Praise God, today was a quieter day for Jeremy.

Thank you all for your prayers.  Turns out the fever Jeremy hit last night didn’t persist for an hour, so they didn’t consider it a true fever.  He won’t need the additional antibiotics and they turned his fluids down tonight.  Later this evening, he hit 38 C again, but dropped back down to 37.9 C within the hour.  So again, not a true fever, but they will keep an eye on him throughout the night.

Jeremy also had a decent appetite today.  It was great to see him take big bites without spitting anything out.  I had failed to mention this in previous posts, but praise God, Jeremy hasn’t had any mouth sores or mucositis that prevent him from eating.

He hasn’t gotten any new skin bumps and the ones that he does have are starting to fade. There is one on his arm that looks slightly more red than it did yesterday and looks very similar to the one that was on his leg that was biopsied.  It doesn’t seem to be bothering him, though.

Today, before his nap, Jeremy noticed that Alice had winced a bit because she was feeling some discomfort from baby brother kicking.  He prayed, “Dear God, pray for Momma ouchie.  Pray for home.  Please heal me.  In Jesus mane, Amen!”  When he finished his prayer, he turned to me and said, “I want to go home, too, Daddy!” This isn’t the first time that Jeremy’s mentioned home during this round of treatment.  He started bringing it up more than a week ago.  We’re saddened each time we need to tell him that we can’t go home yet, but we do tell him that we aren’t going home without him.

We’ve also been tasked with caring for the skin biopsy site.  There really isn’t that much to do, just changing the bandage every 24 hours.  We remove the bandage, clean around the site with a sterile saline wipe, dry it with gauze, let it air dry a bit, then apply a new bandage.

We give him a heads up about changing it pretty far in advance – we change it at around 2pm, but tell him about it shortly after breakfast.  He usually responds with, “Yeah, ok.  Be careful with my bandon.”  As we get closer and closer to 2pm, though, he’ll get less and less agreeable to it.  Who can blame him? It was a traumatic experience for him and we have to revisit it everyday for the next two weeks.

Jeremy is an amazing kid.  When we told him when it was time to change the bandage, he got really quiet.  We saw his lip quiver and frown a bit and it looked like he was holding something back.  We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.  Our 2 and a half year old son, as much as he’s gone through in the last two and a half months, was putting on a brave face and determined to hold it all in.  We couldn’t let him do that and told him that if he wanted to cry, it was ok.  He let it all out.  He was crying when we were changing the bandage, but he still managed to give us very clear instructions.  “Don’t wipe my spider, wipe around!” I had told him yesterday that it looked like he had a spider on his leg because of the stitches.  His crying stops shortly after a new bandage covers the site and he’s back to his usual self.  We don’t hold back on the praise and Jeremy catches on pretty quickly, agreeing with us, “I did a really good job, Momma! I did a really good job, Daddy!”

From time to time, Jeremy will get hold of our camera and take pictures.  Here are some pictures he’s taken recently.

Guess which parent he likes more?

Jeremy is really good to his Momma.  He’ll get up in the middle of his meal, turn his bib around, and give Alice a really good hug just because he feels like it.  He gently strokes her face when he sees her cry, offering her a tissue.  He gives her presents (his own toys).  He tells her he loves her all the time.  The relationship between mother and child is indeed special and it’s awesome to see the bond that he and Alice share.

Praise God:

• that Jeremy has not encountered any nausea, vomiting, or bothersome mucositis
• that Jeremy was fever free for the majority of the day
• that Jeremy ate well
• that Jeremy continues to be in good spirits and playful
• that Jeremy slept 40 minutes earlier than usual
• that Alice and baby brother are doing well
• that Alice and I continue to be in good health

Please continue to pray:

• that God would continue to use this situation for His glory
• that we would be obedient to God’s plans for this situation
• that we would continue to cast our worries and fears on the Lord
• that God would provide full and complete healing and total health for Jeremy
• that God would sustain Jeremy through this block of treatment
• that Jeremy’s bone marrow aspirate at the end of this block of treatment would show < 5% blasts (leukemia cells) in his bone marrow and negative MRD (minimum residual disease)
• that God would provide with the whole process of finding a bone marrow match, the risks of transplant, and the anxiety of it achieving long-term remission for Jeremy
• that word would continue to get out about the need for a perfect bone marrow match and that one would be found for Jeremy
• that Jeremy’s little brother would be a match and that there would be a sufficient volume of cells in the cord blood to qualify for a good transplant
• that God would give Jeremy an extra portion of His strength for this block of treatment
• that we would not encounter any side effects that would affect his appetite – nausea, vomiting, mouth sores and that Jeremy would have a good appetite throughout the entire block of treatment
• that Jeremy would not experience any more stomach pains
• that Jeremy would not encounter any life threatening side effects
• that Jeremy would not have any brain, liver, lung, kidney, pancreatic, heart, or any other type of organ damage as a result of the chemo
• that God would protect Jeremy’s heart with the new medication (mitoxantrone)
• that Jeremy would not encounter any more fevers due to bacterial, fungal, or yeast infections, especially in his neutropenic state
• that the antibiotics will be effective and that the line infection Jeremy has will clear up quickly
• that there wouldn’t be any more line infections and that we wouldn’t need to replace it at any point during Jeremy’s treatments
• that God would protect Jeremy’s kidneys and liver as they process the antibiotics coursing through his system
• that fevers Jeremy does encounter would subside quickly
• that Jeremy skin biopsy site would heal quickly and would not cause too much pain or discomfort
• that God would relieve Jeremy of the traumatic stress of the skin biopsy procedure
• that the skin bumps would not be a result of any additional infections and that they would fade soon
• that God would continue protect Jeremy’s central line and there would be no additional infections as a result of it
• that Jeremy would sleep better at night
• that we would continue to be reminded of God’s greatness and provision and that we would not allow fear to creep in
• that Alice and I would not get sick in order to care for Jeremy
• that God would protect Alice and baby brother from all the emotional stress
• that baby brother would be full term before deciding that he wants out
• for our neighbors who are also enduring trials of their own