"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.When you go through hardships and decide not to give up, that is strength." -Arnold Schwarzenegger

Koda had some struggles with walking again this last week... it seems to be mainly his right foot, he picks it up and says his feet hurt and won't walk. I mean, we have seen it be worse a couple of weeks ago when his legs just gave out on him a few times and he just collapsed, it's very sad and scary. The nurses told us to keep an eye on him and make sure it's not a constant thing. Most likely what it would be caused from is the vicristine, it causes neuropathy... which is like a constant tingley numbness. I am really hoping it doesn't get any worse because they will have to lower his dose of vincristine and the effects and feeling can stay with him for a year after he is done.

Home care came sunday night to check his counts and they were great!  Red blood cells:  34,700   Platelets: 373,000  ANC: 2,000   Koda really is recuperating very well! His platelet count has not been that high since i can even remember. Way to go tough dude!

We went to clinic on monday morning, koda got vincristine and his last upped dose of methotrexate, hooray! I can not wait for the day though that koda won't be scared when they access him, it is heartbreaking, it is not easy to see and hear your child saying they are scared and just sitting there and not helping them. I brought the movie cars for koda to watch while he got his chemo since that is his all time fave and we watch it every day. This kid is such a great example of humility, courage, strength and love... he makes me happy every day. We had cars playing and koda decided to wander but he could still hear the movie.... we found out that he has it memorized... out of the blue we hear him say  "no camera's, no camera's" and we were thinking 'what is he talking about?' and two seconds later we hear on the movie "no camera's"  He is such a smart, funny little guy and he is truly a hero in my eyes. However i might consider turning on some different movies for him, maybe. Tuesday koda was pretty sick from his chemo... i thought we were going to make it through all this methotrexate with no sickness. He has been throwing up and it is heartbreaking. We will see what today brings.

Koda now gets a two week break before we start DELAYED INTENSIFICATION. We are scheduled to start on June 2 but day 1 of this phase is count dependant so we may or may not start on time. Day 1 will consist of vincristine, doxorubicin (i don't think he has had this yet), spinal tap and starting steroids yet again. The first week of this phase we will go in 3 times for chemo, yuck. How it works is that this phase is 42 days in length and they do the scheduled chemo depending on what day of the phase it is, so day 1 is all that yucky stuff, then day 5 he will go in for a PEG shot in his leg and then day 8 for vincristine and doxorubicin again. Please keep koda in your prayers during this phase, it will likely continue to completely wipe him out, that is the goal for them is to wipe him out before maintenance.

*****P.S. Sorry for the in depth descriptions and long posts, i will be using all this info for a book for koda so i put it all in there!*****

"God places the heaviest burden on those who can carry it's weight"

-Reggie White

Koda is such a fighter and so strong.... Last chemo dose affected him until we went in for chemo again and i feel so horrible that i can't make it better for him.

We had home care come last thursday and i was hoping and hoping that his counts would be too low to go in for chemo the next day (since the last dose was still affecting him i figured his counts had to be low), boy we were wrong! His red blood cells: 38,000   Platelets:253,000   ANC: 1,700    Seriously this child amazes me, his little body is working so very hard, the chemo totally wiped him out and his little body brought all these counts up on it's own! That is great progress!

We went in to get chemo and a spinal tap on friday, so koda couldn't eat when he woke up until about 1:00 but he did really well, he wasn't thinking about food much at all. The chemo went well... they upped the dose of the methotrexate another 50%, got vincristine and a spinal tap with more methotrexate in there. He did very very well with waking up with sedation, i was very worried about that because the last couple of times he was coming out of it he was very angry, and now i figure it was because he was being sedated every week, that CAN NOT be good for a little body or be fun at all. I think the break did him well... he was happy and laughing and playing after he woke up it was great! We have one more appointment in this phase where they will up the dose of the methotrexate another 50% and then koda will get a 16 day break! This last dose is making koda feel pretty miserable it seems, he is being so sensitive and just frustrated, wish so bad we could help him. And then at that point, after his 16 day break if his counts are where they want them he will start his next phase........... delayed intensification... this is the devil phase as i consider it. It is going to be nasty stuff..... 8 different kinds of chemo when the max he has ever had is 3 different kinds and it's about 42 days long with no set backs. Please keep koda in your prayers during this time, he will need it. I know koda will be strong through the rest of this and he will make it!

Koda is so fun and silly, last week was my birthday and i turned the big 2-4 and sam was preparing koda telling him to call me a "fogie" he ended up pronoucing it "froggie" and he would laugh his head off every time he called mom a froggie! A few days later he called mom a goat and then a turtle! It's so funny how kids interpret things, he is the best!