*1:00 p.m. Bennett is doing better so far. He doesn’t have a headache yet and his temperature is normal! He woke up around 11 and ate some pancakes and cereal for breakfast. He went back to sleep. The Dr. doesn’t want him getting up today, she wants him to lay down to possible help the headache from coming back.

If he continues to do well (no headache or fever) and counts stay good than we possibly can come home tomorrow. We pray this is the case and things continue to improve.

*5:00 p.m. Bennett is doing good. He has been awake since about 2:00. He had a ceasar salad for lunch. He has been getting antibiotic meropenum every 8 hours. The Dr. ordered for him to have caffeine through the iv to help the headaches especially if it’s a spinal tap headache. Yesterday before I got home to pick Bennett up and bring him to the emergency room, he started drinking a mountain dew and he felt like it helped. He may need to drink a few after his next spinal tap and see if that may help too or go ahead and start him on caffeine pills. The Dr. didn’t give Bennett his daily chemo pills last night or tonight. She felt like because of his symptoms and his ANC dropping that she would hold off a couple days. We pray things continue to go well and his counts are good!

Boy, how things can change in a hurry. Bennett was admitted tonight to St. Louis Children’s Hospital for fever and bad headache. He couldn’t sleep last night and he said it was around 6 a.m. before he fell asleep. He woke up today around noon and had a bad headache plus a temp of 100.6. We called the clinic and they thought he needed to be seen. We got to the emergency room around 4:30 and his temp was 99.3. His headache was a 7 from a scale of 1 to 10. Dr.’s took blood cultures to make sure he doesn’t have a line infection from his port, that will take 48 hours for results. They gave him meropenum antibiotic through iv and also a pain med for the headache. He was able to sleep most of the time while waiting in the E.R. It’s almost midnight and we just go to our room on 9west and his temp is 100.0.

His ANC tonight was 1,456 with 2.6 WBC and 56 neutrophils. It’s dropped about 1,000 since Monday. His hemoglobin was 11.8 from 13.1 and platelets are 133 from 180. Some of the change can be from the increased chemo pills that he started taking Tuesday but I am sure the fever isn’t helping them.

It’s possible that his headache could be from the spinal tap that he had on Tuesday. His Dr. was even cautious about using a smaller needle and took less spinal fluid to help prevent problems. He also laid down an extra hour in the clinic to help too. Bennett says the headache he has now feels like the same type of headache that he had back in April. This is disappointing as it seemed we really didn’t get much accomplished regarding his headaches for several weeks. The fever though shouldn’t be from the spinal tap.

Bennett was pretty upset today that he is sick again. It had just been about a week or so that he started feeling pretty good, having good counts, and hanging out with friends. He kept on saying today, I only have one more year of this. He is scheduled to finish his maintenance chemotherapy treatment plan in July 2010!

We pray that his temp is normal soon, his headache goes away, his counts stay normal, and that he can come home soon. May God continue to bless Bennett keeping him healthy and in remission forever.

Bennett went to weight lifting again this morning, he really enjoys going and lifting what he can.

Yesterday at his Dr. appt, he weighed 132 which is really good for him! 2 weeks ago he weighed 134. His appetite had decreased last week but will slowly pick up since he has started taking steroids yesterday.

I asked his Dr. yesterday if the bone marrow biopsy he had could of stimulated or woke up his bone marrow to make good cells. It was just within a few days, his counts doubled and than tripled. She indicated no it wouldn’t but just seems odd. We believe in the power of God and prayer!

His Dr. wants us to check his counts again on Monday to see if the increased chemo has brought his counts down but since he is on steroids it’s really hard to predict.

He went to Hamilton’s games tonight but ended up working at another field keeping the scoreboard for two games. Hamilton’s team played two games against Mt Vernon with a loss and a win.

“Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8

Bennett had a very long day. We left around 6 a.m. and rolled back into Benton just in time to make it to my nieces, Sarah’s Birthday party that started at 6 p.m.

Bennett slept all the way there this morning, slept through most of his procedures and slept all the way back. He was so exhausted.

The Dr. appt went good. His spinal tap aspiration and chemo injected into his spine went well. His back is sore tonight from the procedure and he took some pain medicine.

He had an iv push of vincristine through his port, preventive pneumonia breathing treatment. He also got the IVIG infusion that took about 2 hours. This is immune globin that boosts his B cells that is part of his immune system.

He started steroids again today for the next five days, taking 7 pills daily. I asked the Dr. today if there was anything else he could take to help strengthen his bones and she indicated the calcium supplement is it.

Dr increased his chemo pills to now 75% of his normal dosage instead of the 50%. So he will take 2 6mp pills through the week and 1 1/2 of the weekend.

Dr. looked at his ankle and indicated that he needed to stay off of it and continue the crutches for a total of 6 weeks so he has about 4 weeks left! That sounds better, first she said 2 weeks and that didn’t make sense.

We’re thankful for a safe trip today and that everything went well!

“I prayed to the Lord, and He answered me. He freed me from all my fears.” Psalm 34:4

Amen! Bennett’s ANC today was 2.576 from 2,254 from 10 days ago!! His WBC is 4.6 which stayed the same and his neutrophils are 56 from 49. Yeah! His hemoglobin is at an all time high at 13.1 from 12.9. His platelets did go down a little at 180 from 205. This is really exciting, What a blessing!! We are so thankful that his counts are SO good! Especially with 10 days worth of chemo on top of that, he has been taking 50% less though which was a good idea because we just didn’t know what his counts were going to do.

He had weight lifting this morning. This afternoon the high school baseball team had a game against Fairfield and lost by 2. This will end their summer season. It seemed like they had a lot of games that were canceled and probably only ended up playing 8 or so. It was kinda a relief since Bennett didn’t get to play any, it helped not make it such a disappointment. He enjoyed going and hanging out with the players in the dugout.

Bennett’s ankle is a little swollen tonight. We hadn’t noticed it lately being swollen. We’re thankful it hasn’t been hurting and bothering him. We pray that the stress fracture is healing and he doesn’t have anymore problems with his bones being weaker. He is taking two calcium pills daily, we pray this helps.

We’re thankful that the weather has cooled off, it’s been so beautiful and enjoyable!

Tomorrow is his regular Dr. appt (every 4 weeks), we will leave around 6:00 a.m. His first Dr. appt is at 8:30 and than he has to be at the procedure center at 9:30 for his 10:30 spinal tap. He will be sedated for this procedure so he cannot have anything to eat after midnight until the procedure is over. We will have to go back to clinic for his other chemo given through his port, his breathing treatment and also he will be getting the IVIG infusion again. We hope the day goes good and smooth.

We sang “What A Friend We Have in Jesus” in church on Sunday and the pastor’s sermon was about God’s friendship. I really thought about these words and they really have a new meaning to me than ever before.

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13