Home for Spring Break

After experiencing two days at Tx Children's we were dismissed to go home. YEAH.. but not after we once again surprised the doctors. On Friday morning the team of doctors came in and told us we'd need to run Clayton's blood labs both Friday night and Saturday morning, so we'd need to stay another night. I wasn't big on this idea since Clayton was playing and feeling so good, so I asked the team " What if his counts go way up today? Do we still need to stay?" I was asking because we needed to organize the kids at home. The team said, smirking.. well, that's not likely, but of course if his counts are great, we'll let him go, but don't expect it. It's unlikely. So, we began to plan for our kids, but I still continued to ask the nurse what our counts were. Finally, after my persisting, he rechecked and the results were in. The team came in and exact words were, " We weren't expecting THAT..., but his counts are perfect, go home" Makes me laugh because I WAS expecting that... Love it! As we were leaving, I said to Chad, imagine what they are going to say when we go for radiation and the tumor isn't there?? We are WHOLE HEARTEDLY praying that God is and has been working to rid Clayton of his tumor AS WE SPEAK. Please pray with us!

Clayton did have a chemo treatment while in the hospital. It is what we call Little Chemo because it's just one drug and not all three together. This one didn't bother him at all. I think these outpatient chemos in between will be much easier than the BIG chemo in the hospital. We are also scheduled to have his next Little chemo on Thursday here in Waco at the Cooks Satellite Clinic. Turns out the Cooks Oncologist is in Waco on Thursday. HURRAY.. AND.. our awesome friend from church, Temi, works at the clinic. God is so faithful to continue to offer us a HUGE team of people that truly care about us and Clayton's journey to full health.


We had a GREAT surprise this week in that my Best Friend, Shannon and her son, CJ flew in from San Francisco to spend a few days with us. I LOVE IT. The kids are home, Clayton is feeling GREAT, AND .. I have my Bestie here. So thankful for an awesome distraction.


So, here I sit, on a fun Sunday night listening to Clayton play Wii with his brother and friends, eating pizza and loving the sound of his little voice and even his ability to argue with these little boys who love him. Beautiful song service at church today reminding me that the biggest blessings often come through tears and hurts. Trusting that God has a blessing in store for our family that we won't even be able to understand.

For the record, I am scared.. terrified... and I have the worries you only imagine a mom in my position has. I do remember that " God has not given us the spirit of Fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. " I DO know that, but I AM scared. I do have a knot in my stomach, and I DO feel fearful. I would be putting on a dishonest front if I said I didn't. I hear the word "RHABDO", a word I never even knew existed 5 weeks ago, and my heart stops. Please pray that my "spirit of fear" that lurks a couple of times a day, would be reminded that GOD is BIGGER!

As a fun piece of humor..as I'm listening to the boys play wii, I hear one of them say, "Clayton, that's not fair. You're NEVER gonna lose because those boys at the hospital taught you how to beat us." Guess hanging out at the hospital has given him ONE advantage...