PRAYERS NEEDED

Our dear friend PABLO needs some urgent prayers right now, here's his blog spot,
http://getwellpablo.blogspot.com/ he's such a special little guy to our family. I think the world of his momma, Jo Ann, please say some prayers for her to, help her be strong during this time. Good Bless you Jo Ann, Jeff, Grady and Pablo.
Love
Cheri
My heart just broke again today.

Here's a few quick picture's, as you can see from Jacksons expression he really doesn't dig the whole baby thing. I think he knows whats coming, crawling, walking = destroying my stuff !!! He, He, gotta love babies. Lauren, Grace and Hubby are all settled now in N.C. I just know we'll be making a quick trip real soon, need to get my fix and hold the baby for a while, then I'll be fine. The bottom pic is our famous panda at the National Zoo, I think it's the momma bear, funny, I tell the boy's that's what I am.

Sorry I was such a downer last night, just felt kinda down. All better today, It's been raining like crazy today so needless to say nothing got done that should of gotten done. Jackson had a wonderful day back at school and is probably loving not being able to lift anything, hopefully he's not milking it for what it's worth. This is going to be a short post, it's late and I'm tired.

Thanks for checking in on us.

Love

Cheri

The Monster

I pulled this off another site, I found it interesting, sorry if it's to deep for some of you.


The Monster

There's a monster. It lives in our house. It moved in a long time ago. It must have been hiding in the walls because we didn't notice him for the longest time. But it was there. It's the funniest thing because I never really believed in monsters. I thought they were the stuff of fairy tales. Imaginary beasts that people made up to explain their fears. They weren't real though. Were they?

But now I know they are real. The thing about monsters is they're not just big and scary and with sharp teeth. Bears are big and scary with sharp teeth, but they're not monsters. The difference is that the monster has a malevolent streak. It's not there because it wants to eat your garbage; it's there because it means to do you harm. Disney got it all wrong in Monsters Inc. Don't believe it. That's all imaginary. Those kinds of cute cuddly monsters don't exist. Steven King has it right.

The monster sometimes comes into our room at night and slithers underneath the bed. Its hot breath comes right through the mattress. It leaves me sweating, scared, unable to sleep. And then a chill settles in like the window was left open on a January night.

We've tried to kill it a dozen times. Sometimes it seems like we're winning, but still it won't die. And even if we kill it, I have this terrible feeling it will come back from the dead like just like in the sequel to a bad horror movie.

It's a clever beast and follows us wherever we go. There's no escape. We can never see it because it hides in the shadows, but it's always there and has ways of making its presence known. We can't live a normal life.

When we got the dog, we thought maybe he would scare the monster away. The dog is smart and brave, but somehow he doesn't see the monster. The monster, though, is keeping its distance. But somehow I think it might be smarter than the dog and just waiting for its moment.

Try to explain a monster to your friends. They can hear what we're saying, but they don't quite believe us. We still have all of our body parts, and none of us has quite gone insane. They've never seen the monster even though they've been to the house. Still they get the sense that something isn't quite right. Some of them keep their distance. Now we just smile and say, "Oh the monster...he's gone back inside the wall. We're doing fine.

Sometimes our monster doesn't seem so scary. On a sunny day, when the kids run in the park laughing and playing, we forget that it's back there waiting for us. You have to forget for a while, or it will get inside your mind and drive you over the edge.

There are professionals who know how to deal with monsters. Ordinary folks never meet them other than on a social basis. We feel better when we're with the professionals. They seem to know what they're doing. But at night when we are home alone, there is just us... and the monster. The chill returns.

There's a monster. It lives in our house. It lives in our boy.

No Jackson is not sick again, but I really thought this hit home for us this last scare we had. It'll always be there, now how do we live with it ?? I know, I don't need help. Just some reassurance he's gonna be OK.
Love
Cheri

INFLAMED NODES

Nothing like a couple of inflamed lymph nodes to set a whole family into a nervous frenzy. That's actually putting it mildly by the way, my hair has turned another shade whiter and last night I believe I was the sickest I've been in quiet a while. Dr. Dome called at around 6 this evening to let me know that it was indeed inflamed lymph node's and we'll probably never know what caused them. Thank God, this is all we had to deal with. Our whole family is breathing much easier, I think there's going to be some good sleeping tonight. As for the wacky blood work we're going to keep an eye on it with regular checks. Scans as usual for now, next one should be in July. They're sure the nodule on the lung is exactly what they stated, a lymph node and the kidney is scarring not a rest like was originally thought. I'll try to update some new pics tomorrow of the zoo and Easter. God Bless and Thank you from the bottom of our heart's for all the loving thoughts and beautiful prayer's.
Love
Cheri

HOME

We're home after a very long day, excuse any of the typo's and errors a head of time my vision is still kinda blurry from lack of sleep. Everything went well, we didn't receive any report's before we left. He was wheeled into surgery at 8:45, we got him back at 10:00, not to bad. Dr. Sandler removed two lymp nodes, both 1x2 cent maybe inches as they were very visible when he held his arm up. they had already doubled in two weeks time. He said he couldn't speculate as to what they were, although tumor's kinda have a grey-white appearance and these didn't. So now we just hold our breath until we get the phone call letting us know everything is alright and we can resume our normal lives, which will never be normal but it's our normal. Thank you to everyone who prayed there heart's out for a precious little guy today. We will let everyone know as soon as we know.
Love
Cheri

SURGERY TIME

They finally called tonight at 6:15 to let us know to have the little guy there at 6:15, surgery time 8:00 am. We sure could use some extra prayer's, heck as many as we can get !!! Pray for him to come out of surgery fine and no cancer to be found in the lymph node's. He had a great week, good Easter the bunny was extra special. We went to Zoo in DC, needless to say it was little more crowded than usual for a Monday and we had to park at least a mile away, no kiddin. He didn't even complain this time of his leg's hurting, what relief that was.
Wish us luck tomorrow.
Love Cheri

SURGERY

Here's the low down on what happened today in D.C. Jackson will be going in on Wed. of next week for removal of the nasty lymph nodes, one of them has grown half it's size in a week. He's doing great otherwise, his eating is slowing somewhat still trying to figure out if it's nerves or is something really going on that shouldn't. We're going to have our original surgeon Dr. Sandler, Jackson said no once else is allowed to touch him but him. Thank God he's back in town and had a slot available next Wed., we'll know the time Tuesday night when the hospital calls with all the info. I finally received his report's from his last scan, blood work and to be perfectly honest no one knows what's going on at this point. His blood work is so overwhelming to look at, my eye's actually started to cross reading everything today. His LDH is high, this is a tumor marker blood test they ran last week on him, ya read that and see where you mind takes you !!! Platelet's are low, white blood and red blood normal, see why every ones rubbing their head's. Jackson was never normal anyways and when he was diagnosed it's wasn't normal, less than 5% are diagnosed bi-lateral and less than 3 % unfavorable. Someone correct me if I'm wrong I don't have all the data in front of me right now. Scan report just as confusing to me, nodule noted on one of his lung's. Their pretty sure it's a sublpeural lymph node, OK another lymph node, to creepie. Remaining right kidney has some changes can't be sure what it is but looks like scarring. So I had to absorb all this tonight on my back deck while my little man jumped happily on the trampoline, the same trampoline I swore I was going to tare down two year's ago.
My mother came and picked him up tonight because he wanted to get away, I'm sure from us. Were trying very hard to act normal at this point, it just so damn hard not to worry and I think he's feeling it. Poor kid, I feel like screaming, someone wake me up. I've never prayed so hard in my life for my child to have an infection, something we can treat with med's. I'll update when I can Wed. he'll be coming home right after he wakes up from surgery. Should have result's no later than Friday but the tumor review board meets on Wed.'s so hopefully we'll have an early slot and we can have at least 20 doc's looking at all the report's and pathology of these lymph node's.
Love
Cheri

New Pics

Just thought I would update with a few picture's of the kid's and Grace. No Jacksons lumps are still there and some are getting larger, I'm trying very hard not to wig out at this point. The doctor said give it two weeks and Friday his time is out and then some decisions need to be made by all of us concerning these invader's. The first picture is kinda obvious, Jackson making snow angels, Lauren and Grace in the hospital when she was first born. Evan and Lucy getting ready to go four wheeling, just kidding she would if we let her!!!!

Hope you enjoy these, as I load more of the baby I'll post them.

Love,

Cheri