Thursday, June 28, 2012

Mr. Wild Man

Keylin's bicycle helmet fits Cameron's giant head! I think our little daredevil is going to spend some quality time wearing that helmet!! He has his mother's coordination, so he falls quite a bit, in combination with his medicines too. If I had my way he would be wrapped in bubble wrap and wear a football helmet. :) He is unstoppable! :)

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Here we go again!

We get to back up to Dornbechers on Friday for Cameron to get more blood to boost his counts back into a comfortable range. The Doctors said he is borderline now so Friday he will surely need it after this week of chemo. It will be nice to have his platelets up and red blood cells too, so he won't be as pale & more sturdy to play with the twins, if he is up for it. :)
Cameron was having so much fun with Amy his chemo pal today. His appointment went well, but his ANC#(resistance to infection) went back down to 500. That means no more public places and any fever over 100.4 gets us admitted back up to Dornbechers for 3 to 4 day minimum stay. The Dr. said that they expected this and its all part of the plan but that he is doing well in spite of his ANC#. I asked about how easily he is bruising and they said his platelets & hemoglobin dropped too. All part of the deal they said. UGH! Thank goodness he won't remember any of this! The upside is that he did have fun with Amy today!!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The fundraiser was wonderful!!!

Wow!!! The fundraiser went great!! What a great day!! The weather held out nicely too! The band was AMAZING! The food was GREAT! Thank you everyone for all of your love, prayers & support for making today such a great day!! We can't thank you enough!!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Catch me if you Cameron!!~~Amy Chemo Pal

Our chemo pal Amy is going to run the Portland Marathon in October. The CCA~Childrens Cancer Association that she is involved in as a chemo pal will pay her entry fee if she raises $1000 in donations for the CCA. She said she is running in Cameron's honor & all children fighting cancer, but especially in Cameron's honor!! Super sweet of her!! :) "Catch me if you Cameron" is her FB page she started for her adventure in fundraising for the CCA & her marathon. Go Amy Go!!!!

Having fun with his Chemo pal Amy!!

He is still smiling!! He loves his cheese! Big day at his clinic chemo appointment!  Thank you chemo pal Amy for making him laugh!

A day in the life of Cameron's medicines

A day in the life of Cameron's medicines with the pain & nausea in full force:
6am Zofran (nausea), Benedryl(nausea), Adivan(nausea), Methadone(pain), Gabapentin(pain) & Morphine(pain), Septra(on weekends-preventative antibiotic)
8:30am: Mercaptopurine (chemo)
10am: Adivan, Morphine
Noon: Benedryl, Gabapentin,
2pm: Zofran, Adivan, Morphine
5pm:  IV in the port Cyterabine(chemo)
6pm: Benedryl, Adivan, Methadone, Morphine, Gabapentin, Septra
10pm: Zofran, Adivan, Morphine
midnight: Benedryl
6am start it all over again :)
When the pain & nausea are less we can take much less medicines. He is a walking pharmacy! He takes it all with not too much struggle, he like to drink his water afterward :)

Monday, June 18, 2012

Much better day today!

Today as a much better day for Cameron. He still needs mom quite a bit, but he did get down off of my lap to play with the twins & dad.  Tomorrow is our long day at Dornbechers.  He is getting another round of the hard nausea chemo tomorrow.  The next 3 or 4 days will be tough for him with the nausea. It is always amazing to see how quickly he bounces back from it all with a big grin. He is such a little trooper!

Happy Fathers Day

We got worried today, he took a 5 hour nap and woke up still tired, pale, coughing up gunky & clinging to mom. No fever, but he wouldn't eat or drink much. We called the Dr & off to the ER we went. They said from his blood work that liver is majorly irritated from the chemo. There was nothing they could do for it. His chest x-ray came out ok & sent us home. It is super nice to be home on Fathers day!!! Yayyy!

Saturday, June 16, 2012

There are angels out there!!

This is "Amy" Amelia Simek our Chemo pal! The CCA~Childrens Cancer Association gives every child with cancer their own chemo pal to come and play with them during their chemo appointments.  She brings a big duffle bag full of toys, blows bubbles & makes Cameron giggle.  She even wears her cookie monster shirt sometimes!! It is so amazing to me that there are people out there that don't even know anything about you and are willing  to just come and be a help and support, out of the kindness of their hearts!!  She was fairly new to this process too but you would never know it. She has seen some crazy stuff right along side of me.  Its nice to have someone else there to say "Wow, that was crazy!" She is such a kind and wonderful girl!!  She is one of the perfect examples of that phrase that "The big guy won't keep you from the tough stuff, but he will send his angels to help make the tough times easier"  She is one of those!! Thank you Amy, you are part of the family now!! We love you!

Poor baby!

Every time we go in for chemo they ask the same routine questions. The one that always catches my attention is "Can he still walk?" Now I understand why they ask that one, the chemo vinchristine that is giving him so much pain in his joints made Cameron unable to walk for part of today, even with the Morphine in his system. The good news is that they say it is a temporary condition but UGH, it breaks my heart. The bummer is that he gets another dose of it on Tuesday if he qualifies from his blood test on Monday that his immune system is strong enough. Thank you to everyone who are riding this roller coaster with us!What a crazy ride!

Darn cough!

His cough is back and more annoying to him. He got sick 3 times last night from it. The doctors said that he is too little to give him anything stronger than he is already taking the Albuterol nebulizer Benedryl & Delsym. He is on the pain medicine that is supposed to help it too but it is still steady & annoying to him. He was able to keep down his breakfast so that is good. 

Monday, June 11, 2012

Another great day!!

We had another good day!! Whew! I could get used to this! It is pretty hard to take a happy kid to an appointment tomorrow knowing that will make him feel crummy again with more chemo nausea. I know its for the best, but it still hard on mom & dad :) I want to see him happy every day!! Those days are coming soon, all of this is just a "speed bump" to his healthy days ahead. He is such a silly, goofy, tough guy!

Saturday, June 9, 2012

He is so tough!!

Kinda tough day for the big guy. Nausea is no fun!  Aunt Kiss (Chris) & Kayleen took the twins overnight for a big fun time! It was nice they could miss the ucky tummy times today.  Tuesday is his next appointment and it will be his last sedation/spinal tap/ chemo in the spine for 4 weeks!  In total he has had 8 of those treatments! He is just so tough!!! This session of chemo lasts 57 days and will finish around the 17th of July.  There will be a week or so break and then we start the next round that will last 64 days.  In that round we will have mandatory 1 week in the hospital stays for high dose intensive chemo, then 1 week home, then 1 week back in the hospital & so on.  This will be for the duration of that round.  Everything is on track so far so that is always good news  :)

Friday, June 8, 2012

Cameron's Big Fight bracelets

Cameron's cousin Kayleen Atkins is selling these for 5$ each as a fund raiser you can mesage her on Facebook if you would like to buy one. Thank you!!

The story of how we first found out that we would start this adventure.

Cameron was diagnosed the Monday after Easter Sunday, April 9th 2012.  On the Thursday before Easter I came home from work at noon and asked his dad if he looked pale to him.  Cameron was getting over a cold that the whole family had.  He was the last one of the family & it was hanging on a bit. He had a little cough that was improving daily, but just looked like he was the usual run down from a cold.  Nothing stood out from any other cold but that he looked pale & a little more wanting mom.  He was still up and around wrestling with the twins, playing & being a goofy kid.  The next day Friday before Easter, he said "owie ear" once.  So, we thought "ok, no wonder he is pale he must have an ear infection on top of a cold. If he says it again we will take him in". He never said it again that day.  The next day was Saturday before Easter, so we had a big day planned of egg hunts ect.  He was having a great time keeping up, hunting eggs, just one of the kids. He said "owie ear" again that morning, so I took him to immediate care right away. The doctor looked in his ear and gave us a prescription for Amoxicillin & said "have a nice day"!!  Then Easter Sunday night after a big day he still looked pale to us.  I thought,"he has had 4 doses of Amoxicillin, the cough is better why is he so pale still? If he is not better after a good nights sleep I am taking him in first thing in the morning to the pediatrician Dr. Metzler".  That morning he was still pale so I got the first appointment of the day.  Dr. Metzler knew the second that she saw him, but did the blood test to confirm.  We went to the emergency room and they made all of the arrangements to have the "Panda Team" ambulance take us to OHSU Dornbechers right away.They said we caught it in time. That it was good he was seen so quickly & that it comes on so fast. If we had tested the week before it may not have shown up. The scary part was that normal platelet counts (help you clot from a cut or bruise) are 100 to 300, his were 9 and we didn't even know it.  His white blood cells (fights infection) normal is 20,000 or less, his were 91,00! It was amazing to us that he could be that sick and still up & around playing, and being a kid & no fever.  Even the immediate care doctor missed it. Cameron was in the hospital for a week the first time and that is the story of how we knew we were about to start this adventure.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Yayy for small miracles!!

Cameron's cough is FINALLY getting better! Whew!  It was starting to worry us there because it was just hanging on & on, even getting worse.  Now that his counts (immune system getting weaker) are starting to go back down I was getting even more nervous. He got over that cough at the absolute last minute! Thank goodness for small miracles!  Its crazy how we celebrate the average things now!!  :)  Oh and at the last spinal tap, his test came back great! No evidence of malignancy in his spine for the moment! Yayyyy! We are winning each little battle!  :)

Nausea sucks!

Ok, I think I have the next million dollar invention....I need a garbage disposal on my washing machine. Chemo nausea is one big clean up :) I think my car has a permanent new fragrance.  He is such a good sport through it all, I hope to be as tolerant as he is some day!! :)

Monday, June 4, 2012

Update on the big plan of attack!

Tomorrow is a fairly easy appointment for Cameron up at Dornbechers. We have a 2:30pm clinic appointment and a 3:30pm sedation/spinal tap & chemo. Hopefully he can nap all of the way up there and miss out on the no food/drink grumpies prior to the procedure.
It is day 15 of 57days of treatment for this round. There are 2 more rounds of really hard treatment (if all goes well). So, in total there are 4 rounds of hard treatment. Each has different aspects that makes it hard. Each round is 57 to 64 days long. Once we finish this round, the next one will make him lose his hair. Its thinning now, but doesn't show up on the super cute pictures we just had taken. His hair should be gone by August. If all goes well and he doesn't relapse we may be on the maintenance phase by Christmas!!! The maintenance round is the one everyone wants to be on. In that, you go up to Dornbechers once a month, take a pill every day & he gets to grow his hair back. So big prayers please that there is no relapse during the maintenance phase :) Once we are on maintenance we can really start to be "cautiously optimistic"!!! Soooo far so good! Keep the prayers coming, they are working!! Thank you!!!! :)

Saturday, June 2, 2012









Cameron had a pretty good day!! The chemo nausea beast was nice to him today!! He has almost mastered the racecar pail/sand bucket for when the nausea hits. It makes for a little nicer clean-up! We have them strategically placed all over the house now. He does it, then back to playing & giggling. Its amazing! Here are some of his beginning treatment pictures.  Those cheeks are just so kissable!!

Cameron is such a champ!



The nausea beast is being nicer to Cameron! It sure is nice to see him get a break from it for a few hours.  He is so amazing he springs back into crazy little boy mode super quickly after he "gets the uckies out". Tuesday will be another sedation day spinal tap/chemo day.  We are on day 12 of 57 for this round of treatment.  The next round will take his hair so I am happy that we have our current kido pictures! They turned out pretty cute!!