4th cycle of chemo...hopefully last !!

Going home today! yay! Luke had a little nausea this time but not enough to keep him from eating, 2 corn dogs, 2 piles of french fries, Cheerios, half a banana, rice crispies, half a tuna sandwich, a cookie, yogurt, chips, and the top of a blueberry muffin!! Pretty good for 2 days in the hospital on chemo! Although there is not too many veggies in that list; I guess we will have to work on that when we get home.

I'm continuing to pray this will be Luke's final chemo treatment. That God will give the doctors wisdom, that he will prepare Luke's body for surgery, that his tumor will be easy for the surgeon to remove and that she will remove it entirely, so that he requires no more treatment. Thank you for praying with us, Love Erica

We received a care package from "The Keaton Raphael Memorial". Keaton was a five year old that died of Neuroblastoma in 1998. His parents founded the memorial to give comfort to family's dealing with cancer. They sent this sun hat, bear and personalized blanket for Luke, along with goodies for his brothers and sister. They also sent five hundred dollars to help with medical expenses! What a wonderful surprise that was. A big THANK YOU to"The Keaton Raphael Memorial" from the Finches!! What a blessing :)

Thanks to all for your encouraging posts! We love you!

The doctor said he would loose the rest of his hair after his second cycle of chemo. When all this started I told Luke he was going to be bald like Daddy, he replied "No I'm not". I am starting to believe he was right. He still has hair!!!

My prayer was answered at the hospital last time and he woke-up feeling fine. He has been feeling great over all. We are scheduled for round 4 on Tue May, 19th. A couple of weeks after treatment we will enter what is called "observation" phase of his treatment. He will have another CT scan and a MIBG scan. The Oncologists and Surgeon will examine his scans and decide weather Luke is ready for surgery. My prayer is for Luke's Surgeon, Dr.Lisa Abramson, to get the entire tumor, without missing a single cell. Then maybe he will not need any more chemo afterwards! Thank you all for praying with us :) -Erica

Feelin' a little sickie

Yesterday evening I went into the playroom to get a movie to watch and I saw "Isaiah Oates" on the list, he is Our Assistant Pastor's nephew. I had heard all about him but had never met him or his parents, so I went down and introduced myself. What a beautiful family. I went back to my room and had a bit of a rough night listening to Frankie cry on the other side of the curtain, but Luke was able to sleep through it all ! We ended up moving into a new room at six this morning (Frankie and his Dad had a bad cough we didn't want to catch) and guess where they moved us?...yep...our new roomie is Isaiah. He is six years old, Luke thinks he's pretty cool because he knew about a fun new Internet game.

Luke was feeling dizzy and his head hurt this afternoon. When his dinner came he almost threw-up at the smell. I had to remove it from the room quickly and while I was in the kitchen wrapping up his dinner he fell asleep. I'm hoping he will feel better when he wakes up.

Round 3

Here we are at the hospital again...Luke's ANC is at 2200. His Chemo should start at about 4pm. We are rooming with a little 3 year old named Frankie. He is one of six children and was recently diagnosed with Leukemia. Frankie has a 10year old brother named Tony (our new friend). Tony has been going back and forth to the playroom to fetch Luke x-box games! Sweet boy.

Luke's hair is all over his pillow. It's coming out much faster now. Before we left home he was following Aunt Cherie's suggestion and sprinkling his hair in the bushes for the birds to use for their nests'...he got-a-kick out of that idea!! :)

Little Wish

Your prayers are effective. Thank you all for standing by us. The Lord brought up Luke's ANC to 315 by Thursday morning and the Doc. said we could go home.! They think he is now on the up-swing so we even got a free pass on clinic next week, we don't have to go back until Luke's third round of Chemotherapy on Tuesday the 28th. Yay! We are keeping a watchful eye out for signs of his platelet levels getting too low (they were trending down during our hospital stay). He has a few dark bruises on his legs (which is one of the symptoms). If he gets too low, he may need to have a blood platelet transfusion.

All the kids are feeling much better now, the coughs are subsiding; but of course not until Mom was infected too. Daddy is taking somewhere around 20 vitamin C's a day (he thinks he's in the clear) .

On Thursday morning before being discharged home Luke got a fun surprise. A "Little Wish" from the Make a Wish Foundation. One of the Child Life Specialists' came in with a gift and her camera. He opened it and was overflowing with joy. It was a "Nintendo Game Boy DS"!!!! He was so excited to get home and show his brothers and sister. I told him many kind people from all over, give money to buy kids in the hospital special toys to make them feel better, Luke replied "and they waste all the money on a DS for me !?"