Keep Your Head Above Water

Hello everyone!  Sorry for not posting in quite a while, but as usual, I have been running around hither and yon. ;) 

Benjamin update...
We got the results back from the CT, and they are EXCELLENT!!  As I mentioned before, both tumors have shrunk about 50%.  Dr. A is very pleased with how the treatment has been going.  :)  For those of you who are scientific minded, here are the comparisons in tumor size....

Before treatement...
Left tumor:  3.2cm x 2.4 cm x 1.9 cm
Right tumor:  2.8 cm x 2.7 cm x 4.7 cm

After first round of chemo...
Left tumor:  1.5 cm x 0.8cm x 1.3 cm
Right tumor:  2.8 cm x 2.7 cm x 0.7 cm

We are not completely out of the woods yet as this past weekend will attest.  Benjamin ran a mild fever (99.3) on Friday, and we were asked to come in to the ER.  While he was there, the fever went away, but out of the blue he started screaming in pain (which is **really** weird for my mild mannered guy!)  and then he had a nose bleed on the right nostril (which really freaked me out!). Anyway after a battery of tests and a CT of the face, we ended up being admitted to the Children's Hospital overnight.  The long a short of it is that no one really knows why he had a fever (they think maybe it was a little infection that got knocked out by the antibiotics they gave him).  Benjamin has been acting normal since we came back, so we think he's doing A-OK.  :)  Still, it's one of the more difficult parts of this disease is that things can be going swimmingly and then bam, you're in the hospital for a couple of days.  So, you're continued prayers are cherished and vital!

And the rest of the family...yep, we're straggling along. ;)  We've been very busy this last week trying to get ready for Halloween and all the other stuff associated with young uns.  Saturday night with the Masquerade Ball for Girl Scouts.  Thankfully, Benjamin got released from the hospital in time for me to make a guest appearance at the Ball.  It is such a great event and the girls had so much fun!!  They love being Girl Scouts!

Then, on Wednesday I got to go to school with Autumn, which was a blast.  I even got to help disembowel the class pumpkin! (MUWAHAHAHA!!)  Then when we came home, we decorated the house (spiderwebs and little spider rings...yay!!) and made Halloween cupcakes.  The kiddos got to decorate their homegrown pumpkins and then we feasted on steak, au gratin potatoes, and brussel sprouts. 

But wait...there's more!  Genevieve and I are wrapping up school today and then we're going to have an early Pizza Hut dinner (thanks to the Kent family's generous gift!!)  and head over to the Fall Festival at Autumn's school.  Since there's going to be a lot of kiddos there, the neighbors have agreed to watch Benjamin while the rest of us have fun.  From hair coloring to ring toss to dunk the principal, the Fall Festival is filled with so many fun activities that the girls are going to have a blast! :)

Tomorrow we have a Halloween party with the Girl Scout Troop and then the main event itself!  I will make sure I post many pictures!  In the meantime, please enjoy a sample of pictures from these past few weeks. :)

My, my, my...what an interesting day it has been!!  First, the frustration...  About 6 weeks ago, we consulted with the Onc nurse B.  We needed to make sure that Ken was able to schedule his days off so that he could be there for both the MRI and the interpretation of the results.  We were assured that wouldn't be a problem.  Time rolled around, and they scheduled the CT (Dr. A decided that we didn't need an MRI since we were only checking to see if the masses had been reduced...I wasn't happy with that result, but I didn't have much say in the decision) and bone scan for Ken's day off, and the interpretation for the next day since Dr. A would be in clinic and could get the results.  Long story short, we got the run around (with phone calls that weren't returned, etc.) and found out this morning that Dr. A was sick, and could we come in tomorrow.  Ummmmm...no, we can't...my husband goes to work at 5:30 am and doesn't get off work until 5pm...and no, he doesn't get a lunch hour, which is **why** I scheduled this in advance!  Grrr!!!  So, B. got the other clinic doctor (Dr. M) to call us back with the preliminary results while I drove down to MCG to get copies of his radiological results.  It has been very interesting and informative to read through the reports.  It was very good to be able to see his original MRI pictures.  I would have loved to compare them with his newest scan, but like I said before, it was a CT not an MRI (which means it was muuuuch lower quality, and is a whole lot harder for a layman to read). 

And speaking of those results....
Actually, they are **VERY GOOD**!!  The tumors on Benjamin's legs and spine are gone (now the bone just needs to regrow to fill in the divots).  The bone survey results indicate that his L4 has collapsed a little more (probably due to the tumor being removed), and Dr. M. could not tell Ken what repercussions that might have (though Benjamin doesn't seem to have any problems that we can tell).  The orbital masses (the one on his temple and at the back of his right eye) have shrunk.  All of the "soft tissue" masses have been destroyed. The "bony tissue" are still there, but (I think) have not increased in size.

So, as you can see, our prayers have been answered!!  The chemo is working very well!!  I do request that you specifically pray that the tumor in the right orbit does not increase in size at all, because it is **very** close to the brain (as you can see in the scan below).

MRI

Hope everyone out there is having a great day! I wanted to share with you the pictures from Autumn's first Kindergarten field trip! Even though the type of music that Mr. Al offers isn't exactly what would be on a playlist on my ipod, I just love going to his outings! There is something magical about seeing a bunch of hyped up kindergartners wiggling, jumping, giggling, and...well...acting like Kindergartners. :) Autumn was soooo stoked to get to see Mr. Al, and I promise you, she wasn't disappointed! There was so much bouncing and arm flapping going on that it was hard to snap pictures!

Unfortunately, it was a rainy day, so the kiddos didn't get to go to the park afterwords like they've done in previous years. Not to be dissuaded, I packed up my little girl and we headed out to McD's for a nice lunch (well, technically it was only lunch for me...she chose to have french fries and an icecream!). As an added bonus, she got the Autumn Bear as a toy from my happy meal! From there she headed off to Monkey Joes for some fun all by herself. Autumn had a ton of fun running around bouncing and eating free pizza (though later she did admit that it was a little boring without someone to play with). She was having such a fun time that she even wrote "I heart Mom" (I love Mom) on the chalkboard! (Awwww!!) However, after the 5 minute warning ("Ok...we need to go in 5 minutes") the message on the chalkboard changed to "I Hayt Mom" (I hate Mom). Some seriously chastisement ensued, in which it was changed to "I cind uf heart Mom" (I kind of love Mom). Snicker...I guess I'll take what I can get! Even with that little snaffu, I can honestly say that I had the time of my life hanging out, just the two of us, with my Little Big girl! I can't wait for our next field trip together!!

It's been a very long day, so I'm going to keep the update short. Things are continuing very well with Benjamin's chemo. We had a 2.5 hour wait to have his blood drawn (the shortest clinic visit yet...yay!). We had a couple of interesting experiences in clinic. The first was when Benjamin hosed down his pants socks and underwear in the clinic patient room. Seems there was a miscommunication and he accidentally got left in his big boy potty pants!! It was quite humorous seeing the look of confusion on his face as liquid dribbled down his pants! Chemo bag to the rescue! Thankfully I had plenty of wipes, pants, diapers and socks in the bag. After we had the blood draw, we headed off to the car to go and get lunch. Things were going swimmingly until we accidentally locked the keys in the car (with Benjamin buckled in his car seat!!). Thankfully it was nice cool weather, so I stayed and entertained Benjamin (let me tell you...people in parking garages look at you awfully funny when you start throwing yourself against the car (as if you were magnetically attracted) and then start climbing the hood!!) while Ken guided Betty to bring us the extra set of keys.

Having those fun experiences under our belts, the rest of the day went much smoother! Nurse B. called later in the day with Benjamin's counts, but I didn't have paper and pen with me to write them down. All I know is that they are going up, which is a good thing. (I'll update them as soon as I can) The girls received their first SuperSibs package today. They were so excited to finally get stuff just for them!! I encourage everyone to check out their website. It is such as wonderful program, and is definitely making a difference in our girls lives!

Much to my surprise (and Ken's gloating!!) Ken was able to slide the 6-MP right down Benjamin's throat with not such much as a whimper (ok, so he cheated and used a lot of sugar and juice...but it worked!!).

Tomorrow I get to go on Autumn's first field trip with her. I am soooooo excited! It's going to be so much fun!! I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

Anyway, just wanted to put up a quick post. I hope everyone out there is having a great week. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for the prayers! God is doing tremendous things with Benjmain and our family!!

Chemo update...Benjamin is doing very well. He doesn't appear to have any side effects from his last round of Chemo. This week we start tapering down the prednisone, and then we will take him off of it next week. We start Benjamin on his other Chemo medicine (6-MP) that week as well. I am a little apprehensive about that because it is only available in tablet form. Sigh...tablet + toddler = not fun! The following week we have a CT and bone scan to determine how effective his treatment has been. Needless to say, we are very anxious to recieve those results!!!

And now back to the title... Thanks to Auntie K., I got to go out for lunch with some friends today, which was such an amazing experience!!! I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard that I spit out water before, but I can tell you that I have *great* distance!!! As I type, I am still chuckling about some of the stuff we talked about! I am consistently amazed by the love and devotion of my friends! You guys are the best, and I would gladly fight to the death for ya'll!! I am richly blessed!

Anyway...I hope everyone of my readers is doing well, and that you find some time this week to laugh long and loud!!!!

Wow, what a day!!  Having heard a week ago about PetCo's Hamster Ball Derby, I decided on a whim that we would enter Autumn's hamster Speedy into the competition.  After all, after seeing how fast the little sucker could run away from me when he escapes, I figured he had a pretty good chance of placing!   I must admit that the Derby was more fun than I imagined!  We showed up in time for practice rounds and were able to get the hang of getting Speedy in and out of his ball, which was a challenging event in and of itself!

The time for the competition finally rolled around (LOL...get it...rolled....) and we were joined by 5 other hamsters and 1 gerbil.  The competition was set up as a double elimination.  Speedy handily smoked his first victim (aheem...I mean competitor) without breaking a sweat!  He then went on to literally blaze past the semifinals and finals.  It was amazing to watch the little sucker in his element!  Speedy  literally crossed the finish line before the poor other hamsters had taken more than a couple of steps!!  It just goes to show you...cute and cuddly might make great pets, but it's the neurotic ones that take the championship! ;)

Autumn is so proud that she is beaming!!  We took her out for a celebratory dinner tonight, and she showed off her medal to just about the entire staff of Golden Corral!  She's planing on wearing it to church tomorrow and school on Monday. And me...well, let's just say that this Momma's just thrilled that my little girl and her psycho furball finally got their well deserved 15 minutes of fame. :)

I'm not sure how they missed it.  It was clear as day, and yet somehow all the major news channels missed covering it!  Don't tell me that you missed it too...surely you noticed the epic calamity that happened in Georgia at the end of August?!!  You know, those four days when the sun didn't shine?  Not ringing any bells?  Well surely you observed the noticeable decrease in the amount of breathable oxygen??  Still no, eh?  What about the sucking black vortex that ripped the very fabric of the world apart.  Seriously...you missed it??!!

Okay, all kidding aside...today's blog topic is about depression.  Wait...wait...don't click over to the next blog just quite yet!  I promise that despite the topic, this isn't going to be a dreary post.  I've been doing a lot of thinking this last week....a WHOLE lot.  It's true that the Knotts Clan has been through and is continuing to go through a major traumatic event.  However, I can tell you right now that there are bunches of people out there that are hurting just as badly as we were.  The reasons are many and diverse...sick loved ones, financial hardships, broken marriages...but the pain is always real.  I could probably write thousands upon thousands of words about this subject and not even manage to scratch the surface, so I'll keep it short.  Depression is real.  There is approximately a 100% chance that sometime in your life, you will either become depressed about something or know someone who is. 

I can only speak to my own personal experience, but what has helped the most was having loving friends and family that made themselves available and listened to me blather on, no matter how silly, angry, frustrated or sad I was.  No judgment...no endless lists of ways to "solve" my problems...just loving ears, hands, and hearts.  If you are going through a rough time in your life, PLEASE don't try and be "strong" and go it alone.  God created all of us so that we could support and lift up each other.  We are not meant to slog through life all alone.  At the same time, human comfort isn't enough either.  Only God can truly provide the healing and comfort that we need in times of hardship. 

Just to keep things on the bright side, I'm posting a photo to cheer you up.  Since the kiddos were looking a little scruffy, I took them to get haircuts.  I mentioned to Benjamin's stylist that we were tossing up giving him a mohawk.  This is the compromise she came up with. :)