Sunday, March 30, 2008

Heavy...

Today alone 9 children in the US will be diagnosed with a brain tumor and 3 will die as a result of theirs!!!


Hadley is in this video. This is a really scary time for our girl. I have posted journals on her website touching on my thoughts and feelings about her declining health and what this tumor is doing to her body. We are scared for her. For a few years now we've fought quality of life battles...now we're fighting FOR her life. I know that is hard to read. It is even harder to type.









Brain Tumor Facts
From www. TTPF. org

- Annually well over 3,500 children (ages 0-19) are diagnosed with a brain tumor.







- Brain tumors can be malignant or benign. Even benign brain tumors can be life-threatening depending on location.







- There are more than 120 types of brain tumors, making effective treatment very complicated.







- Brain tumors are treated by surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy used either individually or in combination.







- In the past 20 YEARS only ONE new cancer drug has been approved for pediatric use.







- The cause of pediatric brain tumors is unknown.







- 40% of children with brain tumors will die of the disease.







- Childhood cancers in the United States are orphan diseases. An estimated 12,400 children will be diagnosed with cancer in 2007.







- Among the 11 major types of childhood cancers, leukemia, brain and other central nervous system tumors account for over half the new cases.







- Approximately 70% of children with cancer participate in clinical trials compared to only 3% of adult cancer patients. Many of the advances in adult cancer treatments are due to breakthroughs in childhood cancer research.







- The National Cancer Institute spends $4.8 billion on all cancer research. Only 3% ($170 million) is directed to pediatric cancer research. That’s 3% for all kinds of pediatric cancer combined.







- Improving the outlook for children with brain tumors requires research into the causes of and better treatments for brain tumors.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Wow...

This has been one crazy year so far. I can't it believe it's mid-March already. Where does the time go?

Brandon is home from winter patrol. The lucky guy got to spend Christmas off the coast of Panama working on his 'tan'. *snort* It was hard on all of us to have him gone...but, we always find a way to make things work and this was no different. In an odd way it kind of feels like a right of passage. We are, after all, a military family. I'm proud to say that we managed to make it a great Christmas despite all the trials. The kids had a great time and that's what is most important. We had a few huge cell phone bills due to International calls to and from Daddy...but we all smiled through it (for the most part).

Hadley, in case you don't read her page (www.HadleyFox.com), has relapsed. Her tumor has now spread to the left side of her brain and there are spots near the back of her brain as well. This was totally unexpected, caught us totally off guard...and honestly...devastated us. It's been almost 3 weeks now since her last MRI and we are really focusing on keeping things 'normal'. I had grand ideas of traveling and saying adios to the rest of the world for a bit. A sort of "just in case" thing...but, I soon realized that the best thing for all three of the kids, for now, is to keep their lives as 'normal' (stable) as possible. Hadley has another MRI in 3 weeks. He treatment options are very limited (if there are any at all) and we need to see how aggressive these new tumors are before we decide on a plan of action. This made me really nervous at first...but, when the reality of the situation finally hit me I understood that it truly is the best for Hadley. All of the treatment options we 'may' have are a lot more intense than what we've had to put her through in the past. If we can avoid them and prolong her quality of life we're more than willing to do so. The clinical term for this plan is "watch and wait"...I don't like waiting very much...so we're learning how to "watch and LIVE" instead. We're aware that her symptoms are worsening...but are working hard to go about our lives until we know what we're dealing with. It's a hard lesson to learn...but an essential one. Please pray for our sweet girl's miracle.

The boys are doing great. Keegan is LOVING the fact that he can read. He's really flying through his advanced reading program now. I'm so proud of him. Today he was doing homework and he was supposed to find pictures that started with the letter K. He often complains that his homework is for babies...anyway, there was a picture of a cat. He started to color it. I said "does Cat start with K" without missing a beat he answers with "No, it starts with C. But Kitten starts with K, MOM." Oh my!

Liam is still our sweet little monkey. He's always cracking us up and showering us with love and kisses and definitely keeping us on our toes. I am so thankful God chose to bless our family with him. =) His latest escapade was scaling the refrigerator to get at a cake that was sitting on top. We have pergo flooring in the kitchen which can bee pretty slippery. He brought a chair from the dining room (all the way down the hall) then put a plastic 4 legged stool from Ikea on top of it...apparently that wasn't tall enough so he then emptied out a plastic toy bin and put that on top of the stool. I really wish I'd taken a picture. Honestly I was so freaked out it didn't cross my mind at the time. Anyhow, he climbed up this death trap and sat on top of the fridge and at the entire top layer of the cake!!! There was chocolate frosting EVERYWHERE!!! I was so glad he didn't break his neck I could hardly even punish him. We did have a quite extensive safety discussion however. Monkey.

Brandon was promoted in August and is now over qualified for his current billet. Usually when this happens you get short toured immediately and just get sent wherever you're needed. The command took pity though and let us 'rotate' during the normal station change season. We got orders last week and are headed to Station Portland (Oregon not Maine). Phew. Thankfully we are already established with doctors down there so all we'll have to do is have charts from the past year transferred. If worse comes to worse we can travel back up here to meet with our current docs. Our move date will be around June 15th. So, we've got about 3 months to prepare for the movers, purge household clutter and find a new home. The boys are excited to go to Columbia Christian. I'm praying my heart out for a scholarship or financial assistance. Oy. We'll have to set up schooling for Hadley once we have an address. The sooner the better!

I'm still selling a little Mary Kay here and there. I'm not real gung ho about it...and that's ok. I'm not a real sales-person type. *ha ha* But, if you need it, I have it. Mostly, at this point, it's just supporting my own MK habit. Eventually I may get more serious about it. www.MaryKay.com/AngelaFox

Brandon and I celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary on Monday. I can't believe it's really been that long. We've been through some pretty crazy stuff together. I can honestly say I'm quite proud of 'us'. I think we're doing pretty darn well at this whole marriage thing. *giggle* So, congrats to us. =)

I do have new pictures to post but those will have to wait until another day.

Maybe if I update more often I won't have to write such a novel. *ugh* I need to get on a better schedule...maybe I'll add blogging time to it.

Have a great weekend. I'm sure I'll have some pictures ready next week.