We made it through the chemo this week.  Joey was really proud of himself for learning to take all 7 pills with no drink.  He was up coughing late on Tuesday night, so he was still awake at midnight and didn't have to be woken up to take them.  The chemo doesn't seem to be bothering him.  His biggest problem is his allergies that won't quit.  

Here are more pictures of the fun stuff we've been doing.

Joey got to box with his daddy

We celebrated Jon's birthday by taking a trip to the Kansas Cosmosphere.  All of the kids loved it. 

 

 He wanted to pretend to hold it up. 

Sorry I haven't posted for a little while.  I've got some pictures that I'll post later of the fun stuff we've been doing the last few weeks.

Joey has felt ok, but he's got a cough that just won't go away.  He's even been coughing so hard that he gets sick.  We've been working with his asthma and allergy doctor to try to get a handle on it and it seems better today.  I think it's caused from all his allergies.  We had him tested a couple of years ago and found that he's allergic to all kinds of pollen, which has been very high around here lately.  If he's not better in a couple of days, they'll add a steroid to his ever-growing list of medicines.

The good news is that his counts were up yesterday.  Because they are high enough, he started chemo at 6:00 tonight.  He'll take 7 pills every 6 hours.  He's also taking his inhaler every 4 hours right now.  The poor kid gets woken up a lot some nights.  His chemo pills are pretty small, and he was very proud of himself tonight when he realized he can swallow them without a drink.  I've been rewarding him each time with candy - probably not the best reward, but it helps get him to cooperate.

When I first started using the web to interact with other families dealing with leukemia, I connected with a handful through our Joseph's Journey Facebook page.  I knew I was taking a chance of making all of this harder on myself - instead of worrying about just Joey, I would worry about other kids fighting the same fight.  I just couldn't keep myself from getting emotionally involved with some of them.  I'm very sad to say that one little girl (in Australia) passed away this last Sunday.  She was 4 when diagnosed and had since turned 5.  She was diagnosed about 3 weeks after Joey. She made it to remission, but a month later, the cancer was back and the doctors knew it was too strong to fight it any longer.  Her mom posted on Joey's page about how she held her baby as she slipped away.  Joey has been doing so well that I sometimes forget how deadly this can be.  This was a difficult reminder of what we are dealing with and how fortunate we are that Joey's treatments are working.