Great day...

We had a wonderful family day at home yesterday. Cody was in great spirits and there were no outbursts. "Knock on wood.." His appetite has decreased but that was expected. We just have to keep putting it in front of him in hopes he will eat more.

Today he has to go in for blood work. Diane is taking him into Georgetown. We could’ve asked that a nurse come out but we are not so sure about the home nursing reliability. They tend to lose blood work and are not very dependable. We expect him to hit rock bottom in the next day or two. He will probably go in on Monday to get platelets and whole blood or both.

I've decided to post a fact about childhood cancer on some of my posts. My hope is to raise awareness about the lack of research funding that goes to childhood cancer.

Although the 5 year survival
rate is steadily increasing, one
quarter of children will die 5
years from the time of diagnosis.

Glory Belle,
you asked “when did we know when Cody was sick.” Well it's a little long but I will try my best to keep it short. We first though he had hurt his leg at the sitter. He started not wanting to walk and wanted to be held all the time. He then developed a fever. All these symptoms started while we were on vacation at Nags Head in 04. The whole week was extremely stressful. After getting back from the beach Diane took Cody into to our family pediatrician. He sent us over to the hospital immediately for blood work. After getting the results he told us to go to a cancer specialist in Fairfax VA the next morning. I remember that morning very well. Cody cried the entire time we were at the doctor’s office. He was in such pain.

Here is a picture of the kids on Mothers Day 04. This was typical Cody.

So, to make a long story short, he developed fever, and his joints of his legs and ankles were hurting him very bad. The way neuroblastoma works is that it gets into the bone marrow. It is a very aggressive cancer and grows quickly. Once in the marrow it creates pressure in the bones which is why his joints hurt. Here is a quick definition of the cancer from BOP.

What is neuroblastoma? It is a childhood cancer of the sympathetic
nervous system, affecting approximately 650 children in
the U.S. every year. It is the second most common solid
tumor in infants. Most children are diagnosed by 2.5 years
of age. Up to sixty percent of them have high risk disease that has metastasized (spread to other parts of the body) by the time they are
diagnosed. Survival is dependent on age and disease stage: children diagnosed before the age of 18 months have a high survival rate, but high
risk children diagnosed before age 5 have about a 30 percent chance of growing up. For children over age 5, teens, and adults, the prognosis is
very poor.