::Continuation Therapy - 1st Year::
From November 2, 2003 to December 31, 2004

Explanation of his 8-week Chemotherapy Schedule (He had a total of 7 cycles from 11/2/03 to 12/31/04.)
WEEK 1: Spinal (back poke) with intrathecal methotrexate. He does these without sedation now.
FOUR DAYS AFTER SPINAL: Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide), 1200 mg/m2 dose. His dose is 1164 mg; takes 1 hour to infuse. He has to have a 300 cc saline bolus prior to the Cytoxan and a 200 cc bolus post Cytoxan.
Can do this in Vernal now. First time in Vernal was May 24, 2004.
Take 6-TG pills. He has to take 7 pills every night for 4 days.
WEEK 2: Vincristine. Can do this in Vernal.
Take prednisone steroid. He takes 30 mg twice a day for 7 days. (This is the only prednisone spurt.)
WEEK 3: Vincristine. Can do this in Vernal.
WEEK 4: Count-dependent IV Methotrexate and Vincristine. Done at PCMC. He needs to be seen by them once a month.
WEEK 5: Off a week; count recovery.
WEEK 6: Count-dependent Adriamycin for 2 days, then 3 days of Ara-c at home. The Ara-c is given every 12 hours. This can be done in Vernal.
Take 6-TG pills again for 3 days, but at a lower dose than week 1.
WEEK 7: Off a week; count recovery.
This actually lasts about 1-1/2 weeks.
Start all over with the same routine.

::Normal Blood Count Values::
WBC (White Blood Cells) - 4.8 - 10
HCT (Hematocrit)- 32 - 42
PLTS (Platelets)- greater than 150
ANC (Absolute Neutrophil Counts)- 3,000 to 6,000 -- ANC below 500 is felt to place him at greatest risk for infection.

::Continuation Therapy 1st Year Updates Below::
December 29, 2004, Wednesday
We had a wonderful and joyous Christmas. We were all feeling great which I was very thankful for. Annette and Sam arrived on Christmas Eve and stayed until Sunday morning. It was a lot of fun having them here. On Christmas morning Matthew was thrilled when he opened a huge set of Magnetix and another I SPY book. He also loved the Playstation 2 Gpa and Gma Harris got for the family. Lane loves to hunt ducks with his dad and soon he'll be old enough to shoot his own ducks. He loves to practice by shooting clay targets and so this year Santa got Lane a kid-sized shotgun. He was absolutely thrilled.

We are so grateful for our health and that Matthew is doing well and not having bad side effects to all his chemo. He has one year left. Next November he'll be all finished with all treatments. I pray 2005 goes well for all of us and all of you reading this.

We met the family in town that I mentioned on Dec. 18 that is dealing with the shock and devastation of their child being diagnosed with cancer. Kirk's hunting friend knows the family well and he introduced us to them on Sunday evening. We took Matthew with us. Their child is 3-1/2 yrs. old and is a boy named Deegan. They also have a baby girl who is 7 months old. Deegan has ALL (acute lymphocytic leukemia), the same as Matthew. Mom and dad, Mindy and Garrett, were grateful to meet us and to meet Matthew. They are still in shock, but are handling it fairly well. My heart goes out to them. Lane and Matthew bought Deegan a couple of Spider-Man toys and I made a Scooby Doo quilt for him. Deegan liked everything. He's a very sweet little boy. Our prayers are with them.

Matthew has started his week-long chemo (week #6 on the schedule) and is doing well. He'll end the week of chemo with Ara-c on Friday night.

Thank you so much for checking in on us and Happy New Year.
Love,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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December 22, 2004, Wednesday
Doing better here now!! Matthew hasn't had the ooshies since Sunday (19th). The Imodium AD helped I guess or else he is just done with the virus. I was able to take him with me yesterday to Wal-mart and get all the food for Christmas dinner. He sat in the seat part of a cart that has the double seats. He was doing really good yesterday here at home and today. He's back to being a silly boy again. And he has his appetite back!! He lost 8 pounds since Dec 9th. He wanted cereal, Pop Tarts, toast, and mini-pancakes for breakfast! But he was full with just the cereal because his stomach has shrunk so much.

My sister, Annette and her hubby Sam (they just married in March) are coming out from Salt Lake City to spend Christmas weekend with us. We are excited to have them visit.

I made a new fudge yesterday! YUM!! Butter Pecan! Got it from Taste of Home magazine. It is so good! I told everyone that it is MINE. LOL. I also made 100 sugar cookies. Made the dough on Monday. Last night we frosted them.

Also last night the bishopric of our church came over and the bishop gave Matthew a blessing. It was very spiritual, and Kirk and I felt very comforted that all will be well with Matthew. I am grateful to them for this and grateful to Heavenly Father who has made it possible for Matthew to receive a priesthood blessing. I am also grateful for this time of year as we remember the birth of our Savior.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Thank you so much for checking in on us.
Love,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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December 18, 2004, Satruday
The server for Matthew's web site has been down so I've been unable to get on here and get his site updated.

I took Matthew in to Dr. Pollary today. I called to ask him if I could give him Kaopectate or something for his diarrhea and he wanted to see Matthew first. (Yep, the diarrhea came back strong Thursday night and Friday.) He said he is glad that Matthew is on the IV fluids and that he does look good. He told me that the Rotavirus can go on for 3 weeks!! Ugh! He gave me a list of do not feed and a list of things okay to feed, and said that Imodium AD would be good to give him. Hopefully these things will ease the diarrhea somewhat.

I've been feeling really down lately. Matthew can't go anywhere. I can't go anywhere. Being stuck home when I need to be out getting things ready for Christmas is the pits. Kirk has been too busy with work to stay home in the evening with the boys while I go out. But one day he did take a long lunch while I went for just a little while. I didn't find anything though. Matthew's main thing on his list is Magnetix Extreme and it was gone at both stores here. I only bought stuff to make fruit cake with. I have to make it at least a week before Christmas so the flavors have time to blend. My mother-in-law's recipe is really good (supposedly...I still don't like it); Kirk and Lane love it. Anyway, I guess I'll have to wake up at 6 a.m. on Monday and go get the things I need to cook for Christmas dinner. I usually start preparing the desserts ahead of time. Then Kirk will have to do the Christmas list shopping.

Dr. Pollary also told me today that he believes another child here in Vernal has leukemia. He sent the child out to PCMC yesterday (17th) for more testing. He didn't tell me any details about who the child was or the age. He did tell me the child's counts, which were all VERY similar to Matthew's counts when he was diagnosed. Matthew was also diagnosed at this time of year...5 years ago on December 13th. So being told this has really affected me. I started to cry and told Dr. Pollary to please let the family know that I would do anything that I could to help them through this shock. He said that he would tell them. Please keep this new child and Matthew in your prayers.

Thank you so much for checking in on us.
Take care,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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December 15, 2004, Wednesday
Matthew is now on IV fluids and Anzemet (antinausea) by IV for his vomiting. PCMC nurses and doctors don't want to risk him getting dehydrated. Vomiting can bring that on real quick. He threw up again during the night and also this morning. Bless his heart. I felt so bad for him. Matthew and I were glad that he hit the puke basin those times!!! He hates to throw up. It hurts and his stomach just cramps so bad. I called PCMC first thing this morning and they arranged for our local hospital to get his first bag of saline and first dose of Anzemet. Kirk left work to pick it up and bring it home to me. I had had this feeling on Monday after his chemo to leave his port accessed. I'm glad I listened to that feeling. So all I had to do was hook up the saline and tubing to his port, hang the saline bag from a clothes hanger, and hang it from the curtain rod over the couch. The nurse told me how many drips per minute to set the dial. Matthew seems to already be feeling better with the extra fluids. He really had not been getting enough down to compensate for the diarrhea and vomiting. His orders said to be on IV fluids and IV Anzemet for 5 days. His home health company is sending the rest of the IV fluids tomorrow morning from Salt Lake City with a handy little pump in a fanny pack. So I won't have to hang the saline bag from the curtain rod, and Matthew will have freedom to walk around with it.

Thank you for checking in on him and keeping him in your prayers.

~Katrina

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December 14, 2004, Tuesday
Matthew was okay Saturday and only had a tiny bit of diarrhea during the day. Then Sunday he was okay and had nothing until the afternoon. It hit him again as hard as it was on Thursday! Poor kid. I had had his counts done earlier in the day to make sure they were good for his chemo on Monday. (He was due for IV methotrexate and vincristine at PCMC. We always do counts before going all the way out there.) Well they were good but the bands and monos were really high.
WBC-3.0 (normal)
HCT-30.4 (little low)
PLTS-228 (normal)
ANC-2160 (okay)
segs-38 (normal)
bands-34 (abnormally high)
monos-20 (high)

So I called the on-call oncologist at PCMC. He said that high bands and monos mean that Matthew is definitely fighting something. He asked if he was vomiting at the same time or had fever. Both answers were no. He asked if he'd been drinking and eating okay. I had been having him drink lots of water and Gatorade and he hasn't been too interested in food much. So the doctor said that Matthew would be fine and to just stay home and come on out Monday for his chemo.

On Monday, when I explained to the nurse and doctor at PCMC what had been going on, they gave me a thing for Matthew to go in if he had more diarrhea so they could get a stool sample for the lab. You just sit the thing in between the toilet ring and the toilet basin and it catches anything. He was feeling great, which was nice. I thought it might all be over. Then before leaving he had to go. He only went a tiny bit though. The nurse said she would call me with the results. He did get his chemo too. They did not feel he was sick enough to put it on hold.

On a good note, when we checked in for clinic he got to pick out a stocking from a box. He picked one that had cool sports-type things stuck to it. When we got to our room, he looked in it and let out a huge, "OH YEAH!! THIS IS GREAT!!! COOL!!" It was funny. He was just screaming with excitement. The person who had donated it had put a box of Magnetix in it!! He'd been wanting his own box for a long time. He also got candy, 2 Hot Wheels cars, and a box of Spider-Man crayons. He was one happy kid. It was very nice of the people who had donated the time to decorate the stockings and put neat things in them for the kids.

On the way home, he wanted to try and eat a plain cheeseburger from McDonald's. The doctor had said that it was okay to eat anything but to make sure he gets lots of Gatorade more so than water. Well he wouldn't even touch his hamburger once he got it and then his stomach started cramping again and we were rushing to the bathroom at McDonald's. *sigh* Another big one.

He slept pretty much all the way home. He has been napping a lot lately and feeling very tired. This takes a toll on his body and his bone marrow is producing all it can to fight this off, but not producing enough red blood cells. His RBCs aren't low enough for a transfusion, but low enough to make him tire easily.

The nurse had left a message on the answering machine with the test results from his stool. It was positive for Rotavirus. She said it is contagious and there is nothing they can do for it. It has to run its course and with him, it could take up to a week or longer. For a normal person, we'd be sick for 1 to 2 days. She said it is contracted because of inefficient hand washing. I've been after my kids to always wash their hands but I guess they don't do it when they say they do or they don't do it well enough. They are both going to have to start doing better!!

Now we are to today...Tuesday. Matthew woke up saying he was feeling fine and ate a small breakfast. Then at 10:30 while I was sorting laundry, I heard a terrible scream and I went running to Matthew how was high-tailing it to the bathroom. He spewed all over the bathroom and was near hysterics over the mess he was making. He doesn't handle vomit well at all much less the kind that doesn't hit the toilet. Poor kid. I consoled him and said it was okay!!!! He calmed down and I got him comfortable on the couch again. If I'd known that was coming, I'd have had the puke bucket by him on the couch. You know what comes next...cleaning. At least he hadn't been eating much lately. It was just liquid. (Like you want to know all this! Sorry!) After double gloving and using 2 rolls of paper towels and throwing out the bottle of Windex I'd been using too because I had touched it with a dirty glove, I was finished. I kept saying to myself that I was GLAD that I had not cleaned the bathroom already like I had planned to do today!!!!

I called PCMC and talked to the nurse we had yesterday and told her about the vomiting. She asked if he had diarrhea again too. Nope. So she just said to wait and see. It just has to run its course and they aren't too concerned about dehydration unless he has diarrhea and vomiting at the same time. Keep pushing the Gatorade was all she said. So that is what we'll do.

Please pray that he gets over this illness quickly.

Take care,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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December 11, 2004, Saturday
I am truly sorry for the lack of updates. I appreciate those who have expressed concern.

Lane broke out with chicken pox over Thanksgiving. He did fine with them. He had had the vaccine when he was 2 years old so he didn't get a really bad case of them. They were uncomfortable but he tolerated them well.

Matthew got his spinal Nov. 19 and since then he's received Cytoxan and two doses of vincristine here in Vernal. He is on prednisone for a week during the first dose of vincristine. We were concerned that the prednisone was causing AVN (avascular necrosis). See update on October 13th. Dr. Barnette had decided when Matthew got his spinal that he wanted to observe Matthew through one more course of prednisone to see if he had any hip pain again before going ahead with the MRI. During this course of prednisone he did not complain at all about hip pain. So the MRI is on hold and they probably won't do it unless he has hip pain again.

Matthew is due for IV methotrexate and vincristine on Monday. We go out to PCMC for this one. He has not been feeling well the past few days. Thursday (9th) he got diarrhea and a low temp. Yesterday he was feeling better but then the diarrhea hit again just a few times. It wasn't as bad as Thursday. Today he says he is feeling a lot better so we will see. His fever went away. I probably should have called his doctor but I thought it would run it's course. We will see today. His pediatrician is in clinic here in town today, so I can call today if he does have diarrhea again today.

Thanks for checking up on Matthew today. We truly appreciate it!
Take care,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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November 19, 2004, Friday
Matthew's chicken pox are all scabbed, and he is doing well enough that he got his spinal yesterday. So the cycle begins again. He's in his 7th cycle of continuation therapy now. Another year to go. I hope it goes fast.

Yesterday's spinal was a huge milestone in his treatment because he did the spinal with NO SEDATION!!! It was all his choice (read entry dated Sept.21). Several spinals prior to that one, he had not felt well afterwards. He would yell, scream, and even hyperventilated once. I was quite nervous about his decision but backed him up. He had lots of support from Dr. Barnette, the nurses, and Child Life lady, Julie. I was nervous because what if this hurt him a lot, then we'd be left with 2 ways that he doesn't like. Well it went great!!! They knew we were not planning on using sedation today, so Matthew got to eat breakfast which he LOVED. He also got to drink water anytime he wanted on our 3 hour trip to the hospital. Those are more reasons why he wanted to do this without sedation. I stopped in a town one hour away from the hospital and put Emla cream (numbing cream) on his back. It worked perfect. That was all that was needed. We had prepared Matthew for the possible stinginess of lidocaine but Dr. Barnette decided not to use lidocaine. He put the needle in and Matthew didn't even flinch!!! Dr. B got the spinal drips out, then put the chemo in and was done. Matthew was AMAZED that it was so quick and that "it did not hurt one little bit!!" YEAH!!! Way to go Matthew!! Everyone was so proud of him and he was proud of himself. He's been having spinals since he was 2 years old and has a year's worth left. So I was proud and relieved that he was able to be brave enough to try it without sedation now. He said that the only thing he felt was pressure. He was okay with that and he was okay with a little soreness in his back afterwards. He said that the soreness was nothing compared to the yucky post-sedation feeling. The nurse gave him a Tylenol for the soreness and we were on our way to the bookstore!

I had told Matthew that doing his first spinal without sedation was so extra-brave that it was deserving of an extra big reward. In Sept, he wanted a box of Magnetix, but recently changed his mind when he became so involved with I SPY books. He wanted I SPY Spooky Night and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom as well. I also thought it would be neat to take him to a really big bookstore, since we've never been to one before. Barnes & Noble was pretty close. He thought the escalator was really neat and was impressed with the store. He got his books and we were on our way home.

We are very grateful for our brave little man!!! He's certainly accomplished more than we ever expected.

Thanks for checking up on Matthew today. We truly appreciate it!
Take care,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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November 12, 2004, Friday
Chicken Pox
Yep, Matthew has chicken pox now. He broke out with them yesterday morning.

Matthew was exposed at school by a child in his group. It was during the little Halloween party. The child apparently broke out at home after the party, but the child's mom didn't remember to call the teacher or myself to let us know. The teacher had explained the importance of this and had given each parent a letter with my phone number and hers at the beginning of the school year. I am sure this mom was just really concerned about her own child and forgot to call in time for Matthew to get the VZIG shot. She was supposed to let me or the teacher know within 72 hours of exposure. It would have worked out perfectly for Matthew to get the VZIG shot which stops the virus from incubating in him, if she had called in time. Unfortunately, it was almost a week later when she finally called the teacher about it. Matthew's teacher told me she was just sick about it.

I called PCMC right away to ask what I needed to do. His case manager, Beth, instructed me to just watch closely for any signs of breaking out between Nov. 6 and Nov. 21, and when he does, I need to call them. They could prescribe him a different medicine which would speed up the viral process and help him have a lighter case of it. It is called acyclovir.

So that is what we did yesterday. Beth wanted us to go to Matthew's pediatrician to get it diagnosed first. Dr. Pollary just wasn't certain about it because Matthew was feeling really well and didn't have very many spots. He finally consulted with Dr. Barnette (his oncologist) and they decided to be safe and give him IV acyclovir and get a CBC. Then recheck the next day (today) and go to oral acyclovir if the spots still weren't too bad. His ANC is 1000, so that is good. Today there still weren't too many spots and so he is on oral acyclovir now. He takes 5 pills a day for 5 days.

Tonight there are quite a few more breaking out. He is telling me now that they are VERY, VERY itchy. I gave him some Benadryl and on one really bad spot, I put some Calamine Lotion. He said his whole body felt itchy. Poor guy. But at least he is feeling good and doesn't have a fever.

PCMC said that of most concern with kids on chemo getting chicken pox is bacterial infection from the open sores. So Matthew is cooperating really well and not scratching them even though he is dying to!

Thanks for checking up on Matthew today. We truly appreciate it!
Take care,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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November 8, 2004, Monday
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTHEW!!!
He's 7 years old today!!
Yesterday Gpa & Gma Harris were out for his birthday and we celebrated it. He wanted homemade tacos and cheesecake for his birthday so that is what he got. Yum! Yum! From Kirk & I, he received Skyway (a magnetic car track that is really cool) and from Lane he got a small box of Legos. From Gpa and Gma he received two I SPY books which prompted the comment, "My teacher has these and I've REALLY wanted them!! COOL!" They also got him a small box of Legos. Matthew spends hours and hours looking at I SPY books and reading them over and over. Both boys spend hours playing with Legos. They had a good time last night building the Skyway track and also playing with the Legos.

Matthew's pneumonia was completely cleared up last week and he finished up the IV Rocephin and then started his chemo week of Adriamycin and Ara-c. That went well and he has this week off. It is so good to have no doctor's appointments this week and no chemo until Novemeber 18th. That is when the next spinal is scheduled, and he will also get an MRI of his hips that day.(See entry dated Oct. 13 for more info on that.) Matthew is ready to try his spinal without sleepy medicine and is actually looking forward to it.

Thanks for checking up on Matthew today. We truly appreciate it!
Take care,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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October 27, 2004, Wednesday
Matthew was doing well yesterday and we went to his school party for 45 minutes yesterday afternoon. He was thrilled to go and had fun. Then yesterday evening, his temperature came back. His pediatrician's office was still open, so I called them. They had Matthew come in for another CBC and chest x-ray and to check him out. He does have symptoms of a viral infection now with red eyes, more coughing, and a runny nose. The CBC still looked good even though the WBC had dropped to 4.0. His ANC is 3200 so that is still good. His chest x-ray looked like it had improved. So his pediatrician thought it was a viral thing going on now. He called PCMC to go over everything with them, and they agreed to just keep Matthew on the Rocephin and not add any other antibiotic. His doctor was so good and stayed there until 10:30 p.m. to get it all sorted out. It was much better than going through the ER. The oncologist suggested to have Matthew get a nasal swab to check for RSV and influenza. It was late to do that last night so I took him back after his Rocephin this morning. Yuck!!! That was not a good experience for him. He said the second swab they did pinched up in there. We got the results of those and they were both negative as his pediatrician had suspected. After the swab test, I took Matthew to Blockbuster and we rented several movies for the long weekend. We got Garfield which we have not seen yet. He watched it as soon as we got home and enjoyed it. He's feeling better this afternoon. I hope it continues!!!

His pediatrician also told me that he had some flu shots reserved for his high-risk kids. He wanted Matthew to get one. I asked about Lane and he agreed to give him one too. PCMC agreed that Matthew should get one this year too. Normally they don't like kids on a continuous-type therapy protocol to get one but since there is the shortage and many more kids will probably be sick this season, they do want all the kids on therapy to get a flu shot.

Well that's it for now. Hopefully he'll be all well for Halloween. Around here, they celebrate Halloween on Saturday if it falls on a Sunday. Most of the churches around here hold a "trunk-or-treat" because everyone is so spread out here in the country. We all meet at the church parking lot and all the kids go around from car to car to get their treats. We love it because it keeps the kids safe and we are DONE trick-or-treating in less than an hour!

Thanks for checking up on Matthew today. We truly appreciate it!
Take care,
Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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October 25, 2004, Monday
Well it has been a year since Matthew has had a high fever so we are counting our blessings because it could have happened a lot more than that. Yesterday we were at church and out of the blue he started shivering and shaking. His face was really pale and then he threw up. We went straight home and got him warmed up (his ear temp. was 100.6) and sure enough within an hour it was up to 102 and he was sweating. Immediately when we got home, I put Emla cream on his Port because I knew we'd be going to the ER soon. As soon as his temp went up, I called the on-call oncologist at PCMC and was directed to go to our ER, I accessed his Port here at home first, then went in. (The nurses in the ER were VERY GRATEFUL that I know how to do that and accessed it prior to coming in.) They could quickly draw his labs and get a CBC and cultures going.

His white count came back in the "normal" range at 9.2! The ER doctor said, "Oh the white count looks really good, it looks normal" but when I said, "Well Matthew's "normal" is about 3.0 or less, so to me it means he is fighting something," the doctor cleared his throat and said, "Yep, you are right."

So a chest x-ray was ordered too because he had been coughing lately, but not too bad. He said that it looked to him like there could be pneumonia in the right lower lobe. He would make sure the radiologist read it first thing in the morning to make sure.

He was also started on the antibiotic Rocephin by IV and he'd need that every 12 hours. The doctor said it would be okay to come back for the second dose at 8 a.m. instead of 4 a.m. They also gave him Zofran for his nausea because he threw up again while in the ER. I checked his temperature every 4 hours through the night and woke him up to give him Tylenol. It didn't seem to help much because his fever was high all night at 102.6. At 4 a.m. I checked it though and it was back to normal at 98.7. It finally broke. It's been normal all morning without more Tylenol.

I took him back to the hospital for the next dose of Rocephin and this time we had his chemo nurse, Tami, give it. She and I also arranged for the remaining doses to be sent to us at home from Matthew's home health care company, Infusion Innovations. They are wonderful to work with and they are sending them to us STAT. This way I don't have to keep taking Matthew into the hospital for it. I can just give it at home through his Port.

While he was getting his Rocephin, I made some phone calls to PCMC and also his pediatrician here in town. I told the pediatrician what was going on and to please find out for me what the radiologist's report was on the x-ray. The report was positive for right lower lobe pneumonia. I was glad Matthew was able to produce a good amount of white blood cells to fight it! PCMC said that we will hold off on Matthew's Adriamycin and Ara-c which he is supposed to get this week, starting today. We'll hold off until the pneumonia is resolved.

Matthew is doing much better now that his temperature is back to normal. He is feeling okay and relaxing on the couch. I am pushing fluids -- making him drink a lot of water which he isn't too happy about. The kids only have 3 days of school this week due to the Utah Education Association meetings on Thursday and Friday. Matthew desperately wants to go to his classroom's Halloween party on Wednesday. I'll discuss it with his teacher and I could go with him for an hour or so if he's feeling okay. I don't want him exerting himself too much, but he also needs to do fun things like that because that in itself is very therapeutic.

Thank you for checking in on Matthew and for leaving a note in the guestbook. We love to know who stopped by.

Take care,
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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October 13, 2004, Wednesday
Matthew had day 25 on his schedule on Monday, the 11th. It was methotrexate and a spinal at PCMC. His counts are really good and he is doing very well. He did fine with the chemo.

He has been having pain in his hips especially when on prednisone so I talked about that with the doctor. She ordered hip x-rays again. He had some last April as well. They were normal again. But she wants to have Matthew get an MRI because many times even though the x-rays are normal, it can miss things. They are looking for avascular necrosis (AVN). It is caused by corticosteroid therapy (dexamethasone and prednisone) which can decrease the blood supply to the bones. So I scheduled an MRI for him in November on the same day as his next spinal.

I talked with his case manager, Beth, and the Child Life Specialist, Julie, about Matthew's desire to have the next spinal with no sedation. They agreed to it and talked with Matthew about it. Julie went through a demonstration that was good for him and he asked lots of questions. He is very excited to not have anymore "sleepy meds." Wow..I am amazed with him for wanting to do this all on his own.

Matthew is doing great in school and having fun with his friends. He is now reading the Magic Tree House book series. He LOVES them!!! It is a wonderful sight to see him pick up a book instead of watching TV. I am an avid reader so I am grateful that one of my kids is enjoying it as much as I always have my whole life.

Lane is doing very well with his classroom accommodations. They really have made a huge difference so his intelligence can shine through for which I am grateful. He's a very bright kid...he just needs a little help here and there. The tutoring is going really well too. He's coming along great. He decided he wanted to learn Tae Kwon Do. He loves going to the classes and he's very good at it too.

The boys are gearing up for Halloween. Lane is going to be Frankenstein and Matthew is going to be Ash the Pokemon Trainer.

Thank you for checking in on Matthew and for leaving a note in the guestbook. We love to know who stopped by.

Take care,
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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September 23, 2004, Thursday
Just a quick note to say that Matthew is back to his old self today. He is feeling 100% better and went to school today. Way to go Matthew!
Thanks for checking on him.
~Katrina

September 22, 2004, Wednesday
Yesterday immediately following his Cytoxan Matthew vomited. We had an emesis basin ready because he has gotten sick the last two times he's had Cytoxan. Poor guy. We took the emesis basin with us in the car just in case, but we made it home fine. I was glad we were just here in Vernal for this. I am glad our hospital can do some of his chemo and that PCMC is willing to let us have it done locally sometimes. He felt okay after we got home and he rested for a while. Then this morning he threw up again. So he is staying home from school. He's feeling okay as he just watches TV and he's eaten some toast and kept that down. He did get Anzemet by IV yesterday and I have some Anzemet pills here at home I gave him this morning. He'll feel better soon I am sure. He's a trooper.
~Katrina

September 21, 2004, Tuesday

The 6th cycle of Matthew's continuation chemotherapy began last Thursday with a spinal. He did well with that, but he did not do well having to go without eating or drinking for so long. I called 6 weeks in advance and the earliest appointment I could get was at 11:00 a.m. --rats! We always like the first slot for these spinals. Of course it took forever as always and the procedure itself didn't get underway until 12:20 p.m. This is why we hate late appointments. Matthew told every single person that came in the room, "I'm hungry, very hungry, very hungry." Then after the procedure and he was awake enough to eat, he didn't feel good. I had to force him to take a sip of water. After being kept there another hour for recovery, we left at 1:20. Matthew said he wanted cereal so we went down to the cafeteria. I had to push him in a wheelchair because he was still groggy a little and weak from not eating. Besides, it is a LONG walk from the oncology department to the cafeteria. He got cereal and I got a hamburger. They do make a good hamburger. He ate a little then said he didn't feel good. I grabbed some extra paper cups just in case he needed to upchuck. But then he laid down on the bench and went sound asleep. I ate my burger then got him up in the wheelchair, pushed him out to the car, loaded him in it, then we headed home. He slept for a long time and when he woke up he said that he did not like how he felt and he did not want to have sleepy medicine anymore. We talked about that and how they would do it without sleepy meds. He said that he could do it! When we got home I told him that would be so extra brave of him that it would for sure deserve a big prize. He said, "How about a big set of the Magnetix Building Set toy?" I said, "Sure." And he got so excited!!! All weekend, he's been asking when his next spinal is because he wants that toy and wants to show everyone how brave he is. I have to talk to his doctor about this beforehand, and Beth, his case manager too. We'll see what they say. Another bonus is that if he can do it without sleepy meds then he will get to eat and drink all he wants to before the procedure instead of having to be n.p.o. He was excited about that too.

Well I have to talk about Lane now. (He's 9-1/2 -- 4th grade this year.) He has struggled with reading, spelling, writing, and doing math facts quickly in a timed situation. He has been reversing b & d and p & 9 his whole life. His spelling is terrible. His reading is still slow, choppy, and laborious. The teachers have told me, "No, he does not have dyslexia. He just needs more practice." Well we have been practicing his whole life. He does not read for pleasure so it is a CHORE to get him to open a book just for 20 minutes with me right there helping him. If he indeed needed more practice, then he would have improved because he was getting practice. I compare that to his brother who was reading simple books at the end of Kindergarten. This past summer as we continued reading, he has soared!!! He is reading level 1 chapter books now. So with practice, he has improved. We have done the same thing with Lane. In the summer, we would do reading time. It just didn't seem to help him improve. Nothing really did. He seemed to be processing things differently than other kids. When Lane finished kindergarten, it did not make sense to him to blend letters together. It was a struggle for him to blend c-a-t to read cat. We practiced and practiced and finally during 1st grade he could blend sounds together but sight words killed him because he wanted to blend those too. He would try to sound out the word "the" every time he saw it. Then the teachers also said, "Well every child learns to read at a different pace." He did improve on sight words in 2nd grade and in 3rd grade he was reading pretty good for him. However, he was still skipping a lot of words in reading, misreading the little prepositional words such as on, in, no, it, her, etc. He also still had a terrible time sounding out words he was unfamiliar with and would try to guess the word based on context or the first few letters, or he would start in the middle or end of the word to sound it out instead of the beginning. For example, "stove" would be read as "voice."

Anyway, I said to myself, "Forget listening to the teachers and do your own research on dyslexia." So I did. I started that in the middle of June and have been absorbed by it. Lane had nearly every symptom on most of the lists I could find. I found some dyslexia specialists in Provo and in Salt Lake City. I did background research on them to make sure they had the schooling they claimed they had. We got Lane tested the first of August by two specialists: a mother/daughter team. They said he is dyslexic. They recommended tutoring but we can't drive 3 hours to them twice a week, so they recommended I tutor Lane myself in an Orton-Gillingham based program. They also recommended many in classroom accommodations. They did not recommend special education. We met with the principal, his teacher, the school psychologist (who also did his own evaluation right before school started because of our findings with Lane -- he agrees with the diagnosis; he found that Lane is currently reading on a 2.6 reading level and his reading fluency is a 1.8 reading level!), and we talked about the accommodations and implemented many of them. Another thing we found out is that Lane does need glasses to read. We took him to an optometrist and he said that Lane's focusing muscles are weak. Sometimes they focus right and sometimes they don't. Glasses will help him improve his reading as well as the tutoring.

We just barely got the program we are going to use last week. I did a huge amount of research on that too. We don't have time to force the school to get a program like this because they just don't have the money and a grant would take too long. It turned out that the dyslexia specialists had the program that I was most interested in all along. I was steering away from it because it was so expensive. But I called the specialists who tested Lane to ask their opinion on it and they have it! They had bought a site license for it because they like to implement other Orton-Gillingham based programs into their own Orton-Gillingham program if they feel it works. They highly recommended this program. It is called the Barton Reading System. I got it last week from them and I really like it already! It is EASY to learn, has a script to follow, and I know Lane will respond well to it and to my teaching him. I have to use odd hand gestures as sign language to have him do certain steps. I give him the instruction, then do the hand gestures because if I keep blabbering and SAYING the next steps then his mind cannot focus on the sounds of the word that I gave him to work with. So mom is going to be doing "weird" sign language. I know he will differentiate mom from teacher. Plus the teacher and I have agreed on a time for me to do this DURING school. I have insisted that home is a place for him to recover from school and he will not listen to me once he's home no matter what kind of great program it is. So starting next week, I will go to the school 3 times per week for 40 minutes each.

His classroom accommodations are already helping him a lot!!!! Those have been a lifesaver for him. He would be drowning in writing tasks (which are a HUGE obstacle for him) if not for the accommodations. I am so thankful I listened to my own instincts finally, did my own research, and got him tested. Fourth grade is way harder than anything he's ever had to do and I know he would be waking up every morning with a "tummy ache" if not for the help he is getting.

Hopefully I will be able to update on his progress as well as Matthew's. Matthew has the "heavy-duty chemo" today. He gets Cytoxan. We are doing that here in Vernal. I will get him out of school at 11:00 to get Emla on his port and get him some lunch well before 1:00. When he eats around the time of the chemo he gets sick and vomits. His lunchtime at school is at 12:30 so he needs to eat way before that. We expect he'll be able to continue the week out at school, but next week I will check his counts on Monday before having him attend.

Well that's it for now. Thank you for checking in on us. Let us know you were here by signing the guestbook! :) We love to see who visited. Thank you Aunt Angie (from Marietta, GA) for sending Kim Bos a donation for her Team in Training fundraiser!!!!!!!!!!! You are awesome!!!!!!!! Love ya!

Take care,
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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August 18, 2004, Wednesday
One year ago today Matthew started chemo all over again...

He's doing well. His hair has thinned out a LOT the last week or so, but he's full of energy and E-X-C-I-T-E-D for school to start next Monday. Good news on that!!!! His oncologist said it would be just fine to delay the Adriamycin/Ara-c week until the following week, August 30th (instead of his first week of school, the 23rd)!!!!! His oncology case manager told me that if there is anything really important going on when he needs to be getting chemo that that chemo can wait a day or two or even a week. We are all really happy that Matthew gets to enjoy his first week of school with no chemo-related stuff. Yippee-skippy!

Take care,
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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August 4, 2004, Wednesday
Sorry for the lack of updates lately. We've been busy and I've been trying to complete a medical transcriptionist course. So I just haven't had any "spare" time spent at the computer really.

Matthew has been doing great. He got his spinal on the 15th of July (a Thurs.) and started the 8-week cycle again. When he got the Cytoxan on July 19th (a Monday), he got pretty sick during the infusion. We did that one at PCMC because the kids and I had visited my sister's family over the weekend. He threw up quite a lot. After laying quietly and resting for an hour his tummy felt better. The nurse at PCMC said that as he gets more and more chemo, his body could stop tolerating it as well as he had in the past. His counts dropped a lot a week after Cytoxan. His ANC went to 150 so we stayed home for a week and did nothing. (As of this writing, it is up to 750..shew!)

At his appointment on July 15 for the spinal I asked Dr. Barnette for an end of treatment date. I guess one reason I haven't updated is because I am just sick of all this and don't want to think about it much anymore. I knew he would have another year of this but I was expecting him to say July or August next year, but he said it has to go until NOVEMBER! So Matthew will have to start 2nd grade and will be 8 years old by the time he's finished. Then to top everything off, my kid that LOVES, LOVES, LOVES school and has been counting down all the days of summer until he gets to start 1st grade has to have the Adriamycin/Ara-c week of chemo land on the exact same week that school starts!!!! He'll have to leave his first day of school to go get chemo, and the second day, and I'll have to give him chemo before school Wed-Friday. UGH! I am pretty bummed about that and am actually hoping that his counts will make him get delayed. So another reason I haven't been on here to update.

I did get good news from another cancer mom friend (actually she is the grandma of a boy who is a cancer survivor). Her sister is participating in ANOTHER marathon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I got her information about her marathon and decided it would be very worthwhile to get on here and update with all her info. Raising money is hard work...probably harder than getting out and training every day! Please look over her information above and take a moment to donate to a very worthwhile cause.

Good news about Jeremy Rowe too!! He has 100% donor cells and is home!! Way to go Jeremy!
Jeremy's Web site

Take care,
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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July 1, 2004, Tuesday
Scrapbook updated today: pics of sister's wedding and vacation.
Days 39-43/Week 6: Adriamycin Mon. & Tues. in Vernal and on Wed.-Fri. Ara-c every 12 hours at home. This is the week he hates the most because he has to stay accessed and get chemo the whole week. He was feeling terrible this morning and threw up his cereal promptly after eating it. Anzemet is ordered IV along with the Ara-c so as soon as he got that and his chemo he did feel better, ate breakfast, and held it down.

Right after his methotrexate on the June 15th, we packed up clothes/cooler with breakfast and lunch stuff/camera/rain ponchos/thermometer and port-a-cath access stuff just in case Matthew got a fever, and we went on a vacation to Wyoming to see Yellowstone National Park! (You can click here or go to the scrapbook for the link to pictures.) We were gone from June 17 through 21. The last time we were there was 3 years ago in August and it was really hot. This time it was rainy and very chilly. It wasn't very crowded this time either--we got a front row view of Old Faithful as it erupted, and when we came upon any wildlife we were usually the first ones to spot them ... then the traffic jam would start. Yellowstone is only about 5-1/2 to 6 hours away from where we live.

Lane and Matthew LOVE hot pots, hot springs, and geysers. It seems as though every hot pot has its own unique color. Some are big, some are small. They are all really neat and fun to see. They also love all the wildlife in Yellowstone. We saw buffalo (bison), which isn't that big of a deal unless they are rambling down the road in between all the cars! We saw geese, a coyote, lots of cow elk and quite a few bull elk, and the boys' most exciting moments in spying wildlife was the THREE black bears in ONE day -- all in the same area. Then that SAME night we saw a GRIZZLY BEAR, but it was too far off for Matthew to find in the binoculars. Then the next day was Father's Day and the boys wished that we would find a grizzly bear closer to the road and we DID!!! We were the first ones to spot it behind some bushes only about 50 yards from the road! We took pictures out of the car window and enjoyed watching him and the next thing you know, there is a traffic jam! A really bad one. People were getting out of their cars to go up and take a picture. **Hello People!!! The warnings say to stay at LEAST 100 yards away from a grizzly bear.** It was nice watching him while it lasted and we slowly wove our way out of the traffic jam. I wanted to stop at the Ranger Station and report the bear because it says that you should do that, but Kirk said that someone probably already did so we didn't stop to do that. The only animal I really wanted to see, which we NORMALLY see every time, was a moose!! We didn't see one single moose. They must have all been hiding...oh well! We got to see FIVE bears instead, and that is very RARE!!!!

We had saved our money so we could stay in a motel every night and one night we stayed in the park at Canyon Village near the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. The boys loved that night the best because we were IN the park and our room was a little cabin. We were also close to the Canyon Village gift shop/cafe/etc and they had a chance to finally search for souvenirs. They had saved their money from chores to buy their own little things in Yellowstone. They each bought 2 pins, Matthew bought a coloring activity kit that had Yellowstone wildlife pictures in it with a set of crayons, and Lane bought a small pocket knife that said Yellowstone on it. Kirk & I bought each of them a Yellowstone t-shirt and a Yellowstone hat for Matthew.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip together and were sad to come home. We loved it even though it rained a lot of the time. We don't really have any plans for the rest of the summer. In mid-July (15th) when Matthew starts this 2-month cycle over again, the boys and I will probably go out to the city and stay with my sister and then with Gpa and Gma Harris for awhile so the boys can visit their cousins out there. We also plan on going to a water park in the city later at the end of the summer for a "Reading Time Reward." We want to go camping one weekend and Kirk wants to take Lane and go backpacking with some friends one weekend. It will all go too fast and before we know it, school will be starting again. I told the boys that I wished that school didn't start until the end of September! They wished the same thing.

So Matthew's next chemo will be a spinal on July 15th and then Cytoxan on the 19th. Thank you so much for checking in on Matthew today and for your support. Leave a note in the guestbook if you would like to. We love to know who stopped by.

Take care,
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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June 15, 2004, Tuesday
Scrapbook updated today.
Day 25/Week 4: Vincristine and IV Methotrexate at PCMC in Salt Lake.
Matthew's counts were good, so he and I drove 6 hours round trip today so he could be seen by the oncologist at PCMC and get his IV methotrexate and vincristine. All went well. Our appointment wasn't until 1:00 so we didn't have to rush out of the house this morning which was nice. We left in time so we could get some lunch somewhere before the appointment. Matthew chose Taco Bell. Oh well. I tried to get him to choose someplace that we don't have in Vernal. He just loves their soft tacos. On the way home, we stopped at the Old Navy Outlet in Park City and bought 2 new hats for Lane and Matthew and a new shirt for each. Lane stayed at a friend's house today and had lots of fun swimming, and even ended up spending the night with them last night.

This past weekend, my sister came out from Provo for a short visit with her 3 kids. We had a lot of fun visiting and Lane and Matthew had a lot of fun playing with their cousins. They are all close in age except her youngest is almost 3, so he was kind of left out of the big-kid fun. They had fun catching butterflies which are abundant right now. We have a big milkweed plant that the butterflies love. There will be up to 6 butterflies on it at one time! We went to Vernal's new Dinosaur Museum, The Utah Field House of Natural History that just recently opened. It is really nice! MUCH BETTER than the old one!!! I was impressed. Then on Saturday we went hiking to see some petroglyphs that are up a canyon near Vernal. They are only a 10-15 minute drive from our house. They are on private property (McConkie Ranch) and the property owners have graciously made them accessible to the public. http://www.jqjacobs.net/rock_art/ne_utah1.html. Too bad I don't have a digital camera so I can get them on quickly. The web site will do. They are really neat and my kids and I have hiked to them several times. My sister and her kids thought they were awesome. They left Saturday evening to go home.

That is about it for now. All is well. Thank you for stopping by.
~Katrina
p.s. My sister sent me an e-mail with some of the dinosaur museum pictures from her digital camera today, and I also picked up pictures at Wal-mart and scanned them in today, so there ARE new pictures in the scrapbook finally. :-)

"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb

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June 9, 2004, Wednesday
Day 18/Week 3: Vincristine in Vernal.
Hello everyone~ Thank you for checking in on Matthew today. He is doing wonderful. His ANC is very high thanks to 7 days of prednisone. It was at 5000 on Monday when he got his vincristine! He's had an extremely huge appetite this time on prednisone. Anything chocolate and "hot dogs in a bun with ketchup" have been his favorites during this round of pred.--he made himself an ice cream cone full of Hershey's chocolate syrup--nope, no ice cream, just the syrup!! I about died laughing.

The Relay for Life was good. Our Relay raised $80,000 this year and sold 1200 luminaries. Dr. Lemons ended up not being the Opening Ceremony speaker. They had a man who is a hospice chaplain speak instead. I'm not sure what happened to Dr. Lemons. Anyway, the hospice chaplain gave a really good talk. Matthew's little surprise this year was a basket full of fun stuff for kids. He LOVED that a lot too. Matthew and Lane really enjoyed the Relay. The teams had carnival games at their campsites. They were a lot of fun for the kids. ~Mom heart-melting moment~On the way home Matthew said, "I love the relay because it reminds me of happy times."

Monday, the 14th, Matthew will get IV methotrexate at PCMC if his counts are good, which I am sure they will be.
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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June 4, 2004, Friday
Matthew is so excited about going to the Relay for Life tonight. He always "gets a surprise," he says and he loves that. The people in charge of Opening Ceremony and honoring the survivors work really hard to gather donated items for all the survivors that come. Last year he got a really neat smiley-face sleeping bag which he LOVES. We'll have to see what his "surprise" is for this year. I bought 3 luminaries this year, 2 for Matthew and 1 for Melanie. One of Matthew's has Spiderman on it and the other has smiley faces. I'll get pictures of them. Dr. Lemons from Primary Children's Medical Center is the guest speaker during Opening Ceremony. He is the head of the department there at PCMC and is a wonderful oncologist. He has several patients out here in Vernal now, and so it will be neat to see him and hear his speech.

LAST NIGHT WE GOT TO SEE SHREK 2!! It was so funny to hear Matthew and Lane laughing so HARD! I can't say which parts they were laughing at because it will spoil the movie for you. But it was a good movie. I like the movie puns the best. The first one had some but this one has quite a lot more. They were good. That stuff goes over the kids' heads but the adults enjoy them. We just decided that a weeknight wouldn't be that busy here in small-town Vernal especially since it has been out a week and a half now. We were right, there wasn't hardly anyone there so Matthew was safe to be there. Thank you for checking on Matthew. It is MUCH appreciated!
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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June 2, 2004, Wednesday
Day 11/Week 2: Vincristine in Vernal with physical by pediatrician, Dr. Pollary and start prednisone spurt for 7 days.
All went well with his vincristine yesterday. His counts were checked and they aren't too low thankfully.
WBC-1.3; HCT-31.4; PLTS-163; ANC-754
They look good and his ANC is high enough to go places but we still need to be careful, for example, I don't think it would be wise to take the kids to the weekend matinee of Shrek 2 right now. We'll have to wait a bit longer to see it, if at all in the theater. Maybe it will come to the drive-in soon. Hopefully the prednisone will help increase the ANC throughout the week. He's taking 30 mg twice a day. That is a lot for a 60 pound kid. After just ONE dose, his appetite was kicked in and woah!...this morning he ate one thing after another. I better go to Wal-Mart and stock up more!

The kids are enjoying summer break. They were out of school on May 28th.

Thank you for checking on Matthew. It is MUCH appreciated!
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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May 25, 2004, Tuesday
Last Thursday Matthew's spinal (Day56/0) at PCMC went fine. We had the first appointment for the procedure room in clinic thankfully. We were out of there by 10:30. Matthew didn't throw up this time. I did make sure he got his Anzemet.

Dr. Barnette talked with me about changing the infusion time of the IV methotrexate to 15 minutes instead of 2 hours. He said that the main reason he wanted it 2 hours was because he wanted to make sure Matthew tolerated it well because he'd never had it IV before. I thought he wanted it 2 hours because it absorbs in the body better and therefore kills more cancer cells. I guess we had a miscommunication about that. He said that studies were done in the past which showed that there is no difference between 2 hours or 15 minutes in its effectiveness against cancer. So with that, we are changing his infusion time of the IV methotrexate to 15 minutes. So we COULD do that in Vernal because it is so short and Matthew has done well with it. However, we also talked about switching where the Cytoxan is given. Since he has done well with it too, Dr. Barnette said that we could do that in Vernal now, BUT he does want to see Matthew once a month at PCMC, so it would be best to still go out there for the IV methotrexate.

So from now on, as long as Matthew does okay with the Cytoxan, we are going to have that done here in Vernal. I am relieved because it will mean one less trip out there, which means Matthew can go to school in the morning before the chemo, and it also means that we will save money on gas, as well as be safer when winter comes again.

Yesterday, (Day 4) the Cytoxan here in Vernal went well. Tami Wallis is the chemo nurse here. She is wonderful. Matthew gets doted on here and she pays really close attention to him the whole time. He got 1164 mg of Cytoxan this time; up from 1140 mg. He got his Anzemet too. When we were on the way home Matthew moaned and said he didn't feel very good in his tummy. He made it to the back porch of the house and he vomited really badly all over the porch. Yuck. Poor guy. I called and told Tami. She felt bad about it and said she would write it down. Matthew felt cruddy for about 1-1/2 hours and then was back to normal. He ate dinner late and kept it down. This morning he started out slow and said he didn't feel good, but he ate and felt somewhat better and then he went to school and he has felt fine all day. He's such a trooper! Thursday is his last day of school.

We are expecting his counts, especially his ANC, to drop a lot by this weekend. So just in case it does drop, we are not planning on doing anything at all and plan on staying home. Will check his counts when he gets Vincristine on Tuesday. Last time he got Cytoxan his ANC dropped to 88. Hopefully it won't go that low this time.

There are many people to remember this Memorial Day...I seem to have a lot on my mind about this. It is hard to express my feelings.

Thank you for checking on Matthew. It is MUCH appreciated!
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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May 19, 2004, Wednesday
Matthew's counts were good today so he'll get his spinal tomorrow at PCMC. This begins the 56-day-cycle once again and he's in his 4th cycle of this. He'll have about 7 more cycles of continuation therapy and finish up in August or September 2005. He is doing really well and has been enjoying school and playing at home with his brother. When I accessed his port this morning to check counts he was really mad about having to do it. He yelled at me that he was sick of it and that the radiation got it all and he doesn't want to do anymore. I felt so bad for him. He just gets into a routine of being a kid and having fun all the time, and then he has to have his port accessed to check counts and do it all over again. I told him it is fine to be upset about having to do this, and that he can also ask the doctor any questions he has about this and they will listen to his feelings too. I'm proud of him for going ahead and cooperating for the needle access and I told him that he was my hero. He just does what he needs to do whether he likes it or not.

Yesterday was Lane's 9th birthday! I can't believe he is 9!!!! He wanted various things for his birthday and one thing he requested was stuff for his bike. That is what he got and he was so excited! He got some bike gloves (he likes to ride his bike with gloves on), new gripper handles, and buddy pegs. He has wanted pegs for a long time. He can do really cool tricks on the pegs, and make his bike do even higher wheelies now with his weight on the pegs. He also gives Matthew rides on them. Matthew got him some glow sticks and a "Geronimo Stilton" book. It is a neat chapter book about a mouse and has really neat, different fonts in the text. I hope he likes reading it. We also rented "Miracle" which was a really good movie! Lane requested homemade carrot cake so that is what I made for him. Yum! Yum!! He had a great birthday he said.

Matthew and I are leaving this evening and spending the night in Provo with grandma and grandpa, because we don't want to drive 3 hours in the morning and then 3 hours home after the appointment. His appointment is at 8 a.m., and I just don't feel like leaving at 5 a.m. even though I have done that before. I am just not up to it tomorrow to do that.

I already made sure that his Anzemet is ordered for tomorrow. After the last spinal, he didn't get his Anzemet then he got sick in the parking lot. I will pay close attention tomorrow to make SURE that it is actually given to him.

Thank you for checking in on Matthew and us today, and thank you so much for your continued support. It means a lot to us!

~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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May 12, 2004, Wednesday
I guess it has been awhile since I last updated. But thankfully, "no news is good news" ay our house. Matthew has been doing great. He did really, really well on his Adriamycin/Ara-c week of chemo. He wasn't nauseated at all and had good enough energy to attend school the whole week. We were really happy that he felt so great that whole week and he continues to feel good. On the last day of Ara-c (Friday), however, he did give me a little scare in that he suddenly didn't feel very good in the afternoon and started running a low temperature of 100.0. I watched it nervously but it never went up higher and he felt great the next day. SHEW! Fever equals ER for Matthew.

Things have been going well here and we've just been really busy outside playing since warm weather is upon us. We planted more grass out by our swing set that had a little grass around it, but around the grass area was old dirt from what used to be an incredibly large vegetable garden. We don't have the time to maintain such a large garden so we planted grass in most of it. A small part of it we reserved for a garden. Since we don't have an automatic sprinkling system, I have to be the sprinkling system. It has been a huge job not letting it dry out. Once it is more established I can back off on how much I water it. I do have sprinklers set up to do the watering but I have to move the hoses around and go back and forth turning the water on and off. Plus our neighbor gave us more than 30 chokecherry bush starts. Those have to be kept wet constantly so they make it. It is an even bigger job to keep them wet than the grass. Hopefully, they will grow up into a large screen to hide the piece of land just behind us which is an eye-sore. I've been outside acting as the sprinkling system almost nonstop since the middle of April. But hey I won't complain! I'm getting a good tan!!

So the kids have been playing and I've been working. I do take breaks and play with them though. We have a creek behind us that fills with some water when the snow in the mountains melts. It usually starts out low then when the run-off hits its peak, it is really high and dangerous, and then it goes down again and eventually dries until next year. So the boys, especially Lane, LOVE to throw rocks in the creek and wade in it when it is low. Last Thursday is when it began running and Matthew's port was accessed because of the week-long chemo. He was so MAD that I wouldn't let him wade in the water. Then I thought, "What the heck. I'll put on my old tennis shoes and hold his hand so he won't fall down and get the bandage wet." So I did that and he was thrilled to get to walk in the water. We explored quite a bit of the creek and found a spot that had kind of deep, standing water. It was up to Lane's chest. It was a small eddy so it wasn't really moving fast. Lane had a lot of fun swimming and getting all wet in it. Then on Saturday Matthew was able to go on his own without holding my hand because I deaccessed him that morning. He didn't get too wet because it is such cold water but he had a blast just wading around on his own. I also took a few pictures of them playing in the creek which I will put on here once they are developed.

That pretty much sums up the past 2 weeks. Thank you for checking in on Matthew and for your continued support.

Matthew's next chemo is a spinal with intrathecal methotrexate on May 20th. That will start the 56-day-cycle all over once again.

~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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April 21, 2004, Wednesday
The article about Matthew is in the paper today.
Link to Vernal Express: www.vernal.com (Click on the "Society" link on the left.)
This week's edition may not have been uploaded to their web site yet. The reporter e-mailed a copy to me, so I copied it to Matthew's web site.

Story copied and pasted here at Matthew's web site: www.matthews-story.com/newspaper.html (A new page will open.)

April 20, 2004, Tuesday
Matthew got his methotrexate at PCMC yesterday. His counts Sunday when we checked them were incredible! He had a really good count recovery. Just 2 weeks ago his ANC was 88 and we were homebound. This week his ANC is 3400!

Two things were talked about yesterday:
At the beginning of continuation therapy, Dr. Barnette had told us he would get methotrexate over a 2-hour period. It was discussed yesterday by the nurse manager and other doctors that this isn't necessary. They said that even higher doses than Matthew's are done in 15 minutes. That would be fine with me to decrease the time, but Dr. Barnette had said that the reason he wants it done longer is because it absorbs in the body more if given over a longer time. Since Dr. Barnette wasn't around yesterday and they left the final decision up to me, I said I would like it if they talked with him first then got me some written information about it before we go to 15 minutes. So he still got it over 2 hours yesterday. I don't want to have any regrets about anything. The doctors and nurses were supportive and agreed with me.

The second thing that was discussed was pain that Matthew has been having for awhile (about 1-1/2 to 2 months). He's been having bone pain. I wasn't sure whether it was growing pains, from the vincristine, or something else. I've been tracking the places in his body where he says it hurts. His pain has a sudden onset and will last for about 10 minutes. Most of the time he will just be playing or doing something then all of a sudden stop and grab whatever part hurts and say, "owwiiieee, owiieee, it really hurts, it really hurts." He'll go lay down on the couch for a little while then be back to normal. Other times it would hurt so bad that he wanted me to get a heating pad and put on it and give him Tylenol. It has happened in various places in his body and has included his ankles, back of lower and upper legs, lower and upper arms, the hip, and back of the knees. When I talked with the doctor about this yesterday, she said it could be avascular necrosis (AVN) and she wanted Matthew to get x-rays of the knees and hips. So we did that while he was getting his chemo. The nurse gave me some information about it. It is caused by corticosteroid therapy (dexamethasone and prednisone) which can decrease the blood supply to the bones. I talked with Kirk about it when I got home. We hoped that the x-rays would be negative.

This morning we got the call that the x-rays showed no evidence of AVN. Thankfully!!! However, we still have to keep an eye on his pain. Hopefully, they are just growing pains.

The article will be in tomorrow's newspaper. Our local paper is only printed once a week. I'll put a link to the paper as well as copy and paste it to a page here at Matthew's web site, because they probably won't leave it on their web site forever and I want a copy of it here. She did have me proofread it and it is really good. She did a great job summarizing the last 4 years of our lives in regards to Matthew's illness.

Jeremy Rowe received his new bone marrow from his sister. The whole body radiation he received prior to the transplant was pretty tough on him. He and his family could use some visitors to his web site and a note in his guestbook if you have a chance. He is being treated at PCMC too.

Thanks for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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April 16, 2004, Friday
We had a really wonderful Easter. The kids enjoyed hunting for their candy-filled eggs, and they got a little cash [they always love that] and some Silly String in their baskets. We enjoyed a yummy Easter dinner complete with homemade carrot cake for dessert. It was just the four of us.

Monday, the 12th, Matthew got Vincristine and his CBC showed that his immune system was higher with an ANC of 645. Primary Children's allows kids on chemo to attend school if their ANC is above 500. Matthew was so EXCITED to go to school again Tuesday! He loves being with his friends. He is doing well and the side effects of the prednisone have been decreasing.

Last night (Thurs.) the reporter from our local newspaper came to our house to talk to us about all that our family has been through since December 1999. She did a good job and had questions for Lane too. She really wanted to hear what he had to say. It was hard for him to put things into words. He did the best he could. I, on the other hand, was nervous and felt emotional. I was talking way too fast for her I think. She was just took notes on everything. Kirk did a better job than I did. She has done a wonderful job with the series of articles on cancer survivors so I know she will put it all together in an understandable manner.

Matthew will have counts checked Sunday for his count-dependent methotrexate on Monday. ANC has to be greater than 1,000 and platelets greater than 100 to get it. If his counts are too low, then the chemo will be delayed a week.

Jeremy Rowe received his new bone marrow from his sister yesterday. The whole body radiation he received prior to the transplant was pretty tough on him. He and his family could use some visitors to his web site and a note in his guestbook if you have a chance. He is being treated at PCMC too.

Thanks for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina
"Shared joy is double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow." ~Swedish proverb
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April 8, 2004, Thursday
Oh the joys of steroids!!
Well Prednisone Child is doing pretty good. He's been sending me to the kitchen quite often to make this or that. This morning for breakfast he had macaroni and cheese. It's funny how his palate changes. His mood hasn't been TOO bad. He's only had one really bad incident with his attitude so far this week. The rest have been not-so-bad. He wanted to fly his kite in the field next to our house on Tuesday. So we went outside and I launched it up there. It was going good and I handed him the handle and he starts screaming, "I need my sunglasses! I can't look up at my kite because the sun hurts my eyes! Where are my sunglasses?! Why didn't you bring them out here!?" **Uh-oh!** I said I'd go back in and get them, but he said then his kite might fall without me there. He was mad and beyond reason within 2 seconds, so he just stomped in the house and said that I could fly the kite by myself. The neighbor's daughter had come out there with us. (The neighbors actually own the field.) I let her fly the kite instead for a little while.

I was going to take him to his class's spring picnic around 10:30 today. Since it was going to be outside, he would be okay to be around the kids with his low ANC. However, it rained last night and I knew they would move it indoors. It was really cloudy and cool here too. I told this to Matthew and he was so upset about it. He said he hated rain and hated chemo that makes his counts low. I felt so badly for him. I debated for a second about just taking him to it for a few minutes, but then decided it wasn't worth it. Instead I told him that I had an idea. I told him that he and I could have our own picnic in the living room. We could go get pizza by the slice (since he was craving pizza yesterday) at a local gas station/food place that sells pizzas. We rented Cat in the Hat there too. Anyway...we set up the kid's tent in the living room, ate our pizza, and then played a game of Bingo. He was very happy about that and we had a good time.

I accessed his port at home and took the sample down to the hospital to be checked before going to get the pizza. After we ate and played Bingo, I called and asked what it was. ANC is still low at 200. Good thing we didn't go to the class picnic. It's too bad the prednisone didn't increase it like it usually does. So no school, church, going anywhere for a while longer. At least we are home. We are praying and have been praying for no fever!! Fever plus low ANC equals a trip to the ER and admission to PCMC. We don't want that!

Well take care everyone and Happy Easter!

Love,
Katrina, Kirk, Lane, & Matthew
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April 5, 2004, Monday
Matthew had vincristine today in Vernal. As always, we love not having to go all the way to PCMC. We are grateful that some of his chemo can be done locally.

Counts are very low due to the Cytoxan last Monday.
WBC-.4
HCT-29 Pretty low but will probably recover without a transfusion.
PLTS-119
ANC-88 VERY low! He started prednisone today so hopefully that will increase his ANC soon!

Will recheck counts Thursday to see. He has to stay home from school. He didn't go today anyway because I expected them to be low but not that low. He has to stay away from crowds and places where there are lots of people. We would love to be able to attend church Sunday since it is Easter. We'll have to wait and see.

However, he has really good energy despite these low counts. He has been getting headaches though. No wonder. Low crit will do that. The prednisone is already making him feel itchy all over, so I've been giving him Benadryl, which helps somewhat. He's watching Brother Bear right now and enjoying that.

Thank you for checking on Matthew today. We appreciate your concern and support very, very much.
~Katrina

Please, please...
keep our friend Jeremy Rowe in your prayers. He finished treatment for AML in November. Unfortunately, they recently found out that he relapsed. He has to have a bone marrow transplant now. His older sister will be his bone marrow donor. He faces many trials and struggles ahead. He is treated at Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC) too.

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April 3, 2004, Saturday
Matthew is doing great. He went to school all week long. He's been playing with his brother all day today while we worked outside. The weather has been really nice here.

He'll need to stay home from school Monday because we expect his counts to be low. He'll get vincristine Monday here in Vernal and we'll check his counts at that time. If they aren't low, then he'll go to school as usual the rest of the week.

I am taking a medical transcription course online. I just finished transcribing 225 beginning practice transcriptions. I've been in this course for a year now and have to take an extension. Matthew's relapse put a kink in my plan to get finished at least within a year, but he, Lane, and Kirk are the most important things in my life, and I am not one bit concerned about having to take an extension or even two extensions to get finished. Someday I will finish and be able to work comfortably from home part-time. However, it will all happen when it is supposed to.

Thank you for checking on Matthew today. We appreciate your concern and support very, very much.
~Katrina

Please, please...
keep our friend Jeremy Rowe in your prayers. He finished treatment for AML in November. Unfortunately, they recently found out that he relapsed. He has to have a bone marrow transplant now. His older sister will be his bone marrow donor. He faces many trials and struggles ahead. He is treated at Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC) too.

Also, I wanted to keep the info about Melanie's newspaper article in the current update, so here it is again.
Our friend Melanie Brady (teen and neighbor friend that finished treatment for AML in November) and her family were interviewed by our local newspaper. Her story was in last week's paper. It is a VERY nice, excellent article--and emotional.
I copied and pasted the article from the newspaper web site into her special page here at Matthew's web site. You can read it here, and view the picture that was in the newspaper as well.
The link is: http://www.matthews-story.com/melanie.html Just scroll down the page to the bottom.
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March 30, 2004, Tuesday
Yesterday Matthew and I went out and back to PCMC for his Cytoxan. That went well. I made sure to ask if Anzemet was ordered this time. Turns out we got the same nurse as Thursday, so I told her about it and she felt terrible. I felt bad too, but we won't let it happen again...at least I won't.

I had deaccessed his port on Friday morning. Usually we leave it accessed because he'll be getting chemo again so soon. He wanted the needle out because he felt good enough to run around outside and ride his bike some over the weekend. He's not allowed to do any of that with it accessed. So I took the needle out and thought I'd get a break from accessing it on Monday. The PCMC nurses are so good at that, I thought they could do it. Well the nurse got the stuff out to access him and Matthew refused...flat out REFUSED to let her do it. He got up off the table and sat in the corner even. He said he wanted me to do it. So I had to. Not a big deal. We do it all the time at home anyway. Then he demanded that the nurse leave the room. So she did. I accessed it just fine and then he was on his way to getting his Cytoxan and fluids. All went well with it. We expect his counts to be way down by the weekend and the early part of next week until next week's Prednisone kicks in and boosts them back up.

Matthew lost 2 more teeth! In ONE day!
We didn't have to leave our house until 7:45 this morning since our appointment was at 11:00. I was trying to get Matthew up and going and I was tickling him. His hands were going every which way while he tried to stop me and his hand bonked his upper tooth that is loose and it went flying. I saw it head to the floor. It was too funny. I had to get a clean washcloth and put in the gap because it was bleeding. It didn't bleed for long thankfully. He grabbed his tooth off the floor and immediately put it under his pillow.

He had another VERY, VERY loose one on the bottom that has been just hanging there for 2 or 3 weeks. It is just yucky and he can't bite down on it at all. He bites down on his food by sticking it in the side of his mouth and using his molars to bite. In fact the tooth that is supposed to be in that spot has already grown in -- behind the loose one! So I don't know if that loose one will ever fall out. I told him to whack his mouth with his hand on that tooth as well. He wouldn't do it. I asked the oncologist if he would take it out -- he wouldn't either, but said it would probably be okay if we did at home.

So this evening before Matthew went to bed I told him I thought he'd get double the money tonight if the tooth fairy only had to make ONE trip for TWO teeth. He went for it and very excitedly asked me to take it out!! I said, "no...dad will do it." Kirk looks at me with that NO WAY, NO HOW look and said, "NOOOO! MOM will do it." He went and got a pair of hemostats that he uses to get fish hooks out of fish’s' mouths and cleaned them off with Betadine and alcohol. Now I was in for it. ME!? UGH!! Why did I open my big mouth? Matthew sat in a kitchen chair and said "Hurry mom! Do it! Pull it out!" So I gently put the hemostats on the outside edges of his tooth, made sure it was holding on tight, and YANK! Out it popped just like the top one had!! UGH!!! It about made me sick to do that. I had a warm, wet washcloth ready and put it in the space left by the tooth. He bit down on it and it didn't bleed for very long either. He said it hurt the same as when the top one came out which was just a little bit. SHEW! I felt better about that, but I don't think I'll be able to do that again. I was shaking afterwards.

Well the tooth fairy brought Matthew $2!!! Wow! I do think he deserved it for sure though. What a kid.

Thank you for checking on Matthew today. We appreciate your concern and support very, very much.
~Katrina

Please, please...
keep our friend Jeremy Rowe in your prayers. He finished treatment for AML in November. Unfortunately, they recently found out that he relapsed. He has to have a bone marrow transplant now. His older sister will be his bone marrow donor. He faces many trials and struggles ahead. He is treated at Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC) too.

Also, I wanted to keep the info about Melanie's newspaper article in the current update, so here it is again.
Our friend Melanie Brady (teen and neighbor friend that finished treatment for AML in November) and her family were interviewed by our local newspaper. Her story was in last week's paper. It is a VERY nice, excellent article--and emotional.
I copied and pasted the article from the newspaper web site into her special page here at Matthew's web site. You can read it here, and view the picture that was in the newspaper as well.
The link is: http://www.matthews-story.com/melanie.html Just scroll down the page to the bottom.
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March 26, 2004, Friday
Well yesterday's spinal went okay. Matthew did well with the spinal and "sleepy medicines" as usual, but waiting for the procedure room to be open in clinic and being hungry did not go so well. His tummy was killing him. He sat in the waiting room on my lap and just moaned because he was so hungry. It was a packed waiting room too. I checked with the nurses to make sure his meds were ordered from the pharmacy so once we got in the room, we wouldn't have to be waiting on them! The thing that was holding up the spinals today was JCAHO’s new policy. The Joint something or other Commission did some inspections on PCMC and I guess they were told they were supposed to be monitoring all kids ON the heart monitor for one whole hour after any sedation. Previously, if a child only had light sedation, they only had to be monitored about 30 minutes after. Well it changed and the schedule was already made so it caused all spinals to get behind. His appointment was at 12:30 and we didn't get in the room until 1:45 (Matthew did get to eat breakfast though, so that helped...a little, because he wouldn't eat much.) After the doc saw him and they finally got everything hooked up and ready..then rounding another nurse up to help chart the meds, etc. it was 2:40 before starting the spinal and giving the "sleepy meds." Then we had to wait, like I mentioned, for one whole hour before leaving. At least he could eat something when he woke up. So he did eat some things I brought from home and drank water in that hour we waited.

Finally, we left around 3:45, picked up his 6-TG pills from the pharmacy and headed to the parking lot. We were about to get in the car and Matthew says, "OH!! I need a drink of water!" I looked at him like "what?!" and saw his cheeks puff out and his face turned white. I had the car door open and he was about to step in and I said, "No, do it on the cement" and pointed to the ground. He vomited a couple times in the parking lot. Thank goodness it wasn't in the car!!! (I do keep gallon-sized zip lock baggies in the car for that reason though.) But this was even better. Just vomit and leave it for mother nature to clean up. But I did feel bad for the next person to park in our parking space.

At that moment I realized I had not paid good enough attention to the meds the nurse was giving him. I usually listen for all the meds they give and make sure Anzemet is one of them. That's the antinausea med. I tried to remember if they said that one, but I was paying attention to Matthew too much this time and so I didn't recall any of the meds. Shame on me. I was about to go back in and ask, but I was trying to get Matthew settled in the back seat, get him a drink of water from his water bottle, make sure he was okay, making sure he knew where the zip lock bag was just in case, etc., etc., and I didn't want to leave him in the hot car all by himself. So I made a mental note to call PCMC and have a nurse check his chart to see if Anzemet was given or not. He's never thrown up after a spinal because he's always gotten his Anzemet.

So I called this morning and the answer was 'No' ... Just what I figured. Shame on me. The nurse said that the doctor didn't even order it. I usually make sure to mention that Anzemet needs to be ordered along with the chemo meds, sleepy meds, etc. but I didn't do it this time. Moms are their child's best advocate and I failed him yesterday. I guess I learned to never forget it again and that it does indeed make a difference!!! He felt gross all the way home and slept the entire way. He had planned to order 2 Happy Meals, but he was sound asleep and wouldn't wake up to eat them. I ordered them for him anyway. He did feel good enough to eat when we got home...after a 3-hour car trip. But when we got home, he just ate one and let his brother eat the other one.

He felt good enough this morning to go to school, although he only ate 2 bites of his oatmeal. I made him try to eat some toast and he ate half of it.

Monday we go back out to PCMC for Cytoxan. I will be SURE that Anzemet is on the doctor's order next time and from now on!!

Please, please...
keep our friend Jeremy Rowe in your prayers. He finished treatment for AML in November. Unfortunately, they recently found out that he relapsed. He has to have a bone marrow transplant now. His older sister will be his bone marrow donor. He faces many trials and struggles ahead. He is treated at Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC) too.

Thank you for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina

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March 24, 2004, Wednesday
Matthew's counts are good to get his spinal tomorrow at PCMC. His appointment isn't until 12:30! Thankfully the nurse said it would be okay to go ahead and let Matthew have breakfast BEFORE 7:30 a.m. After 7:30, no food until after the spinal. Then he can have clear liquids until 9:30. I think Matthew will do okay since he gets to at least have breakfast. I hope he does okay. Usually I schedule the spinals first thing in the morning because he has to be n.p.o., but this was the earliest I could get him in this time.
Counts:
WBC-3.1
HCT-33.5
PLTS-188
ANC-2600

Matthew's eyes are all cleared up now! I know it was the allergy eye drops that helped (Alamast). So he did not have a reinfection thankfully. He just has allergies. He had his followup eye appointment today and Dr. Powell looked in the back of his eyes by dilating the pupils. He said they look normal and he saw no signs of infection. He believes too that it was allergies causing the redness this past weekend. He said to use the Alamast as needed.

Lane's eyes are clearing up with the Polymyxin. His were draining so badly Monday night, so he stayed home from school Tuesday. We've been very careful about hand washing and I've used tons of Lysol wipes to wipe things down and Lysol spray too. Hopefully when Lane's eyes are better that will be the last of the infections! We can handle allergies, but no more infections.

Again, please, please...
keep our friend Jeremy Rowe in your prayers. He finished treatment for AML in November. Unfortunately, they recently found out that he relapsed. He has to have a bone marrow transplant now. His older sister will be his bone marrow donor. He faces many trials and struggles ahead. He is treated at Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC) too.

Also, we decided to agree to being interviewed by our local newspaper. They want to do an article on Matthew and us and end it with information about the upcoming Relay for Life.

Thank you for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina

(I wanted to keep the info about Melanie's newspaper article in the current update, so here it is again.)
Our friend Melanie Brady (teen and neighbor friend that finished treatment for AML in November) and her family were interviewed by our local newspaper. Her story was in last week's paper. It is a VERY nice, excellent article--and emotional.

I copied and pasted the article from the newspaper web site into her special page here at Matthew's web site. You can read it here, and view the picture that was in the newspaper as well.
At Matthew's web site, the link is: http://www.matthews-story.com/melanie.html Just scroll down the page to the bottom.
The newspaper's direct link is this (no picture there, just text): http://www.vernal.com/Mar17/so.Brady.TXT.html
Main page of the Vernal Express, if you want to take that route to view her article: http://www.vernal.com/

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March 22, 2004, Monday
The weekend was wonderful!! Beautiful weather for a beautiful wedding....just perfect for a beautiful bride!!! Annette (my sister) and Sam were married Saturday. The whole day Saturday was so wonderful -- from wedding to reception. Words can't express how happy I am for her and Sam. Matthew did a superb job as ring bearer. He said some touching things today. He's a very emotionally-aware kid. During the ring ceremony, one of my sisters sang a beautiful song (she did GREAT by the way -- I didn't know she could sing THAT well! She should try out for American Idol. I had tears in my eyes). Well after the ring ceremony was over Matthew came back to our table and said "I was about to cry, not because I was sad, but because I was so happy." And true enough, I had watched his face during the song and he had that look like he was getting emotionally touched by the song. What a sweetie. Later, during the dancing he came over while Kirk and I were taking a break from dancing (my feet were killing me!) and he said, "I'm having a GREAT time!! I will remember this reception forever!!!" Too cute. It was a really fun reception. She had planned for dancing and all of Lane and Matthew's cousins were cutting a rug. So was Grandpa Grigsby. Matthew was hilarious to watch dance.

Lane didn't care for the dancing and did NOT want to--not even with me. He didn't feel very good anyway. He had gotten a tummy ache the night before and was up throwing up at 4:00a.m. *Sigh* (It was from dinner the night before...something didn't sit right.) His eye also was bright red and runny! So I put Matthew's eye drops in his eyes. I was VERY careful not to touch the tip of the dropper on his eye lashes and I washed my hands. I had to use the same dropper for both kids -- weekend, out of town, no docs. Well I washed hands between giving each kid their eye drops. Matthew was supposed to continue his until Monday, then stop and have an eye followup on Wednesday. Well Saturday night Matthew's eyes started turning red again! Sunday night the eyelids were VERY puffy and this morning they were stuck shut again. Lane's haven't been stuck shut yet. So I called the eye doctor and he had Matthew come in today. He said that this is a mystery and he wants Matthew to stay on the antibiotic drops (Polymyxin) until Wednesday now and also give him an allergy eye drop. Then have him still come in for the eye checkup Wednesday. This entire month we've dealt with eye problems. The eye doctor said it was fine to give both kids drops out of the same dropper as long as I did what I told him I was doing. He said it was okay to do that, and that I most likely did not reinfect Matthew's eyes from Lane's eyes. I just want it all to go away and clear up for good! Thankfully Matthew will be going out to PCMC this Thursday if his counts are good for the spinal. We'll be able to have his oncologist look at his eyes if they are still red and see what he thinks face to face.

Well back to the reception -- the D.J. got the cousins to start a conga line and my 10-year-old niece was the leader. She did an excellent job leading everyone around and knew exactly what to do. She was doing the little foot steps and kick perfect along with rolling the arms then tossing an arm in the air. Every now and then she'd do a hip toss instead of a kick with the foot and that was hilarious. It was hilarious to watch her dad's jaw drop whenever she did that. He said something about "my little girl being too YOUNG to be dancing like that!" As conga lines go, people kept dragging on-lookers into the line and before you know it, you have a very long conga line. I was dragged in at some point and TRIED to drag Lane with me. (Matthew was already in it with the cousins at the front of the line.) Lane did NOT want to go. He held onto a chair with all his might and was dragging it across the floor behind him so I had to let go of him. Later I saw that grandpa had got him in the line and he was having lots of fun. Right after that was a slow dance and Lane came up to me and I asked him if he'd dance so he did and he had fun. After that he felt better and got into celebrating with all of us. Annette had these little clear things with ribbons tied to them. They had bubbles in them. There were tons of these things and the kids had so much fun blowing bubbles at the people dancing. It made it festive and it was a perfect way for the kids to get up and move around and interact with the dancers. Some of them danced themselves while they blew bubbles. During Annette and Sam's dance (the first dance) the kids quietly blew bubbles at them. They weren't too close or anything...just perfect distance to interact with Sam and Annette but not be intrusive. It was neat. A very good idea! I had never seen that at a reception.

Well that is enough about the wedding day I guess. Back to Matthew: like I mentioned, he'll have a spinal Thursday if his counts are good. We'll check them Wednesday. He has a followup eye appointment Wednesday too. He'll have Cytoxan the following Monday.

Our friend Melanie Brady (teen and neighbor friend that finished treatment for AML in November) and her family were interviewed by our local newspaper. Her story was in last week's paper. It is a VERY nice, excellent article--and emotional.

I copied and pasted the article from the newspaper web site into her special page here at Matthew's web site. You can read it here, and view the picture that was in the newspaper as well.
At Matthew's web site, the link is: http://www.matthews-story.com/melanie.html Just scroll down the page to the bottom.
The newspaper's direct link is this (no picture there, just text): http://www.vernal.com/Mar17/so.Brady.TXT.html
Main page of the Vernal Express, if you want to take that route to view her article: http://www.vernal.com/

Our family has been asked if we would like to be interviewed for an article about cancer in our family as well. I guess the Relay for Life Committee has asked the newspaper to feature some people in town who are cancer survivors each week before the upcoming Relay for Life. We are still deciding whether or not to do this.

Please, please...
keep our friend Jeremy Rowe in your prayers. He finished treatment for AML in November. Unfortunately, they recently found out that he relapsed. He has to have a bone marrow transplant now. His older sister will be his bone marrow donor. He faces many trials and struggles ahead. He is treated at Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC) too.

Thank you for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina
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March 18, 2004, Thursday
Update on his eyes:
Dr. Powell called today and said that a bacteria did grow out from the eye cultures. It is Streptococcus pneumoniae. He said that it is a fairly common bacteria found on the skin, eyelashes, and other places of the body. His eyes are doing really good now on the Polymyxin thankfully!!! By Wednesday, the discharge was completely gone and the redness is mostly gone now too. I am so glad we went to see an eye doctor about this. It is scary when he gets stuff that is so common and treatable, but can cause intense complications in him because he doesn't have a normal immune system. I'm glad this antibiotic eye drop is working!!

PCMC said that they were glad he had an eye doctor in the loop, and were glad to hear that his eyes were clearing up.

Counts rechecked today:
PCMC wanted his counts rechecked today because his platelets had dropped fairly quickly after last week's Adriamycin/Ara-c week. His platelets today are doing well at 72 and his ANC is great at 1800! His hematocrit is 31.4.

We are happy that Matthew is feeling good. He's been running around outside playing and having fun. Yesterday evening, I was watching Lane and Matthew out the kitchen window as they were swinging in the swings. They were being LOUD -- screaming and hollering and whooping it up. I just thought how fun it must be to be a kid! Next thing I knew they were kicking their shoes off and yanking their socks off to swing bare-footed! You should have seen the smile on my face!!! We expect Matthew to continue feeling well all through the weekend, and we are so thankful for that because Aunt Annette is getting married!!! YIPPEEE!!!

Please keep our friend Jeremy Rowe in your prayers. He finished treatment for AML in November. Unfortunately, they recently found out that he relapsed. He has to have a bone marrow transplant now. His older sister will be his bone marrow donor. He faces many trials and struggles ahead. He is treated at Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC) too.

Thank you for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina
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March 16, 2004, Tuesday
Saturday after Matthew ended his week of chemo, I had his counts checked just to see where they were before deaccessing his port. His platelets had dropped to 77 (from 192 on Monday). So PCMC wants me to check his counts again this Thursday to make sure they haven't gone down any further. His ANC is good though at 1900.

His eyes flared up again yesterday. That eyelid puffiness he had last week after ending his eye drops cleared up. This past Fri, Sat, and Sun. his eyes were looking back to normal finally. Then Sunday night they started looking pink again. Now yesterday morning his eyes were stuck shut REALLY bad with goopy discharge and they are extremely red again. His ped. said to get him into an eye doc and get cultures. (I only called him-- didn't have to take him in to be seen.) He referred an eye doc and called the eye doc to brief him on Matthew and what was going on. I put in a call to PCMC to let them know as well. They said I was doing the exact right thing. They needed to be cultured. They said he's on a very low dose of Ara-c and it should not cause this. Ara-c in higher doses causes redness and puffiness, but never discharge so they are concerned too. We'll know results of the culture within 24 hours (so later today) if anything is going to grow out, but they'll give it 48 for sure.

Dr. Powell (eye doc) put him on a different eye drop called Polymyxin. We gave him 2 doses before bed last night and this morning his eyes were stuck shut again. Once they were finally opened, we noticed that the redness has decreased. The other eye drops didn't clear up the redness that fast. I am so glad they looked better today. I was starting to get very worried even though I was trying hard not to.

He's felt better the past few days which I'm glad about. He's been out enjoying the beautiful weather here by riding bikes with his brother and going for walks in the creek (it's dry for now) behind our house. He also went to school today.

Grandma and Grandpa Grigsby and my little brother (18 y.o.) are here from Tennessee!! They got here Sunday morning so it has been busy at our house. My sister is getting married this Saturday in Provo. Mom and dad will be leaving today to go to Provo and in a motel close by. Mom needs will be helping Annette get things ready for the reception. My brother wants to go snow boarding tomorrow. I don't blame him! I wish I could go too. Annette and Sam are getting married in a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint Temple. There are some very good friends of theirs who are coming up from Texas (she was in physical therapy school there and that is where he is from) who aren't of our religion and cannot go in the temple to see their wedding. Only worthy LDS members of a certain age (19) are allowed. Well Annette and Sam decided that for their friends, their little nieces and nephews, and our brother and a sister, that they are going to do a small ring ceremony at the reception. They aren't going to say actual vows because those were done in the temple. They are going to bear their testimonies of temple marriage and one of my other sisters will sing a song, and then Matthew will walk to them with the rings. Yep! She asked him to be the ring bearer and he is so excited!! He gets to wear a tuxedo and everything. He's been practicing walking slowly carrying a pillow. Lane "coaches" him by telling him not to laugh or giggle about ANYTHING. It is cute to watch them. We are very happy and excited for Annette and Sam and can't wait until Saturday!

I HOPE Matthew's counts will be good for this busy weekend and that his eyes are cleared up with no further problems!!

Thank you for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina
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March 11, 2004, Thursday
Matthew hasn't been feeling well this week because of the chemo so he hasn't gone to school. He says he is feeling really, really yucky inside and weird inside. He hasn't thrown up but he just doesn't feel good. The weather is so nice here right now and has been all week, but he hasn't gone out to play once. I'm giving him Ara-c here at home every 12 hours (left his Port accessed) and I give him an antinausea medication called Anzemet by IV before the Ara-c. It does help his tummy. Without it, he'd probably be throwing up.

He did NOT want to have his Ara-c this morning. He said that he HATES chemo and my cancer is all gone so why do I have to still have more chemo?! I told him I hated it too but we have to keep giving it to make sure the cancer is all killed. He calmed down and let me give him his
Ara-c a few minutes after that. I don't express this much on here but today I am --
CANCER SUCKS!!!

Thank you for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina
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March 8, 2004, Monday
His counts are good today to get Adriamycin. He'll get that here in Vernal after a physical by his pediatrician. Dr. Pollary can also check Matthew's eyes again after last week's infection. They are still kind of red and by evening the eyelids are puffy. The discharge is gone. I'm still worried about them a little. Dr. Pollary never said "pink eye"...only "infection"... which is probably one in the same as far as eye infections go. His last dose of antibiotic eye drops was Sunday. Dr. Pollary said today that Matthew's eyes are looking like they are on the mend. The puffiness should go away soon.

Counts today:
WBC- 2.0
HCT- 34.7
PLTS- 192 (Highest platelets have been in a long time.)
ANC- 1860

He'll have Adriamycin today and tomorrow, then Ara-c every 12 hours on Wed., Thurs., and Friday. He'll also take 6-TG pills Wed. through Friday.

His hair quit falling out. It thinned a lot, but there is still enough there for him to feel comfortable about not wearing a hat to school. He didn't wear one today for the first time! It's warm enough here this week for him to go without. He loved not wearing one today.

Thank you for checking on Matthew today.
~Katrina
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March 2, 2004, Tuesday
A "normal kid" event today.
Today after I picked Matthew up from kindergarten we had to go grocery shopping at Wal-mart. While there, I noticed his eye was really red and it got further and further irritated. When we were finished at Wal-mart, I called his pediatrician's office (Dr. Pollary) from my cell phone in the Wal-mart parking lot. There was a lot of goop in the corner of his eye too. He was crying about it. So we were able to go right in and have it checked out. Dr. P put some numbing eye drops in it and Matthew said it immediately felt better. Dr. P said that the cornea may be scratched, so he put some ointment in it and patched it. The ointment had an antibiotic in it too. Matthew was happy about getting the patch because it really made it feel better and he thinks he looks pretty darn cool too. He said "arrrghh matie" in the doctor's office. Before that he was really grumpy and not himself. Dr. P said "we have Matthew back!" and gave Matthew a little hug. I was glad we could get him in. He said that he's got a secondary infection too, so I had to go back to Wal-mart with the prescription for antibiotic eye drops. We can take the patch off after 24 hours. Matthew is thrilled he can wear it to school tomorrow. LOL

Matthew is feeling fine and has been going to school. He has Adriamycin/ara-c next week. His hair and eyelashes have been falling out. Dr. P said it may have been eyelashes that caused the scratch. He still has some fuzz on his head though. They had spring pictures taken at school yesterday (Monday). Matthew told me that he took his hat off for the picture and that the person taking the pictures flattened his hair down some for him. Whenever he takes his hat off, all the fuzz sticks straight up everywhere. I was proud of him that he felt that comfortable to take his hat off.

Please continue to keep Jeremy in your prayers. His web site: www.caringbridge.org/id/jtrowe/index.htm

~Katrina
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February 22, 2004, Sunday
I accessed Matthew's port today to check counts. He'll have methotrexate and vincristine tomorrow at PCMC. It is important to check counts before going all the way out there. They've told me the parameters they have to be. If I had any doubt about the numbers, the nurses have told me it is fine to call the on-call doctor and ask him. But with his counts today, I am sure he'll get it. His platelets are a tiny bit below the 100 mark, but I was actually told that it would be okay to get the chemo even if they were 90.
Counts:
WBC - 3.1
HCT - 33.1
PLTS - 98
ANC - 2500

The IV methotrexate is a 2 hour infusion. After his appointment, we are going to stop by Make-A-Wish's new building. It's called A Wishing Place. The grand opening was Saturday.

We had an absolutely wonderful trip to Lake Tahoe over President's Day weekend! The kids were great in the car for the 12 hour trip. We were really proud of them! My sister has private access to the lake. Only residents of that particular place can go to the lake right there where she lives. It was so beautiful! There is a little pier that goes out over the water and there were geese and ducks wintering there. They've been fed a lot you can tell because they came right over to us to see if we had anything for them. We didn't the first time we went down to the lake, but after that we brought some bread for them. The kids had a lot of fun feeding them. Kirk was even able to catch a goose and hold it for just about a minute. The kids petted it and I got pictures.

Lake Tahoe area has huge pine trees! We've never seen pine trees so enormous!! And they have giant pine cones too. My sister had collected some the previous summer that were about 12 inches long at least! She gave one to Lane (Matthew didn't want one). Lane took it to school for show-and-tell when we returned. His classmates were awestruck by it. He took one that we find around here to compare it to.

We also went sledding on a great hill with good bumps. Lane was catching awesome air on his sled and so did his aunt!! Matthew had fun and had lots of energy for sledding. We went and saw where she works, drove around and saw the scenery, watched DVDs, and just relaxed and had a great time. It was so NICE to get away. The snow was old and crusty so you couldn't sink into it. On her back deck it was up to Matthew's waist. He could climb on it, stomp in it, and make okay-looking snow angels in it.

The kids did great in the car for the 12 hour drive. We were really proud of them! They would sleep, just look out the window for trains (there are lots of train tracks in Nevada), watch DVDs, or draw pictures. We just drove straight there with no stopping except for lunch and for one other gas fill up and stretch-the-legs break.

Although still very thin-looking, Matthew was finally starting to get a decent amount of hair back, and now it is thinning a LOT all of a sudden. It's been 2 weeks since he got 1100 mg of Cytoxan, so that would do it. I'm not sure if it will completely fall out. I hope not. We'll have to wait and see. I realized that I didn't have a picture of him with his hair back so after the boys finished a bunch of new Lego creations, I took a picture of each of them with their Legos. So Matthew's picture will show how much hair he's gotten back.

Speaking of Legos...when Matthew got his Vincristine here in Vernal last Wednesday (day after returning from our trip), Dr. Pollary took a moment to ask Matthew what kinds of things he enjoys doing. Matthew relpied that he loves to play with Legos. Dr. Pollary said,"hmmmmm....have you ever heard of Legoland?" (I had, but hadn't ever told the boys about it.) Well he explained Legoland to Matthew and asked Matthew if he had ever made a wish. Since we have done that with Make-A-Wish already, Matthew cannot make a second wish even though he's relapsed. (Dr. Pollary grunted about that. He said that if they relapse, they should get a second wish...even third wishes.) Well they talked for a while about Legoland and Dr. Pollary suggested to Matthew that it would be a neat thing to do when he finishes all his chemo again. This is all Matthew talks about now -- is going to Legoland when he's done with treatment. He's asked me to look it up on the internet to see it and when I did, he changed his mind...he doesn't want to see it now...he wants to wait and be surprised by what it looks like when he gets there. Too cute!!

Please keep Melanie in your prayers. Also another friend from PCMC that has AML, Jeremy Rowe -- keep him in your prayers too. All of Jeremy's updates are at this link: www.caringbridge.org/id/jtrowe. These teens have had a rough road of treatment...extremely rough!... and they don't ever need to be on that road again...

Melanie doesn't have a web site. I've made her a special page here that explains a little about her. I talked with her mom yesterday (Saturday). They had a scare with her counts dropping for no reason. Thankfully they did come back up last week. She finally got her Pic Line out last week, and is off all the antifungal medicines she has been on to keep her lungs healthy. (She has been on antifungals since October when she got sepsis.) She had her last followup CT scan on her lungs and they are looking good and healthy now with no sign of infection. Matthew and I saw her and Rebecca (mom) at the lab here in Vernal. Melanie looks so good!!! Her hair is thick enough now so she has abandoned her wig and hats. YEAH! I found out she got to participate in her drill team's state tournament too. (When she was diagnosed last May, she had just made the high school's drill team and passed out at a practice.) The team's coaches added a tiny part at the end just for her. She's been out the whole season due to her treatment and recovery. Well the drill team from Uintah High School won the state championship for the 3A division!! And the team had Melanie go up and accept the trophy for them. Way to go Melanie and Uintah High School drill team members!

Thank you for checking on Matthew and for your support.
~Katrina
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February 12, 2004, Thursday
YEAH FOR PREDNISONE!! Well...only because it increased his counts! If only the moodiness, irritability, incessant hunger, etc. didn't have to come with it...

WBC- 1.9
HCT- 33
PLTS- 117! (Up from 60 on Monday)
ANC- 1700! (Up from 322 on Monday)

His ANC and platelets have come up a lot and that is great because we are taking a trip! Yep, we are getting out of town and away from all this cold weather to go to more snow but a little warmer temperatures. Matthew's oncologist said that if his ANC came up to at LEAST 500 and preferably even higher...like around 1,000, then we could go. The kids are very excited to go visit their aunt who lives near Lake Tahoe. She lives on the Nevada side near South Tahoe. She said that she has 3 feet of snow in her front yard. That is up to Matthew's armpits!! Lane and Matthew love snow and want to go really bad even if it is a 10 hour drive! Kirk and I will be glad when we arrive, that is for sure, and we are excited to get out of here for the weekend and visit my sister. We have never been to visit her before! Shame on us!! But we are going to now and we are excited!! And the weather looks great for driving. Yeah! We can't wait to get out of here, and do something different for a change.

Matthew was a little sad he'd miss his Valentine party after all, but quickly overcame his sadness when we told him about all the snow where his aunt lives. We brought his Valentines for his class to school today and his teacher will pass them out for him.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!
~Katrina
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February 9, 2004, Monday ~Day 11~
Today Matthew got Vincristine here in Vernal. (We love not having to go all the way out to PCMC for Vinc.) He'll start his 7 day prednisone spurt today. He has to take 3 pills in the morning and 2-1/2 in the evening.

A week after Cytoxan has really dropped his ANC. He'll have to stay home from school now that his ANC is low. He was sad about that because this week his class is making Valentine's Day bags for their party. He had big crocodile tears and cried because he always misses the school parties. (He's got to attend the Christmas one and that is it so far this year.) PCMC got a fax of his counts and said to recheck them on Thursday. Maybe the prednisone will increase the ANC by the end of the week. We'll have to wait and see.

Counts:
WBC- .7
HCT- 32
PLTS- 60
ANC- 322

Matthew wrote a great story about his pediatrician and gave it to him today. He wrote, "Doctor Pollary by Matthew Harris. Doctor Pollary is a really great doctor. He is really funny. He puts the stethoscope on my head!" Then he drew a picture of he and Dr. Pollary with the stethoscope on his head. It is so cute. Of course the spelling was not as I typed it at all. He wrote it for school and he was supposed to use invented spelling...his own phonetic spelling. Dr. Pollary loved it and told Matthew that he will keep it in a very special place. We also got a picture of he and Matthew together.

Matthew's dentist appointment went great last Wednesday. I'm so glad he was able to get that over with when his counts were good last week!! He had 3 cavities fixed in one hour. The dentist was able to work fast because Matthew cooperated so well (by falling fast asleep again)! He was snoring loud this time too. It was funny. He did wake up kind of grumpy though but once the gas had worn off, he was back to normal.

Thank you for checking in on Matthew.
~Katrina
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February 3, 2004, Tuesday
Matthew got Cytoxan (1130 mg) on Monday (Day 4) at PCMC. He was hydrated well with saline before chemo and after. We played games from the game closet at PCMC for the 3 hours we were in clinic. He did well Monday and is still doing really well.

He would have went to school today, but he desperately needed a dental cleaning and examination. His oncologist said that NOW would be a good time to get him in for that because his ANC and platelets are good. I called yesterday as soon as I got home and the dentist had an opening at 11:30 this morning. He gets out of school at 11:35, but he has to take amoxicillin an hour prior to the appointment because of his port-a-cath. So...I didn't send him to school because it would be a hassle getting a note from the dentist with permission for Matthew to take it during school. Plus I had to go pick it up from Wal-mart this morning anyway. He has 3 cavities- 2 small ones and 1 big one. The dentist wants to try and fix them all at once since Matthew is so good at the dentist. (The last time he had fillings, he zonked out from the gas and was snoring while the dentist was drilling away! The dentist had to hold Matthew's mouth open with the mouth insert things.) Anyway, he was put on a cancellation list so when people canceled, he could hopefully get in sooner. Sure enough, he was able to get in tomorrow. The appointment isn't until 3:00 p.m., so he'll be able to go to school tomorrow. I'm thankful he's been feeling well and had good enough energy to goof off with his brother this evening. They are funny guys!

Matthew's next chemo will be Vincristine on Monday the 9th.

~Katrina
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January 28, 2004, Wednesday
Matthew's counts today are good enough to get his spinal tomorrow at Primary Children's. Then Monday, we have to go back out for him to get Cytoxan.

Counts:
WBC - 1.9
HCT - 35.5
PLTS - 132
ANC - 1400

Platelets have to be at least 100 and ANC 1,000, so he's looking great!

I didn't have his counts checked last Friday like I mentioned in the previous update. He was acting fine, doing fine, so I just gave he (and I) a break from another needle access.

Parent teacher conferences yesterday for the kids:
Lane has to work on math and reading still. (He's in 3rd grade.) It breaks my heart that he struggles and has to work and work to memorize his times tables. But he's making progress. We celebrated that he finally passed off his 4s this week! We've been practicing them for 3 weeks. He can recite them perfectly to Kirk and I, he can say the answer if you "pop-quiz" him, but to do a speed test to pass them off at school is torture. He has 3 minutes to do 35 problems. Speed is just difficult for him. He seems to stay positive about it though and he doesn't get too down that it takes him longer than the other kids to pass the speed test. I'm very proud of him and all his hard work. I'm thankful that Lane is patient with himself. One good thing we found out from the SAT tests he took last October is that he LOVES science. We always knew that, but he scored very high on the Environmental section of the SAT. So Kirk and I decided that we really, really need to incorporate math and reading into what he likes.

Matthew's conference is much different. He's in Kindergarten so the work is a lot easier than Lane's but his teacher said she is struggling to find things for Matthew to pass off that will challenge him. She made up an accelerated learning requirement sheet for him and she said she does not have to do this very often, so it is hard for her. She said he'll probably pass off everything pretty quickly as he already did one of them which was to write numbers 1 to 100. She said he wrote them as fast as some of the kids in the class can write from 1 to 20. He loves math. Anything to do with numbers he loves. One thing I remember he used to do while driving out to Primary Children's when he was just 3 years old, was that he would always have a notebook and write numbers over and over. He perfected 1 to 10, then he would ask me "how do you make a 12, a 13, a 14," and so on. He of course could count orally from 1 to 20 very fast already. I would tell him it is a one and a two together, etc. He'd write the numbers from 1 to 20 over and over and over. Then it expanded to higher numbers on up to 100. By the time he was almost 4 years old, he could write his numbers to 100. I'm thankful that Matthew has a deep desire for learning that already comes from within himself.

~Katrina
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January 19, 2004, Monday
Well Matthew's week of chemo is over now. He did pretty good through it all. His tummy was somewhat more upset than usual and although he never actually threw up or anything, I could just tell that he just didn't feel good. He hardly ate anything except breakfast the whole week. His eyelids were red as if he was allergic to something too, but nothing more ever came of that