Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Can you tell I'm getting slower with my postings? I think I'm just getting slower in general :)

An update on the Hats on for Hannah Cutchogue East fundraiser. Total is up to $3195.11 WOW!!! I'm sure the 11 cents came from those kids emptying their pockets, giving all they had with them to help.

Hannah made a thank you poster for the school that she will take in tomorrow to hang in the hallway. She also wrote a thank you letter to the student council for organizing and holding the event that we will give to them tomorrow also. We'll have pictures of all of that soon.

Hannah's clinic visit from Monday went well. Her counts are trending up, very slowly. They tell me this is typical, the counts will continue to trend slowly back into normal ranges on all accounts. She had lost about a pound, but still in the normal range for her weight.

All of the blood work came back, and I have been trying to decipher it since then. This is a bit more than I am used to, I asked for 5 tests, the neurologist asked for a few and they did some initial blood work for the endocrinologist also. Everything appears to be in normal ranges, the one thing that is a bit low is her parathyroid. This affects her growth and could also contribute to her osteopenia. I am researching on my own, and will know more after our appointment with the endo on June 19th.

I also want to share two videos with you. The first is from Mimi, Julian's mom. I'm sure you all remember Julian, who passed away from medullblastoma. His mom has put together this video to honor cancer kids and also raise awareness about children's cancer. Julian's dad Ken will be taking this video to DC to raise awareness at an event there. You may want to view this yourself before allowing your kids to view it, it's quite sad, and meant to shock some people into action. The video includes photos of kids pre-diagnosis, during treatment, and after treatment. This video includes all of the angels. She has another video also for survivors, which Hannah is included in, since she couldn't fit all the photos she was sent in just one video.



The second video to share is from a care pages friend from California, also with cancer. His name is Bailey and he is a riot! His family is taking a trip across the country this summer, stopping in Atlanta and hoping to meet with Paula Deen. This 7 year old is in love with Paula Deen-the chef-isn't that funny? As Peggy (Coleman's mom) says "he should be on tv." If anyone knows Paula, or could help out by bombarding her with emails, please take a minute and help. You can check out Bailey's care page HERE

Here is his video to enjoy also, take a couple minutes and watch this, it's great. His website also explains how we can help by contacting Paula Deen. She is having a contest to nominate a deserving fan to come and meet her on her show. Wouldn't that be great for him? Maybe when they hear he has recurrent cancer with less than 10% survival rate, they will nominate him!



And just a tip from my 11 year old techno daughter-if the video keeps starting and stopping, press the pause button to allow the video to load for a minute, then press play again. This way it won't start and stop.

xoxo Kim