Cycle 4, Day +22: MRI's and PMS

Steven's final tests began on Wednesday. His brain MRI Wednesday, the spine Thursday, the lumbar puncture Friday.

As anyone with a brain tumor diagnosis will tell you, after the stress of initial treatment is over, much of your life is measured by your MRI's.

The MRI itself is no big deal-- a white tube, a platform for Steven to lie on, a little music (Elvis or Lion King is Steven's MRI music of choice), Steven takes a nap, and the parent reads a book for 45 minutes or so to the accompanying sounds of pounding hammers and piercing shrieks.

But the implications of the MRI results are profound and difficult to ignore.

It was an MRI that brought the news that our life was going to turn upside down, the picture of that glowing monster growing in Steven's little head, pushing his little brain to one side is something I'll carry with me to my grave.

In the online brain tumor support group I participate in, the anxiety that accompanies each MRI scan is referred to as PMS, or Pre-MRI Syndrome, and this week I had it in spades.

Steven's MRI's are always done without and with contrast. The contrast is administered intravenously midway through the MRI.

For Steven's spinal MRI, the technician came in to administer the contrast, then told me it would be 25 minutes more.

The reality is that the technician didn't come back for an hour and 15 minutes, 50 minutes longer than he said. In those extra 50 minutes, I pictured every worst-case scenario.

But, that's always how it is. If the bad news ever comes, it will come as an MRI result.

Steven's MRI results this week were good as expected. A little bit of scar tissue, no tumor. We'll get the results of the spinal tap on Monday.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day +19: Love, Hate, Catheters, and Faith

Today we officially were officially discharged from the bone marrow transplant clinic and sent back to the neuro-oncology clinic, where Dr. Gajjar's nurse greeted Steven with a hug (Dr. Gajjar is out of town until Wednesday).

This is Steven's week of tests, if all goes well, he will graduate.

• Test 1: MRI of the brain on Wednesday
• Test 2: MRI of the spine on Thursday
• Test 3: Lumbar puncture on Friday

If Steven passes these tests, he gets to graduate and go home.

Then, there's the matter of his central line, the double-lumen Hickman catheter that goes into a vein near his heart and protrudes from the center of his chest.

We've got this love-hate relationship going with his line. We love the fact that having the line means that Steven doesn't need to be stuck with needles to draw blood or to give IV fluids and medications. We love the fact that we can administer IV medications at home instead of being in the hospital. We love the fact that the line has saved him from immeasurable stress due to needle sticks. The line has done a good job so far.

We hate the fact that having the line means we have to flush it daily, change the caps and the dressing three times a week. We hate the fact that Steven can't be submerged in water while he has the line, so he can't swim. We hate the fact that his line is a possible source of infection, that if he gets a fever, any fever, he will probably have to get IV antibiotics in the hospital for 2 or 3 days. We hate the fact that if he gets into a major wrestling match with his brother, the line could possibly get pulled out.

The doctor wants us to leave the line in until October, when he returns to Memphis for a major workup that in addition to MRI's/lumbar puncture will also involve staying 1 or 2 nights at Le Bonheur, a hospital nearby to St. Jude, for an endocrine workup.

The endocrine workup will involve drawing blood every hour or so. Without a central line, Steven will need to get an IV, maybe with five people holding him down while he screams, or maybe a miracle will happen and somehow he'll be calm.

Still, we want the line out. We want him to be able to swim and wrestle with his brother. We want his life to be as "normal" as possible, whatever that means for us now.

Even if we leave the line in until October, if things go well, they'll take it out and he'll still have to deal with the needles and IV's eventually, its a postponement, not a solution.

Nothing is ever for certain, we've learned that the hard way, but we need to proceed now as though we believe he is cured, anything else won't change the eventual outcome and will take away from his and our quality of life today.

So, given that Wednesday's MRI scans are favorable, Thursday we go and argue our case with Dr. Gajjar, his neuro-oncologist.

At the end of treatment, taking the line out is our first leap of faith.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day +18: Pajamarama and Sleepover

Sean's first-grade buddy Joey invited him to go with him on Friday night to his church for a pajama party with stories read out loud to the kids and refreshments.

I said OK if Steven could go too, after being in the hospital, Steven was craving some fun time with his friends, which mostly means Sean these days. Steven's blood counts were good, his ANC was 5400 on Thursday, so they stopped the GCSF injections and OK'ed the fun and close contact with so many kids.

I drove Sean, Steven, Joey, and Joey's middle brother Casey to the Pajamarama, Joey's oldest brother stayed home. Sean commented to Joey in the car on the way over how lucky Joey was to have two brothers where neither of them had cancer and had to be away in the hospital much of the time. He told them how he didn't have anyone to play with when Steven was staying in the hospital, and how his mom had to spend most of her free time with Steven.

The night of the Pajamarama just happened to coincide with Joey's older brother's birthday, so Joey's house was filled with 13 eleven-year olds spending the night.

After the Pajamarama, Joey's mom invited Sean to spend the night with Joey and the older boys. I said OK if Sean wanted to and if Steven said it was alright. Sean wanted to, and Steven said it would be OK with him if Sean stayed away that night.

When we went to Joey's house to drop Sean off, Steven wanted to go in for a bit. All the boys were watching the movie "Small Soldiers", so Steven hung out with Sean, Joey, and the rest of the boys.

At 11:00 pm the movie was over, a storm was brewing, a tornado watch was issued, and I insisted that Steven come home with me right away. He was due for his IV antibiotics, which I have to give him every 8 hours.

He didn't want to leave. On the way home (in the terrifying storm, a story for another day), he said, "I wish I could stay. I probably won't be able to have any sleepovers at all while we're in Memphis, will I?"

"No, sweetie. You pretty much have to stay with me or someone that knows how to give you your antibiotics, there's really no choice, when the antibiotics are done, it'll be time to go home."

Small things. Normal things. Exploring a sewer pipe, playing hockey with an old beer can. Going to school. Doing homework. Playing golf. Fighting with your brother. Figuring out what you want to do when you grow up.

That's all I want for him, for both of them, for all their friends and all the sweet little kids here at St. Jude.

... Thy will be done.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day +13: Free Again...

Steven's fever turned out to be caused by an E. coli infection in one of the lumens in his line. The line that protrudes from Steven's chest is shaped like a "Y", the infection was in one of the branches of the line.

Because the infection was in the line, antibiotics were started, alternating the lumens, so that both sides of his line would receive antibiotics.

From Sunday forward, Steven has had no fever. Blood samples from his line were cultured again on Monday, this time all cultures were negative.

The doctors wanted to keep him until Wednesday, I reminded them of how they let him out on a Tuesday last time he had fever and how he did fine.

Because of the nature of his infection this time, he needs to receive IV antibiotics in his line for a full 14 days, and no way we can think of staying in the hospital for another week and a half.

So, they released him yesterday (Tuesday) with IV antibiotics, which I administer to him at home. The antibiotics are only stable for 24 hours at a time, so a home infusion company delivers them to me every day, one day's worth at a time.

He takes three doses a day, each dose takes a half hour to infuse, and I hook them up every eight hours.

By way of trying to convince us to stay in the hospital, one of the doctors told me, "You'll never be able to get more than 7 1/2 hours of sleep at a time if you try to do this at home". I told him that it was obvious that he had never spent a night in a hospital room, with the IV pole beeping every few hours, nurses coming in and out and banging the door into the couch I'm sleeping on each time, Steven whimpering as he's dragged out of bed to pee at 5:30 am.

Steven's ANC was 400 yesterday when we were released, so he was still neutropenic, but today he was at 2000, the threshold to stop his daily infusions of GCSF. If Steven is over 2000 again tomorrow, then no more GCSF.

So, we're back at Target House. The second boy of our little group of four boys with the same sort of brain tumor, Jake, went home yesterday to Kansas City, after stopping to say goodbye to Steven.

Just Steven and Dylan left. Steven's counts are coming up. The end is in sight.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day +7: Too Good To Last...

Today Steven started off with a bang again, charging around the hospital while I wilted under my steadily worsening cold.

He received a blood transfusion today, which means we spent four hours in the medicine room sleeping while waiting for it to be transfused.

After we got back from the hospital, we enjoyed our 80-degree day out in the back yard at Target House, playing on their play structure. Steven felt badly after a while so we went inside and took his temperature-- 99.7.

St. Jude considers a fever to be 100.4, so we waited. Steven took a nap, but his fever slowly rose to around 101, so he and Doug caught the 10 pm shuttle bus to the hospital. Sean was asleep so I didn't drive them.

Steven is down at the hospital right now, getting blood drawn from his line and his arm (to see if he has an infection in his line), getting urine and stool cultures to determine what and where the infection is.

He'll be in room 4003, phone (901) 495-5403, probably until Tuesday or Wednesday at least.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day +6: No Mo' Chemo!

Today marks another milestone in our journey. Steven received his last dose of chemotherapy, a dose of vincristine as an outpatient in the medicine room.

We wanted to have a little celebration for him, but today is not the day. His blood counts are zero, and will probably remain so for a week, so we can't go out. I was going to try and make him something special, but he's not completely up to it, and I'm sick with a sore throat, stuffy nose, and headache-- a plain vanilla cold virus I think.

We spent 2 1/2 hours in the medicine room today, in addition to Steven's last chemo, he also got GCSF, benadryl (to try and head off any allergic reaction to platelets), and a platelet transfusion.

He's still feeling great, and I'm doing everything in my power not to share my cold with him or anyone else for that matter, in this case, my misery doesn't want any company.

The next two days will probably tell whether or not we'll dodge a fever, if he gets one, I expect it to show up tomorrow or Friday. Starting Friday, our 80-degree weather will be back, we're hoping we'll get to enjoy the sun directly instead of through the window of a hospital room.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day +5: A Model for Neutropenia

We're playing the waiting game, waiting to see if we can make it to the weekend without a fever. We feel as if Saturday arrives and Steven's not in the hospital, then he'll probably avoid an extra mind-numbing five days as an inpatient in hospital jail.

Steven woke this morning with a very slight croup, no coughing during the night. No wheezing like last time, so, we wait and see.

Steven's ANC was 2200 on Friday, 5000 on Sunday, and was 200 today, this means he is now officially neutropenic, and highly susceptible to infection.

Despite his weakened immune system, he continues to feel wonderful, good spirits, high energy level. They told us to expect he will need a platelet transfusion tomorrow.

When we returned to Target House, they were doing a photo shoot, taking pictures for their new brochure. They asked us if Steven and Sean could participate by letting them photograph them playing on the play structure.

We said OK. They powdered Sean's face, combed his hair, and put eyebrow pencil on Steven, who has very thin eyebrows since he started chemo.

Then they took them outside and took photos of Steven, Sean, and two adorable little girls, sisters, whose names I can't pronounce or spell.

So, we wait to see if tomorrow brings fever or not. Tomorrow is also Steven's last dose of chemo-- he receives a push of vincristine while he is getting his daily infusion of GCSF.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day +3: A Blessed Easter

On Saturday, day +2, they decided Steven was doing so well he didn't need any IV fluids, so they took away his portable IV pump.

Sunday morning we headed off for Easter services at 10:00 am, then off to St. Jude immediately after.

Some wonderful friends here in Memphis had invited us to their house for Easter dinner, but one of their three boys had a stuffy nose and was sneezing, so I was very dubious about whether or not we should take Steven anywhere.

At the hospital on Sunday, they drew Steven's blood and we waited for his blood counts-- his ANC was 5000, which is very good, 10 times the number of white cells that would classify him as neutropenic.

I asked the doctor if it was OK to go to our friends' house for dinner. He went back and forth, and finally said that even if we were as careful as we could be, it was possible Steven would still get a fever, and since his counts were good we might as well go, just be careful.

So, we went. Steven and Sean played outside with their boys, tag, basketball, we ate dinner early, they hunted for eggs in the yard, then we dyed eggs to take home.

We didn't get home until almost 11:00 pm.

Steven continues to feel great with amazing energy-- an answered prayer.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day +1: A Good Friday

Good Friday this year was... well, it was good. Wonderful, in fact.

Maybe that's the wrong spirit for such a solemn occasion, but I feel like we've been given a wondrous Easter gift.

Steven stayed up far too late on Thursday night, got up on Friday with not enough sleep, and started charging around like he'd been supercharged.

Sean was out of school on Friday, so he accompanied us to the hospital for Steven's appointments-- drawing blood, school, and his daily infusion of GCSF.

Steven and Sean were chasing each other through the halls and wrestling with each other at every opportunity, to my distress. Steven's blood counts are falling, white cells, red cells, platelets-- it wouldn't be a good situation if he fell and bruised himself.

A singing group came to the hospital and sang Easter music. We were done at 1:00 pm, it was warm and sunny, so I took the kids to Harbor Town, which has a wide greenbelt along the Mississippi River and a nice place for them to play.

Steven and Sean climbed down on the rocks and came back with two broken 2 by 4's, which they wanted to use as hockey sticks. Steven dragged a beer can out of the river and wanted to use it as a puck. I'm trying to count how many germs are growing in the river, on the beer can, and on the wood they pulled up from the river bank, and squirting Steven's hands with hand sanitizer, wondering what his doctor would say if he could see us.

I nixed the beer can, found some dry wood for them, and they used a football as a puck. A woman we know walked her dog down to where the kids were playing, the dog had been in the river, and Steven was embracing the dog. At St. Jude they don't let the kids be around dogs while they have low blood counts.

Anyway it was a wonderful day filled with bacteria, fungi, and other germs. To cap off our time at the river, Steven had disappeared when it was time to get in the car and I found him in a sewer pipe.

After the river, we came home, I tried to sterilize Steven, vowing to stay away from the river until he has an immune system again, and we went to Good Friday services. We stopped by a friend's house afterward where Steven, Sean, and three other boys played tag in the back yard, and didn't get home until almost 10 pm, at which time we ate dinner. Steven got into bed at midnight.

So, we're praying he continues to feel well, and that he doesn't come down with some dread disease as a result of his wonderful day. I'm trying to decide what the doctor will say about the sewer episode.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day 0: A Time To Heal

'Twas the last stem cell transplant
and here at St. Jude
Steven's packing his stuff
so that he can conclude

His last stem cell transplant
he's writing his name
and adding his handprints
to St. Jude's Hall of Fame.

He's now joined the ranks
of those brave little kids
who've endured high dose chemo
in an effort to rid

Their bodies of cancer
kill the horrible beast
so they can go home
to a welcoming feast.

We'll rejoin our friends
and our family too
we'll go back to school
after saying adieu

To all the great people
we've met at St. Jude
the patients and families
with brave attitudes.

The doctors and nurses
who help us be strong
To all of these people
we must say so long.

Today Steven got his stem cells back and we were discharged. He didn't throw up today and we were able to avoid giving him ativan, so he's feeling better, although a bit subdued.

The doctors and nurses came into his room, sang to him, and threw confetti, gave him a poster signed by all of them, a T-shirt, and balloons.

The fourth floor of St. Judes, the bone marrow transplant ward, has walls covered everywhere with the handprints of the kids who received their transplants there.

It turns out they are going to paint over all the walls in two weeks, since they are basically out of room, and they haven't painted in three years or so. So Steven's handprints will go on a piece of paper that will be laminated and put into a book. They are going to photograph all the handprints that are there now and put the photos into the same book.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

Now begins our time to heal.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day -1: A Visit to the Opthalmologist

Today was Steven's day of "rest", no chemotherapy drugs today.

We tried beginning our day without ativan, around 9:30 am he started vomiting and we gave him another reduced dose. That helped him enough that he was able to do some stuff with the physical therapist, he played hockey, pedaled a stationary bike, and did an obstacle course.

I met a woman and her little boy Zach when we were at St. Jude for Steven's radiation back in October. We became acquainted through a mailing list for pediatric brain tumors, then met in person at St. Jude.

Zach has a brain tumor, a pilocytic astrocytoma in his optic chiasm, which affects his vision. Ironically, Zach was at St. Jude today to see the opthalmologist today also, and he came to visit Steven in his room.

Steven saw the opthalmologist today around 1:00. It looks like Steven's vision has deteriorated a little since his exam in January, but his three-dimensional vision looked good and the strabismus we saw on Monday is much improved.

The opthalmologist feels very strongly that the problem is temporary and is related to the ativan Steven was taking.

We had a long conversation with the bone marrow transplant doctors when Steven returned to his room about whether or not he should take any more ativan. The upshot was that we'll stick with oral ativan in the smaller dose, which has so far never caused any of the problems we've been seeing recently.

Tomorrow Steven gets his stem cells back and we should be discharged.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day -2: Chemo without Ativan

Like yesterday, today Steven got cyclophosphamide along with mesna for his bladder. The double vision cleared up, but the issue of his right eye not tracking is still apparent.

Because of the double vision, we tried to do his chemo without using ativan, just zofran. He was OK for a while, but about two houra after the chemo started, he began vomiting uncontrollably.

We gave him benadryl, which knocked him out for a couple of hours, then he woke up and began vomiting again.

We gave him one half-dose of ativan, which helped for a very short period of time, then more vomiting. The ativan is quite effective normally, he vomited 8 times or so today compared with one or two times with ativan, but we've been afraid to give it at the doses that worked before because of the confusion, weeping, and double vision.

Around 5:00 or so, he suddenly perked up. He got out of bed and started putting Legos together, the rest of the evening was pleasant.

Tomorrow he sees the ophtalmologist.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day -3: Sadness and Double Vision

Today Steven got cyclophosphamide, along with mesna for his bladder. For nausea, he gets zofran and ativan around the clock with benadryl as needed,.

During his third cycle, he had bad bouts of depression and confusion which were attributed to the ativan, but once he was out of the hospital and still taking ativan the first week, the confusion and depression disappeared.

Yesterday and today he's been excessively tearful during the day when he's getting all the drugs. The chemo drugs are usually done by early afternoon and by late afternoon he perks up.

In addition to the terrible diarrhea he gets with cyclophosphamide, today he informed us he was seeing double. Several people came to see him, finally noticing some strabismus, one of his eyes wasn't tracking with the other eye. They speculated again that it might be the ativan, so we stopped it after noon today.

His double vision improved after several hours, but the strabismus is still apparent. He'll have an appointment with an ophthalmologist later this week to see what's up. He's not had any eye problems previously.

If the double vision returns, they'll do a CT scan. Tomorrow we'll try a reduced dose of ativan prior to his chemotherapy.

- Kathleen

Cycle 4, Day -4: Steven and His Ears

Today Steven begins his fourth bone marrow transplant, the last one.

Today he receives his last dose of cisplatin, along with amifostine. He suffered a high-frequency hearing loss in his left ear after his third cycle of cisplatin. He has no hearing at all in his right ear, he was born that way.

His ears are mismatched, his right ear is tiny and his left is normal or a little larger than normal. When he was born, it was several months before we were able to determine whether he heard at all, newborn babies can't tell you what they do and don't hear.

A CT scan was performed at 3 months to see what his issues were. There were multiple things going on. On his right side, the malleus was fused and couldn't move. Typically the semicircular canals are inside a bony cavity in the brain. Steven has no bony cavity, his semicicircular canals are sitting in his brain fluid. There are multiple abnormalities in both ears, the little ear on the right has more abnormalities than the left, the right ear problems are not a good candidate for surgery.

He's always been an amazingly calm, happy and easy-going child (unlike his mom). As a baby, I could go into his room and vaccuum when he was sleeping, he wouldn't react. Did that mean he didn't hear? We waited and watched.

At an auto repair shop once when he was a few months old, he flinched in my arms when some metallic heavy object was dropped. Another time he jumped when I slammed the door of the car.

Despite the absence of concrete evidence, I had the feeling that he was hearing my voice, and when he got old enough to be tested, we found the hearing on his left was normal. This was somewhat of a surprise considering all the unusual stuff going on inside his head.

We were told he would have frequent ear infections, and would almost certainly need tubes. Almost all kids with a cleft palate end up needing tubes and Steven was born with a cleft in his soft palate.

But it didn't happen that way. He has probably had no more than half a dozen ear infections in his 9 1/2 years, and no tubes.

As part of his routine medical care, we go to the cleft palate clinic at Children's Hospital in San Diego once or twice a year. It's a 4 or 5-hour event for us, but we cover a lot of ground-- he sees a speech therapist, audiologist, plastic surgeon, orthodontist, ENT, dysmorphologist (a genetic specialist). These doctors have been following him since birth, seeing them is like reuniting with old friends.

One of the doctors who is there on rotation, a plastic surgeon, himself has no external ears, only ear tags, he wears an elastic band to hold his glasses to his head. He examines Steven's ears, tells me things he could do to enlarge Steven's external right ear to more closely match his left ear, but says that overall it is a very nice ear.

We've discussed this with Steven, but Steven is very comfortable in his own skin, and so far isn't interested in any surgery for his ears. When the move "Finding Nemo" came out last year, he liked Nemo referring to his little fin as his lucky fin, Steven's right ear is his lucky ear. Probably the worst thing about it is that when he wears sunglasses, they don't sit straight on his face due to one ear being lower than the other.

We went to the cleft palate clinic 3 days before Steven's brain tumor diagnosis. He was symptomatic for the brain tumor then, a little headache and nausea, but doing OK. As usual, his left ear was perfect, but for the first time his right ear showed an improvement. They fussed with him for an unusually long time, at the end telling me that for the first time in his life, he might be a candidate for a hearing aid, scheduling an appointment with them and also scheduling a CT scan to look at the bones in his ear to see what was different.

The CT scan was scheduled for a Monday, his MRI to see what was causing his headaches and vomiting was scheduled for Tuesday, he had a craniotomy early on a Wednesday morning.

We spoke to his neuro oncologist Dr. Gajjar last week, as expected he advised us to go ahead with a full dose of cisplatin for Steven. He believes in the amifostine, although its not a guarantee. Tyler, one of the four in our little group of boys at St. Jude in the SJMB03 trial, went home last Thursday, he's done, no detectable hearing loss. Jake, the boy one week ahead of us, suffered a stage II loss in one ear after the 3rd cycle, we'll find out next week what the result is after his last cycle. Dylan, the little boy that is one week behind us has no loss after 3 cycles.

My sweet little Steven gets his last dose today.

- Kathleen

Cycle 3, Day +23: A Last Fling

We bid goodbye to Doug's family on Tuesday evening. Steven managed to cram in an extra round of golf on Monday with his Gramps, then Grammie, Gramps, and Aunt Wendy offered to watch the kids on Monday night so Doug and I could go out, something that hasn't happened since January.

I met with Steven's neuro-oncologist Dr. Gajjar on Tuesday to discuss Steven's hearing loss. He felt very strongly that Steven should go ahead with a full dose of cisplatin this next round because he feels it is an effective drug, and the dose of cisplatin that Steven is receiving on this four-cycle protocol is half of what he would receive on a standard eight-cycle protocol. He also said that Steven's hearing loss (now) is high-frequency and mostly above the frequency range for speech. So, we're planning to follow Dr. Gajjar's advice.

Wednesday morning I decided to take Steven and drive to Nashville, about 220 miles from Memphis. We rented a car and stayed near Opryland, where the Grand Ole Opry is broadcast. We couldn't see it because they only broadcast on Friday and Saturday nights, and we had to be back in Memphis for appointments on Friday.

We got there Wednesday night and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. Thursday we went to the Nashville zoo, in the evening we attended a Mystery Theatre dinner downtown, where Steven was the only child in attendance and much attention was lavished on him by the performers.

Friday morning we started back, stopping to eat and for some sightseeing in beautiful Natchez Trace State Park. It was a warm, sunny, and beautiful day, there were trees teeming with butterflies.

Neither of us felt much like hurrying back, our stop in Natchez Trace caused us to have to drive 95 mph in order to get to St. Jude late for his 3pm appointment.

After his appointment, we met Doug and Sean at Avis (who finally has decided they will rent cars to me) and went to see the new Disney movie Home On The Range, then out for some famous Memphis barbeque at Rendezvous.

This morning, Target House had a brunch for all the kids, followed by an egg hunt.

After the egg hunt, we took off for a local lake, called "Catch 'Em Lake", where Steven and Sean unsuccessfully tried to catch a catfish, and mom tried to thread raw chicken livers onto a fish hook (think of trying to make jello stay on a fish hook and you'll get the idea).

Steven will be admitted to the hospital tonight, in preparation for his last round of chemo. We're praying that it goes well, no more hearing loss, that he keeps his spirits up.

-Kathleen