Radiation, Sadly it won't turn you into the HULK

Today was our big start to the radiation day and it was what I thought it would be the consult….. the pep talk before the big game, the calm before the storm, the breakdown of the puzzle before it all comes together, the chef getting all the ingredients ready first, the many Lego's parts & pieces all spread out in preparations of building a Lego-thingy (I don’t know Lego terms… I just stepped on a Lego piece so it was fresh on my mind). It was very interesting. As always in these big meetings I always understand about 90% of what is said (they do break it down in the “dummy” version pretty good) and I retain about 50% of all the info in my head. I had caught myself asking the same question more than once, and I would just apologies because- sometimes when you ask a question, you get an answer but you don’t really plug in that answer until presented with the situation that the answer falls in; Ya, that’s how my brain works.

Dr. Poppy is Tucker’s main Radiologist, he’s a great guy. The meeting was very, well, it was a roller coaster of emotions, to be honest. Dr. Poppy explained that Tucker is going to get 16 days of radiation, 10 days on both his brain & spine, and 6 days extra on his brain. We will officially start our day 1 on this coming Tuesday after the holiday. First off the Dr talked about the exact places Tucker will be receiving radiation, and the only concerning part to this (aside from the obvious BRAIN radiation) is when you radiate the spinal column you also get radiation on everything in the “path” of the spinal column…. So Tucker esophagus, lungs, stomach… ect. Look at your body and think of all your organs that run right down of the center of you... and that’s what will most likely get some radiation. Now don’t you all panic at once or anything, Dr. Poppy reassured us over and over that the level of radiation is so small it really should not do any damage at all to any other parts of Tucker’s body. This particular type of cancer cells react very quickly and are easily affected by radiation, because of this they don’t have to use high doses. That’s a relief. When Dr. Poppy was done explain this part of the process he asked if we had any questions…. And this was the start….

Justin said- “Yes, I have a very serious question… when exactly will Tucker turn green and get his super strength powers?”

Dr Poppy, looking stunned for only a second, replied quickly with – “Oh no, THE HULK dose is a much higher setting than what Tucker will be getting, Sorry Tucker you won’t turn green or get super strength powers.” And we all burst out laughing.

Justin- “so when will he glow in the dark?”

Tucker- “I’ll get to glow in the dark? How will I sleep?”

Dr. Poppy- “sorry, no glowing this time, that’s up there with the HULK setting.”
That’s one of the things I love about Justin so much, he can break the tension with such off handed remarks that you can’t help but laugh.

Dr Poppy went on to talk to us about side effects, every parents nightmare, the dreaded side effects….. but the doc had us reassured in no time… the most likely side effect would be nausea, mostly due to the radiation his stomach will inadvertently get, oh and headaches. You see they 99% of the time use steroids with the radiation when you do brain radiation and that keeps the headaches down. Well we can’t use steroids because of Tucker’s AVN so he is probably going to get some headaches… and we will deal with those as/if they come. There, of course, is some slight possibilities of some brain damage…(I know you were all wondering) but he thinks this is such a light dose of radiation that his IQ may only be affected, if even at all, by a few points. Dr. Poppy went on and on about “slight possibility” this and “mostly likely won’t happen” that, that I stopped him- I said… “Dr. Poppy do you realize that every time in Oncology when a doctor has said “slight possibility” or “probably won’t happen” or “very low chance”…. That it has ACTUALLY happened to Tucker on multiple occasions?????”

At which point Justin burst out laughing saying – “SHE’S GOT A POINT IT ALL SEEMS TO HAPPEN WITH TUCKER!”

Dr. Poppy again reassured us that radiation is much easier then chemo and very different, so hopefully this time the “very low/non-existence/slight-most-likely-not” phrases will actually apply.

Man, I hope so.

So onto the rest of the day, they wanted to get Tucker all set up with his “alignment” on the machine so we would be ready for radiation on Tuesday. I never realized how much pre-work goes into radiation. He had to get a full head “cast” thing- it was cool. They took this mesh got it all wet and put it on Tucker’s whole head/face and then molded it to his head. This mask will be marked with the very specific points of where the radiation machine will…. be? (I’m still not good with the radiation lingo… so please just have patients..) anyways, each time the machine has to be lined up at the exact same spots on Tuckers body so he gets the exact same radiation in the same place each time. So we had to sit through the “mask” making, Tucker did great. Then he had to get a full body CT scan, and that was pretty cool. Justin and I sat in the back and got to watch Tucker’s inside appear on the CT scan computer screen, and we saw that he had a lot of gas bubbles ready to come out… and that he probably had to pee soon…. LOL But the CT scan was to get his spin in “line” for the radiation points. We now had the mask for his head with the important points, but they need to TATTOOOOOO on the “points” for the radiation on his body for the spinal column set. They had 2 tech’s with black permanent markers drawing all over Tucker…. At first it was funny -Tucker said it tickled….. BUT then they said they had finished the 5 marks for Tucker, time to tattoo in the mark.

Me: I’m sorry, did you just say you’re going to tattoo my 10 year old son?

Them: Yes, we have to tattoo in the points so the machine lines up at the exact same place each time. He must get radiation in the same place each time. If we tattoo it on then there is no room for error.

Justin: Could you make the tattoo in the shape of a princess something-or-other or even Barbie?

Tucker: Nooooooooo!! No princess stuff no BARBIE!

Me: Yes, k, I get that he needs it…. It just took my breath away that I’m consenting to my 10 year old GETTING INKED. Could this be the start of a lifetime addiction of tattoos for him?

Them: Most likely not, kids don’t seem to like the whole needle thing that you have to use to tattoo with.
At this point Tucker really didn’t have an opinion of tattoos and really didn’t have a clue how one got a tattoo…. Until the teck dude said this key phrase to Tucker: “Tucker this is your tattoo ink, and this is the tattoo needle I’m going to use”…..

Tucker: “Wait, what? Needle? What are you going to do with that needle?”

Tech: “I’m going to gently push the ink into your skin with this needle……… ect….”

Well, I don’t really need to tell you what Tucker’s response was at this point, he didn’t want a tattoo now, it has to do with needles? No thank you, but then Tucker takes a deep breath and says right after saying he doesn’t want to do this… he says “if this is what I got to do to get better then just do it.” 5 tattoos later, along with a little screaming and a bunch of tears….. we were done.

This Friday we go in for a “dry run” on the radiation machine. They take Tucker in and lay him down with his mask on and have the radiation machine programmed in aligned with his “points” and they “run” his course, but without the radiation. In doing this Dr. Poppy at that time can make any slight adjustments to Tucker’s plan or reline him if needed. This will also help Tucker see what he is going to be going through for the next 16 days without the side effects of actually getting the radiation.

Here are some pictures of our “fun” time up there.
Love to all
Amber Justin & the soon to be-THE HULK…I mean, Tucker

*I tried to get the pictures in order but blogger was being stupid, sorry* Tamy

Dad & Tucker waiting for the radiation consult to start

Mom and Tucker still waiting.....

Tucker & Dr. Poppy in front of the CT room

Mom & Dad hanging with Tucker

Dad doing what dad's do best.....messing around

Tucker's face mold

Tucker couldn't talk very much...lol

These are Tucker's tattoos...in the black circle you see the tiny black dot? The black dot is the tattoo...and he is set!



Tucker waiting to get his full body CT...and dad entertaining him. Sorry about the picture blogger flipped it



The techs putting the mesh on his face to get his face mold

Do Scribbles Count?

Today marks the 1st day of Tucker new protocol..... its hard to not feel like we are starting from the beginning... but I know weren't not... it just feels like it. So we move onto our other option that i talked about before where we are doing radiation in place of chemo. Well, not so much in place.... we just get to do both! Now doesn't that sound like fun?

I've had alot of anxiety for the past week about, well not so much about today but about tomorrow. Tomorrow marks the start of our very first radiation appointment. I don't know what to expect or if he will even get radiation or not, it could just be our big sit down "lets discuss" appointment to make sure everything is in place. Heck, i could be stressing over nothing at this point.... i sure hope so.... but then if we don't do radiation I'll just be pushing my stress back to another day. Best just to start it so we can be done with it, don't you think? And i love the "hey lets sit and talk" appointments... but those really play on my patients... and my patients is wearing thin... i think having to battle cancer 2 times in the past 7 years ...out of those 7 years.. really in "remission" for 3 of those year, anybody patients would be wearing thin.

Holy cow it just dawned on me that we have been battling cancer for longer than not! *sigh* depressing....anyhow....

So when we got up to clinic today Dr Afify brought in a copy of the new "road map" for Tucker. Its a outline of the next 104 weeks. Yep... 104 weeks, seems like alot. I think the last week puts us in January 31st of 2013! I can't decide if i like the "big picture" scope of things... or the month by month run down. I think the bottom line is keep an eye on your goal.... our goal is to get to January 31 2013. I think we should throw a HUGE PARTY on that date. Everybody mark your calendars... January 31 of 2013, party at our house..

Oh jeez... I'm digressing again (seriously, are you surprised? LOL).... SO the road map.... 104 weeks.. yep that's where I left off... well as she showed this to me it was full of just big scribbles all over this page outlining my child's life... I'm like... HEY HEY HEY, what's with the scribbles? Did you possibly let a child use this paper as a doodle pad? (no, I didn't really say that...) But I did really say- Um... yes... so... should i be concerned over all this stuff that's written on here and then crossed off or drawn threw? It looks like you scribbled through some pretty big words here that look mighty important (isn't the longer the "word" the more important the meaning? LOL ).... Dr Afify just said--- Well, we had to make little "adjustments" on Tucker's road map.

Sooooooooooooooooooooo.... you use scribbles to make these adjustments? Have you heard of Whiteout? (no I didn't really say that either... LOL keep in mind that my ramblings here tend to be 80% of what I was thinking at the time and 20% of what was actually said- but you get my feelings and the meaning).

The GREAT NEWS.... the BEST PART of today.... Do you all remember me telling you in my earlier posts about the "PEG LEG SHOTS" chemo? Its the 2 huge enormous shots that go right into both of Tucker's thighs at the same time, with this LONG needle, its like the NUCLEAR BOMB OF SHOTS... and its not a quick shot? they have to jam in both needles... push it in, pull back some blood... push in more meds.. pull back blood....ect.Its a very long painful shot that he has already had multiple times (took it like a champ!!)...

Well he is due to have alot of the "PEG" chemo... I mean ALOT of that... but new studies have shown that that specific chemo has the same affects given in an IV vs giving in a shot! SO GUESS WHAT??? He gets the PEG LEG SHOTS meds in his IV!!!!!! Tucker did a happy/victory dance... I breathed a huge sigh of relief... I mean, those shots... were HORRRRRRRRRRRIBLE... so having this change sure changed Tucker's tune up here today. He is SO much more relaxed. We just had those shots about 2months ago, and that memory is still fresh in Tuckers mind. This change is awesome.

But back to the other scribbles on Tuckers outline... of course the steroids were crossed out- that is just a "hit" to his treatments that we will just move forward without, and the rest of the scribbles... I can't even tell you. Its still just confusing to me. Its all about different meds at different dates at different times.Hey as long as we don't have to have the PEG SHOT again, I really don't care. The trade off (no I'm not complaining) from doing the PEG shots in the IV vs the actual shot is- the shot, for as painful and as crappy as they sounded.... seriously took about 20 seconds to give him (yes those 20 seconds felt like 5 minutes), and the IV PEG will take 2 hours... *ugh* 2 HOURS to infuse. But when we are already up here, whats an extra 2 hours? Nothing really.

So today's appointment is extra long, Tucker needed a blood transfusion in order to get ready for radiation this week. His red cell counts has to be above 30 to get radiation and on Friday he was at 25, so we are getting 2 bags of blood. Each bag takes about 1 &1/2 hr to infuse... so that's 3 hours and THEN we will get IV chemo that will take 2 hours.... yes its a long long long day up here, but we are not admitted and that's aways a plus, and we are not getting the nuclear bomb of shots.. so in general we are happy. Tucker always feels like a million bucks after getting some new fresh blood running through his veins.

People, please remember to donate blood anywhere you can... you never know, your blood could be helping out a kid like Tucker.

Tucker got a surprise visitor today, Roxane Shipman, Tuckers 4th grade teacher (and the worlds BEST teacher ever!) came up today to talk to Dr. Paul (the child psychologist... see earlier post) about the test results from all his brain test Paul put him through she also got to met Dr. Afify. I feel completely confident that Roxanne will have Tucker's school all ready for him to start 5th grade (oh my baby is getting old) come August. One of the best decisions I ever made with Tucker was putting him in charter school at Quest Academy.

So I'm just sitting up here counting down the time- probably 3 more hours to go- until we can go home & then tomorrow we will drive back up here to start our radiation life.

Wish us luck, all 3 of us will be at Tucker's appointment tomorrow. Justin (the worlds most awesome dad) is just as anxious for radiation to start as I am and I'm so grateful that I have him there to lean on and have him to help out with.

Thank you Justin for all you do for us.

I love you.
Love to all
Justin, Amber & Tucker


tucker getting a blood transfusion & a volunteer came to do something with tucker that mom can't do.... play the Xbox :)


Tucker & Roxane- she came to visit today and got to visit with Dr. Paul and meet Dr. Afify. It was a great day!

Tucker's Tags

I got a new batch of Tucker's Tags! I got 7 new ones and Tucker brought them too me so we had him model them for the blog!!! They are keychains and are $13 each ($10 will go to Tucker)


Inside

Black and Pink

Peace

Brown and Torquoise

Blue Flowers

Black Camo

White Flowers

Camo 1

You can pay through Paypal or send me a check. Please Email me and tell me which one you want with your address beautifultamy@gmail.com

Thanks for all your love and support!!!

Camp Hobe

If I ever won a million dollars… or had a chance to win money to donate to a charity, it would be- hands down- CAMP HOBE. http://www.camphobekids.org/ or if there happen to be any filthy rich people reading this blog and your thinking to yourself… I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SPEND MY MONEY… WHO SHOULD I DONATE IT TO? May I recommend CAMP HOBE….

Camp HOBE is a summer camp for kids with cancer and their siblings. Tucker has been attending this camp since he was 5 years old. Each year for one week they take your kid (s) off your hands and spoil them rotten, have games, crafts, parties every night… and then send them home. All these kids up there (and there were a lot of kids) ALL of them either have cancer or have a sibling that has or had cancer. There was a lot of kids up there today, and every year, its kind of sad to think about how much childhood cancer there is in this world.

I had a lot of reservations about sending Tucker to camp. He’s not technically “sick” … but he’s still not quite the normal Tucker… he has so much pain and just feels so crappy all of the time that I was having a hard time letting him go. Camp was from Monday to Friday but on Monday Tucker had some major chemo that kept us there ALL DAY LONG… goodness it was a long day! So I made arrangements with the camp director to drop tucker off on Tuesday if he still felt up to it. Well, part of me was thinking.. Tuesday morning would roll around and I bet Tucker changes his mind about going…. And when Tuesday morning came- Tucker was the first one out of bed, dressed, ate, took pills, and ready to GO to camp… I was still trying to get out of bed! So there was no way out of it, CAMP HOBE here we come! I was just SO WORRIED! But he needed to be a kid, and play and have fun. His whole life can’t be about hospitals.

So I took him up there on Tuesday morning and I’m sitting there with the camp director and nurse checking him in & I get tears in my eyes and I’m about to break down and bawl… when somebody distracted me with a question about something (I can’t even remember) and when I looked back Tucker’s camp counselors had snuck him out of the room! LOL I was like.. HEY… UMM.. HEY.. … THERE..TUCKER… UMM… OK… BYE…LOL it was funny. Chris (the camp director) just reassured me that everything would be fine and that I needed to RELAX… ya right like that was going to happen!

It was along 4 days without him, but yes I did get a few phone calls from him. The first phone call he wanted to come home, he was in so much pain…. Part of me wanted to drop the phone and make a mad dash for it out there to grab my baby… but then I thought….I bet Tucker just hasn’t LET his pain pills kick in yet. He always has bad mornings. So I asked him to lay down for 1 more hour and let his pain pills really kick in and then after an hour I would come and get him if he still wanted me to. He agreed, so we hung up and I sat and waited for what seemed the longest hour of my LIFE.. and finally the phone rang it was tucker and the conversation went something like this “HI MOM, I FEEL GREAT! I’M GOING TO GO SWIMMING!! I’M STAYING. LOVE YOU BYE!”

So yes he stayed at camp I’m SOOOOOOOOOOO proud of him for staying at camp. He did so great. He needed to be a boy and be 10 years old. I’m just so happy. Today was the day to grab my boy! I rushed up there…. Ran up to Tucker and hugged and hugged…
while he’s yelling “MOM! THAT’S TO TIGHT OF A HUG! IT HURTS!”… I said … I can’t stop I just missed you so much! LOL

Then this little boy, one of Tucker’s kids in his cabin said to me “Are you Tucker’s Mom?” I said “yes”, He then promptly yelled out “TUCKER DANCED WITH A 16 YEAR OLD GIRL LAST NIGHT!!!” I’m like WWWWHHHHHHHHHAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTT?????????? Tucker perked up and said “ Ya mom! I danced with a girl and she’s 16! It was SO cool!”

It was like getting slapped in the face with the OLD STICK… man, I felt old…… Tucker? Really? You asked a girl to dance? REALLY?

Yes he really did…. All the boys were just jabbering away about this girl they all got to dance with. I remember all the previous years of camp the picking him up conversation from camp centered around how dirty he was, how many pranks they pulled, and who had the stinky fart!

And now, its about GIRLS! Ugh, that old feeling is back. I said to Tucker, you can’t like girls yet your only 10! He said…. Mom, I’m almost 11 and I’ve liked girls since I was 7! (my favorite part) I said to him (we were in the car going home STILL talking about this girl) I said… don’t tell me its time to talk about the birds & the bees with you yet! I’m just not ready! And he said very innocently and with an edge of WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT tone to his voice….“ mom, why would we talk about birds and bees? They don’t have anything to do with girls!” I said- NOPE it’s not time to talk to you about that yet then… LOL

So I plan on laying down all depressed this weekend because my baby is growing up.

Here are some awesome pictures of camp. I’m so glad he went, and I’m SO glad he is home.

Love to all, Amber

Tucker with his cabin's counselor

Tucker with his other cabin's counselor..

Tucker's with his WHOLE cabin who they all swear now they are best friends forever! What a great looking group of boys. They also look like they could cause some serious mischief if they wanted....

the girl on the far right in the blue in this picture is the "girl" Tucker was talking bout- Tucker went down to get her to sign his "camp autograph book" and then was way happy because she did.

Tucker with his cabin doing a little cheer today.

Tucker with the camp director, Chris saying goodbye.

Chemotherapy vs Radiation....

Nobody likes CHANGE...

Tucker has been.... OK, really just OK. He cleared his last weeks chemo pretty quick and we were all happy and pleasantly surprised....well that's not the only surprise that Tucker had in store for us. We (Justin & I) have known about a possible change coming up in Tucker's treatment's for a little while now. Dr Afify has hinted more than once at a possible change in his "road map" that we may be making. Well the time is here and the decision has been made. Here is the run down.... I'll try not to make it to confusing, but to be honest I'm still a little confused by it. So.... as you read back in our previous posts about our super scary time with the chemo called ARAC (blood pressure dropped... lots of pain.. ect ect)... this change has alot to do with that... Tucker reacted so horribly to ARAC that there is big chance that if we do ARAC again we could be risking Tucker's life.
That just... makes me catch my breath every time i think about it. He was scheduled for at least 4 more rounds with ARAC..... and Dr Afify expressed her fear of possibly risking his life if we continue. Not good not good..... and since Tucker has the bone damage in his legs from his round with steroids, we can't do steroids again... and he was due for many more rounds with steroids, its one of the best meds to kill cancer cells in the brain. Well, because we don't want to do the ARAC and we can't do the steroids (without risking long term painful damage) we cannot continue on the treatment plan that he is currently on. Our "current plan" has lots more ARAC and steroids over the next year.... and Tucker's little body just can't do it. *sigh* BUT there is an option... at the beginning when they were picking Tucker's treatment plans they had 2 options, this treatment with lots of chemo and very minimal radiation, or plan B, not a much chemo but alot more radiation. Well, its a more accepted plan in this day and age to do as much chemo as possible first, have all that chemo kill the cancer cells, and THEN do a little radiation, if any, after the chemo is done. That's why we are currently on the plan that we are on.... with "plan B" as our back up plan. Well, the time has come and we are switching to Plan B. Plan A & Plan B up until this point in each plan was identical... meaning even if we would have started out with Plan B, we would have had all the same chemo's and steroids up to this point- at this point in the game is when the plans differ..... Plan B takes a different "turn".... this plan relays heavily on radiation treatment.
Humm...
Radiation...
OK, back at the beginning, they talked to us about radiation- because at the end of "plan A" we were scheduled to do very minimal radiation on his brain. So the radiologist came and talked to us and really put our fears to rest (see back to some of our earlier posts).... but now... OK, here is Plan B...
On June 28th we are scheduled to go start radiation on Tucker. The difference between the 2 plans was in Plan A, it was minimal radiation, more of a "preventive" treatment, not "the big gun" to kill the cancer. Well in Plan B, radiation is the "big gun" to kill his cancer so that means more intensive radiation. He will get high levels of radiation on his brain AND his whole spinal column...
yep... i said the whole spinal column....nope that was not on Plan A, that's a new change...
*sigh*
I hate change..
but its for the best, its what's best for tucker so this is what we need to do and without question this is what we will do.
I think my anxiety is that I know KNOW the chemo world... heck, I've been doing this since he was 4 years old. I know the In's & outs... what this means and what that means... but I've never ever had to deal with the radiation world...its just unknown... and everything unknown is just scary. But I'm sure here soon enough we will be pro's in the radiation world also. Oh, and he gets chemo also- the radiation is scheduled for a little over 3 weeks long, almost 4 weeks- of daily treatments.... and once a week he will come up to clinic for chemo.
*sigh* Its going to be a long month.

Justin and I came up to Tucker's appointment today to talk about all this, but Justin had to leave to go back to work before Dr Afify came to talk to me- go figure. But next week Tucker has a spinal tap & Dr Afify will be here to be our main doc and talk to us more about the changes.
Tucker is a bit of a grumpy bear up here today... so its been a little less fun than normal. He is currently sleeping in his chair with 2 pillows on his head- hey, i say sleep through the chemo if you can... it will just go by quicker... as soon as he wakes up we will get to go home. His counts look great & Tucker is going to try to attend Camp HOBE tomorrow.. its a summer camp for kids with cancer, he has gone every year since he was 5years old. I'll write up another post about that later though...
Love to all, Amber, Justin & Tucker

Justin's Chemo Time with Tucker

Well, this has been a pleasant stay at our virtual 5-star hotel. Sarcasm aside, this visit has been uneventful so far. Our nurses have been competent and sane (I believe that they have discontinued the exchange program that allows inmates from the insane asylum to come be ‘nurses for a day’). Tucker has not had any unexpected issues (the constant pain is now standard). He was given large doses of Methotrexate during this visit and cannot leave until his urine tests clean of the stuff. You see, this drug is an immunosuppressant administered along with certain chemotherapies to increase their effectiveness. We are usually in for five days for this type of chemo.

On Wednesday night we had a room full of visitors! Our friends John and Karen, along with their 3 kids, came up to see Tuk. About 20 minutes into the visit Tuckers teacher, Roxanne Shipman, showed up as well. Definitely over room capacity, it was fun though! I had ordered pizza and we all sat on whatever we could find and ate. It’s always nice to have people visit, break up the monotony, and help brighten Tukers day. Thank you all for taking the time to come up and see him!

It looks like the urine tests are coming back clean sooner than expected. I’m betting that the drug was absorbed by all the potato chips that Tucker has been eating. The nurses got sick of bringing individual bags of chips to him every hour and finally brought a cafeteria tray piled with bags. Whatever it was, I’m glad we are getting out of here early. Gotta appreciate the little things!

Thank you Tucker for clearing early... we are going home-

Love to all Justin

Tucker, Tuckers foot... Tori's face..
Tori, & Ryan

Tucker was acting crazy with Joey..

Tucker with Ryan

THE GREAT & HORRIBLE DAYS OF MY LIFE- BY TUCKER

**intro by mom** Tucker got some big pain killers tonight, when he gets these pain killers he talks, A LOT- so I told him to start talking to "everybody" for the blog and I'll type it out- word for word- no matter how much I don't want write about pee.... LOL but i promised him... so just as you read head please keep in mind this is all from the mouth of Tucker and I even try to get his "laugh" in there.

BY TUCKER:
some people have good days & some people have bad days... but to me I have the worst and the greatest days of my life. just the other day I was riding my bike and I went about a mile.. and when I stopped I had no pain! and then on Sunday I went around my block 3 times on my bike and played with my friends all day HA -HA (think victory) but then when i work up on Monday morning i had this horrible pain and i was crying and I got up and went to my mom and i bugged her to get out of bed to give me morpheme and then when they kicked in I calmed down and after a couple minutes i asked her if i could ride my bike around the block a couple more times and she said No that she didn't want the pain to happen again on that day that i probably did to much during the awesome weekend I had. but IT WAS WORTH IT to have the best weekend with the worst pain. it seriously was worth it, I had a great weekend.
part 2 the WAIT

when we finally got to the hospital we went into the clinic area to see doc afify- THE BEST DOCTOR IN THE WORLD- she gave me hi-fives and hugs because i told her what an awesome weekend i had and i even think she almost cried. She gave me good news- my bone marrow came back clean and we were all so happy ***CHA CHA CHA.. CHA CHA CHA-- (fun time dance)*** so then we finally reached our room and um, i drank alot of soda and i ate chips, then i had to go to the bathroom a lot, they have to test my pee in order for me to start my chemo- this is my blog so I'm going to talk about pee-
(MOM, rolling her eyes)
so when my pee results came back they were OK but not OK to start, then later they came back and said it was great and its time to start my chemo! HA-ZA! So we started chemo. I started hurting but they gave me good pain meds and I feel better.

I love you all for what you have done and thank you for everything.
Mom, I don't know what else to say, you can add any of your jibber-jabber


Mom here.... hum, well- Tucker pretty much summed up our day.... very quickly and neatly. I probably would have wrote like a 2 page story about today... and there he sums it up in about 2 paragraphs. I'm impressed.I will disagree with him on one point... I do not call my writings "jibber-jabber"....but i do have the feeling that most of you would agree with him... LOL
We just started at 9pm tonight our 24hour chemo, sometimes it takes longer for Tucker's pee to "pass the test" in order for us to get going.. so much stuff up here revolves around pee...its amazing! We have to pass the pee test to start AND to stop... like the whole world up here is about chem and pee- I swear!.... (ah, i see what he means about possible jibber-jabber) ANYWAYS- but we are finally on our way. I'm super tired, and I'm going to work in the morning. my mother-in-law is coming up to hang out with Tucker while I go to work... the thought of work is super tiring.. and its just hard in general to be at work while he his up at the hospital.... but I still gotta make $ for sure.I think Justin is to come stay with Tucker tomorrow (Tuesday) night and stay with him during Wednesday.

I'll write more later... just know we have finally started... and we can't wait for it to be over.

Love to all, Amber & Tucker

Tucker getting chemo last night

Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

Before we get going on our chemo tomorrow I thought I would do a blog post of pictures. I'll write more later but Tucker actually RODE his BIKE yesterday!!!! We all gout out it was a beautiful Saturday.....The kids (all of them INCLUDING Tucker) rode their bikes!!!!

Dad & Jaiden, even dad joined in on the fun and got his bike out and went riding!


Tucker & Lily - not only did Tucker ride his bike he got on the tramp!!! He didn't really "jump" but he sat there and let the others jump him around.. ya!!! see? Tucker is playing like a normal kid!!!

Jaiden on his new bike

Justin and Jaired

Justin getting all the boys bikes ready to ride.... yes yes I realize Tucker's socks are pulled up to his knees... I asked him why and he told me "well its to hot to wear pants and I don't want to get sunburned so i just pulled my socks up." Silly kid.

Lily and Raven out for a bike ride

The next 4 pictures was Memorial Day weekend the 3 of us: Justin, Tucker and I went to visit Jeremy & Jealin ( my brother and sister in law) in St. George Utah, Tucker actually got in a pool! We had a BLAST!!!

Waking up from back poke & Justin is hanging out helping him wake up.....

Back poke/spinal tap chemo and bone marrow sample, 1 1/2 weeks ago