Happy Thanksgiving!

Today Vince had his one week post chemo check up. The dr. said that he is doing extremely well! He said the reason he gained 20 lbs. is because they have been giving him steroids with his treatments, which is what I kind of suspected. He said his blood work looks good, but his white blood cells are a bit low, so he is really not supposed to be around crowds or anyone who is sick at all. He needs to be very careful, especially the next week or so, as this is when he is more susceptible. He will go into the hospital for the 5 days of chemo on Thursday, Dec. 11th. This will be his last chemo for awhile. Vince is still feeling really good and he an Mikemo skate every chance they get.

He will probably be having radiation approximately 3 weeks after the chemo, depending on what the surgeons findings are after the MRI or CT Scan when he is in the hospital. Dr. Tap told us that usually the radiation treatments consist of about 4-5 weeks of treatments and the treatments are Monday thru Friday for those 4 or 5 weeks! I was so surprised, I had no idea it would be that long. That adds up to 20-25 radiation treatments. He did say that they would only be about 2-5 mins. long, which gave us some relief. But, we will be driving everyday to Westwood to get the treatments. When the radiation is finished, he will have the surgery to replace the bone, but that also depends on how much of the bone will be saved through chemo and radiation and how much of the muscle and tissue are affected. So, he could possibly be having the entire humerus replaced or just part of it replaced. Please pray that the treatments would be extremely effective and that he will have to have only a minimal amount of surgery. Of course we are always hoping for the best possible outcome and we do have faith that the treatments will be very encouraging. I am figuring, based on what he told us today that he should be having surgery sometime the end of February or beginning of March.

After he recovers a bit from the surgery then he will indeed have 8 mths. of chemo. I asked the doctor if that was absolutely necessary, since we were hoping that he wouldn't have to be exposed to all that chemo for so long, but he said that it IS extremely necessary. So, we will pray that he continues to do as well as he has thus far.

I hope everyone has a very happy Thanksgiving and may we all be a bit more thankful this year as remember how blessed we are no matter what we are going through:)

Also, we are having a quiet dinner this year at home vs. the 25 or so that we normally have, due to Vince's health and we are trying to de-stress our lives this holiday season. We will miss all of our family members...we love you all and we will miss Grandma Charlotte's yummy cooking!

Mom & Dad I love you and I will miss you, too...but we will see you next month!

I have to share this photo with you...it's Mikemo, Vince & Little Will. I think Mikemo was about 4, Vince 6, and Little Will about 5. Mikemo was a Ninja, Vince was Gambit & Little Will was Wolverine! They were sooooo cute! Thanks Big Will for the photo! It brought back sweet memories!

	"Praise the Lord! Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever."
	Psalm 106:1