire brain and spine, the treatment time should be a little bit less.

The entire family joined Nick in Florida for the New Year. We decided to take a trip to Orlando to see our favorite mouse. Boy was it crazy! The Magic Kingdom stopped admitting people by 11am! We tried hard to avoid the crowds and actually headed to the hotel early New Years Eve. Our goal was to get an early start on New Years Day while the majority of the people nursed their ailments caused from the previous nights festivities. Fortunately for us, one of the girls at the hospital had a brother who worked at Disney and they were able to secure a pass for us. This pass is equivalent to the "Keys to the Kingdom". It allowed us to get priority boarding on the rides, avoiding most of the lines (some of which approached 3 hours). I don't know how we would have fared had we not had this magical piece of paper. I have included a couple of pictures (much to the dismay of Samantha).

Many of you that we were able to see over the holiday, commented on how great Nick looked and how well he seemed to be doing. Well, he is doing great. He is a bit more tired than usual, but overall, he is holding up well. We too were amazed, and thought that all of the stuff we heard about the side effects of radiation just may not apply to Nick.....well of course we were wrong. A couple of days after Christmas, Nick started to notice a lot of hair on his pillow in the mornings. Each day, more and more hair started to fall out. It got so bad that even brushing his hair was impossible. This is a common side effect of the radiation treatment and should not be permanent. We have left it up to him as to whether or not he wants to shave his head completely. He has yet to decide, so for now he is wearing a hat all of the time. His initial reaction to losing his hair was pretty tough, especially after all that has gone on, but after a few days he seems to be handling it as well as he can. When the doctor asked him if he was losing his hair, he just reached up, grabbed a bunch, pulled and handed it to him without saying anything. I think that answered his question.