July 30

Just as I suspected, all the nurses and doctors were shocked to see Sam looking healthy and tanned and refreshed after a week in Vernon. "Did you break the SUN RULE Sam?" Dr. Bond said with a stern voice while looking at me... "No way, my dad put SPF 30 on me 3 times a day... and I still got a tan," he replied with a grin...

Today was another all day stay at BCCH while Sam received another round of cyclophosphamide and ARA-C. The Cyclo goes into his kidneys and can damage them if there isn't a massive amount of fluid running through them so Sam was on a huge run of fluids all day to keep him hydrated. We spent the day in the waiting room playing games, surfing the internet and watching a movie (I worked on my computer for a school project). He felt pretty good and ate a healthy dinner which stayed down for almost an hour... we just can't get past the nausea thing and it gets worse on treatment days.

Today was the start of another 4 day a week run and next week too. We're looking toward the end of consolidation as we past the halfway mark today. If all goes well we should be done consolidation and onto Interim Maintenance/Delayed Intensification on August 27th. That may give us a window of opportunity for Sam and Debbie to come home for a month if we can get his treatment in Prince George. We're praying that we can find a way to make this happen. It will be a 28 day window where he doesn't get spinal injections and PGRH can handle the Chemotherapy drugs into his VAD. My sister LaDonna assures us that she can make it happen through the Cancer Clinic at the hospital. It will be the first time Sam is back in PG for 4 months.

Tonight we're going to go see if we can find a place to watch the fire works. Thanks again for all your prayers. What a blessing we received to have a little holiday during this treatment time. Dr. Bond assured us that it was pretty unusual for a kid to get to do all those things in the hardest stage of his treatment...

More pictures later once I find the camera!

Ger