Walk for Life

Not sure what I was thinking when I decided we would all walk this morning at 9am at the Walk for Life. That meant getting everyone up, ready, and out the door by 8:30. We made it and coffee in hand we walked for a great cause, All Babies Cherished. It was about a two mile stroll and the perfect sunshine and cool breeze made for a delightful time. My mom joined us and we saw our friends Lynn and Niki along the way.

Dream baby was there too!

Tonight we are celebrating another milestone in Brady's cancer battle...NO MORE TUBIES! He will only have 1 more bath in the sink, and by Monday night we will be able to put him in the tub!! When we ask him where his tubies went, he says,"All gone, dah-tah (doctor) took um!"

Link to Dailiy News Article

Click Here to read the article from today's Daily News about Brady and the Festival of Hope

Two more days with Brady's tubies! I have to admit I was a little sentimental tonight as I flushed Brady's Broviac. The two of us have had quite a bit of alone time while taking care of that thing, and some laughs too! Brady can completely tell me the whole process of what to do and now is even starting to do a lot of it! I'm certainly not going to miss having to pull that dressing off once a week while he screams and having to bathe him in 2 inches of water in the sink. We are wondering if the three amigos will even all still fit in our bathtub! We'll see! I call tomorrow for Friday's surgery time.

I'm really behind on planning my words for my speech Friday night. I could talk for hours about Brady's story. I have to find a focus for what I want to talk about. My pain priority is convey a message of hope through Brady's story. It is difficult to know that there will be many there who have lost a loved one to cancer. Please pray that God will use me to inspire hope in those who are there.

Get Me Out of Here!

The 4th and final Williams monkey has succumb to the ear infection trend (well, at least I think he has). Brady woke up at 12:45am crying, very hot, and telling me to "kiss his boo boo ear." He was up several times throughout the night, totally unlike him. I decided that since the doctor had offered the antibiotic as a "just in case" measure earlier in the day, that I would go ahead and start him on it in the middle of the night. I spoke with our doctor (we saw another doctor at the appointment with Brady and Cara) later today and she wasn't too thrilled about giving him antibiotic without seeing him, but she agreed to go ahead with it. Eli is completely back to normal and Cara is doing much better. Allie is having a really hard time sleeping, is very stuffy, and has a bad cough. She smiled a lot today though and seemed a little less fussy. Brady is doing okay, but I can tell he doesn't feel well overall. My refrigerator could pass as a pharmacy right now...4 bottles of antibiotic and about 12 vials of Hep-Vanco, along with 4 drawers of medical supplies in my kitchen.

Please be praying that all the kids will feel better soon. We need to get rid of this illness so that Brady can have his surgery next Friday! I am in the beginning stages of planning a "Bye Bye Tubies" party for Saturday night:)

The reason for the title of my post is this...I'll be taking tomorrow night off! Matt and I are headed away for a 1 night belated anniversary getaway. My mom and Matt's parents will be holding down the fort. Please pray for them too! We are a little uneasy about leaving the kids not feeling well, but honestly have been couting down the minutes until we can get out of here. We totally need a 36 hour break from our world. Any guesses where we are going?

ps...THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU RON, SANDY, AND MOM!!!

Scan Day

I caught the family cold in all of its glory. I was out of commission all day, Matt even had to stay home from work. I'm feeling 20% better tonight and am hopeful that I'll be functional tomorrow!

I'm taking Allie to her appointment at 9am. Matt and Brady are leaving at 9am also. They have to be at the pediatric oncology clinic at 10 for Brady to have blood and urine collected, then downstairs by 11:30 to check in for his scans. Please be praying for Brady because he cannot eat or drink until after his scans. The radiology department is almost always running behind, but I'm hopeful that he will get in as close to 12:30 as possible. We are also praying that between now and tomorrow Brady will not get sick with this cold. I noticed he is a little stuffy, and if he gets very sick, they won't do the scans. He will be under anesthesia, and if you remember the last time he had anesthesia at Strong he had a reaction to the Versed. Of course we are insisting that they use something else, but with any anesthesia comes risk. Please remember sweet Brady in your prayers:)

Matt and I are surprisingly at ease about the results. We are clinging to the hope that there will be no new tumor growth and that we can rest easy for the three months until the next scan date. Our God is so awesome and certainly He has allowed Brady to triumph through everything so far!

Brady is letting his silly side show more and more these days. We are having a good time "tricking" him by telling him that he has to walk because his pants are "walking pants!" He is walking without being prompted a lot more all of a sudden. He doesn't seem as scared to walk on the hard wood floors. He bends without holding on to anything to reach things on the ground.

Here are some funny pictures of Brady! I was flushing his tubies after his bath and lately he likes to take the mesh that we use to hold his tubies and put it over his head. He was giggling so hard that he couldn't talk (so was I!)

Runny Noses

It seems my little cherubs are passing around a cold. Cara has it the worst, but she always seems to get it first! This is only our second cold since last fall, so I won't complain!

Not an awful lot of walking from Brady today. Everyone was a little whiny and I seemed to just be bouncing back and forth between them all day trying to make them happy! My dear friend Lynn was with us for the afternoon and made a delicious dinner for our family...homemade chicken and biscuits! So good.

I attempted to call the surgeon today to set up a date to have Brady's Broviac taken out. Imagine my shock when they told me he was booked for months! I did get an appointment with another surgeon for Monday as a consult appointment. Hopefully we will be able to get in with this other doctor. Remember Nathaniel, the little boy I asked you all to pray for who had his surgery 1 1/2 weeks after Brady? Well he just got home last week and had his Broviac out Friday!!! I'm truly happy for him because he is recovering so well and now tubie free! I really feel like things here at home for us need to be better coordinated. We want Brady tubie free SOON!

I got an email from another mom blogger today. She featured me on her blog today. You can check it out by clicking here and scrolling down. Thanks Melanie (my blog guru). Even I understood your directions:)