God answers prayer

We went camping this weekend, all the way at the Pinery on Lake Huron. We had a woolly weekend, in that it was windy and cold, and occasionally rainy, but we made some great memories and had so much fun.

We went canoeing as a family on the AuSable river in the park, and we didn't even tip!

We participated in a fantastic church service at the amphitheatre. A praise team from Exeter Church led us in singing as a huge group! What a wonderful experience to be part of this gathering of believers. On the way home today, Nella pointed at the hill where this service took place and said, "oh look Mom, that's where we danced and sang!"

We hiked along the Riverside Trail, picking up acorns and the oakasional flower, and getting lots of rides on Grandpa and Grandma's backs.

It's hard to believe that we were able to do this trip as a family. There are so many ways that things could have gone wrong, but they didn't. We took a trip to Mac on Friday morning to have Caleb's counts checked. While not high, they were in the clear so far as "neutropenia" goes (Neutropenia is when his neutrophyls-infection fighters-are so low that he has high risk of infections). His counts are on the rise from earlier in the week, and will continue to rise before we begin chemo treatments this week again.

Armed with good information (like the phone number and address of London's Children's Hospital ER), we packed our things and headed for Grand Bend. This weekend is a family camping weekend for me (Jess); it is special for me to see my kids enjoy the same things that I enjoyed as a kid. And fear the same things I did, like the spiders in the bathrooms. The weather wasn't great for camping, but with the trailer and good raincoats, we stayed warm enough until the weather improved on Sunday. The lake was incredibly wavy, which was actually a blessing in disguise for us, because Caleb shouldn't really spend a lot of time in lake water and Tim and I had been trying to think of some way to keep him from wanting to swim for the weekend. A big undertow was all it took to keep most people from the lake this weekend. Except for Cousin Cliff and Aunt Jean who took to the skies human kite-flying. Hopefully I'll receive some pictures of this adventurous pair that I can put up on the blog to show what this is.

Tomorrow we officially begin Consolidation II. Maybe you remember Consolidation I at the beginning of August. From here Caleb's treatment routine will remain the same for about 25 weeks, provided that all goes well. We will be making clinic trips every Tuesday and Wednesday for leg needles and intravenous meds. He'll continue to have steroids for a week at a time, every third week, and he'll take 6 MP at night times for two of every three weeks (if this is confusing, don't worry about trying to sort it out). It's likely that every third week he will be neutropenic, and so those are the times when we will try very hard (instead of just trying hard) to keep him from getting any illnesses. One of our goals is to stay away from overnight hospital stays. There are no planned overnights from now on in his treatment plan. We pray that we will follow that plan as closely as possible!

Caleb seems to be a walking miracle. Praise God. God is answering prayers for our little boy. Thank you for praying them. He is experiencing very few side effects from his medications, instead enjoying renewed energy now that his body is not filled with blasts. As parents we still do a lot of worrying, but God answers prayer and we can see that in our little miracle of life, Caleb. Thank you for your love and care. We live each day in his hands.

J