Georgie’s Journey

Yesterday we got a call from Wolfson Children’s Hospital to let us know that George was selected as one of the Patients of the year. Each year they chose 55 kids who have been patients at their hospital to highlight their stories and help raise money for the hospital. What an honor!!! He will have his photo shoot in October for all of the promotional material. He will be featured in brochures, commercials, advertising posters and possibly even a billboard. Too funny to think about that one. There are 55 amazing stories to be told so I am looking forward to reading all about each child and adding them to our prayer list and hopefully meeting them too. It is a huge fundraiser for the hospital. There will be a 55K “mega marathon” (30 miles) on January 25th. We will assemble a relay team and each run a portion of this. And I do take the word portion lightly. I’m not a runner but will give all I have for my (small) leg of the race.  More info on this to come. Meanwhile I will be dusting off

Went to the dr yesterday for a check up. ANC 12,400. Yes twelve thousand four hundred. I’m just gonna leave that there and let everyone soak that in. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks in song. Psalm 28:7

Today there is nothing new to report. George had a great day. Kate started ballet. I got a ton of housework done. It was a really therapeutic and peaceful day. George will go to the dr tomorrow afternoon to have a check up and get some labs done to see how he is doing internally. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to thank so many people who have helped us all out throughout this whole process. It’s hard to fully express my gratitude since it continually amazed me at everyone’s generosity with their time, efforts and prayers. Friends and family kept not only my family fed but brought snacks and gifts to the hospital for me too. Gifts for George to help cheer him up were constantly being delivered. My mom came up to the hospital every single day so that I was able to have a break from being up there and just to hold George when he needed it. She also took care of my girls in the afternoons. My sisters all stepped up to help cover for me at work, keep my girls, and help kee

Today we are officially home. We had been staying at my sisters house while our house was getting some improvements for George. He really really loves his home. He got so excited to walk in the door. He walked all through the house just checking to see if everything was all still there. It is going to take a full week of hard labor to whip this place back into shape. It’s clear to me now who the tidy one is in the family is. When mamma is gone, so are all rules and cleanliness. George seems a little sick today. His eyes are really red underneath and he has a rash around his mouth and neck. No fevers so just hoping this is just yet another side effect from all his body is going through right now. Just because we are home I ask that you continue praying for him. His battle is far from over. It actually seems to be a little tougher now that we have everyday elements to deal with. But he is still so happy and other then almost being attacked by a giant rat snake today, I managed to be lovi

This morning George woke up and started throwing up. He had a dr appointment scheduled for 9am anyway so I cleaned him up and we headed in to Nemours. Not one but two more times on the drive in he threw up again. Now we aren’t talking about a cute little spit up. We are talking projectile. Everywhere. I have been very fortunate that none of my kids have ever thrown up in my car before. I have heard horror stories from others who have had to endure this but it has never happened to me before. Well they say go big or go home. George decided that he wasn’t going to just go big. He also decided that since my car was ultra detailed 2 days ago to ensure a clean space for him, he would  put that mini van right back to its rightful place. I mean it’s almost a crime to have a clean car when you have children.  We finally made it to his appointment and they did some labs on him. They said he physically looked great and that the throw up was hopefully just a fluke. I received a call from the nurs

Last night George and I slept like babies. Not newborn babies. Babies that have just slept through their first 12 hour night. That was us. It was amazing. We woke up and I think we’re both surprised that we were not in our little caged in toddler bed in room 414. He played all day. Ate all day. Got to walk outside for 5 minutes and took his first bath in over a month. I was only allowed to clean him with anti bacterial wipes the entire time we were there. It took a solid 45 min to convince him to get out of the tub. He must have felt so good to feel that warm water on his little body. My day was spent relaxing and organizing all the time tables and amounts of medicines to give him. It’s a lot. But I felt very organized about it and know that although it will be something that takes up a good chunk of our days, we have got this. He is world’s best medicine taker which makes it not such a daunting task. We will go back to the dr tomorrow to get some tests run to see how he is doing. We s

Today was the day will be etched in our hearts forever. On the 21st of June we walked into our hospital room and into the unknown of what we were going to face. Today, On the 21st of August we walked out of our hospital room and were cheered on by all the nurses and drs and family as George did his “victory lap” around the floor while the Rocky theme song blared. Cheers, tears (lots of those) , bubbles and praises as he made his way through the halls of Weaver 4. The halls were he has been so well taken care of. The halls where we have walked so many times but the past month have not been able to. The halls that will always be a special home to us. Today George shook up the world of Bone Marrow Transplant and walked out of there way ahead of schedule. Those halls kept us but God protected us. Through every step. I am brought to my knees. Praise and thanksgiving. Today was a day that will not ever be forgotten. Tomorrow, well tomorrow I will explain all that we have in store for us for

This day has been full of many emotions. George has lower counts then yesterday but still is engrafted. His counts will go up and down for a little while until his body is fully running on Kate’s cells. Speaking of kate, today was her first day back to school. She was so excited and I was glad to be able to be a part of her big morning. George had a rough morning of no eating but then strangely enough was introduced to powdered sugar donuts and the rest of the day ate the entire bag. Not so healthy but it’s the calories that we are looking at now. Something else pretty big happened today too.  They removed his PIC line. Why is this significant? Well, and I can’t believe I am saying this, George is now ready to leave the hospital. What!!!!!! Tomorrow will mark exactly one month to the day of his admission. He has done so remarkably well and engrafted so fast that they are discharging him at some point tomorrow. I was sobbing when they told me. I am still in shock. I can not believe that

George woke up this morning to yet another great set of counts. ANC 1300 and hemoglobins and platelets on the rise as well. They took him off all of his IV lines so that means NO MORE POLE!!! Freedom at last. He is so funny. It’s like he knows he has no limitations now and is using every square inch of his room to show that. He is all over the place. He loves his new freedom. George feels great. Still zero interest in eating but that will slowly come back. This morning I was also able to sneak out to take Kate to her schools orientation. She is so fun. She gets excited about everything so imagine how excited she was to go see all of her favorite friends and teachers. She can hardly wait until it officially starts tomorrow. Just as I was getting back to the hospital I received a call from Fishweir saying Bowers was sick and had a fever. Oh so quickly do those school germs latch on. This will be one of the struggles we will have to deal with after George comes home from the hospital.

George woke up this morning with an ANC of 989!!!! Now Kate’s blood is just showing off. Amazing! Wonderful! Awesome! Day two of engraftment and we are all just blown away with this incredible news. Drs included. They are really just taken a back by how well he is doing. New George is a new boy indeed. His appetite is still not good and I am having to force food down his throat. I pray that this is just a very temporary side effect of all of his medications. He has lost a little weigh these past few days. His final day of chemo was today. Hip hip hooray!! He is feeling great and is now only down to one line of IV medication. He takes 7 different medicines, 3 times a day. He will continue this when we go home until he reaches his +100 day. Today is day +12. So if you need to visit with me over the next few months I will be at the pharmacy filling prescriptions. Fortunately, George is an excellent medicine taker. You would think it was candy. He happily takes each and every dose without

Great news to report. This morning we were awoken to me having to sign a consent for George to be allowed to receive platelets from a donors blood. His platelet count had dipped below the levels that are healthy for you. This seemed like bad news but it actually is totally normal and it would be abnormal if he didn’t have to receive some. Platelets are the last thing to hit rock bottom in a transplant. The nurses were confused as to why they didn’t have a consent already signed by me for him since at this point in transplant he should have already had to have several blood transfusions. This was his first and hopefully his last. The drs then all charged into the room to let me know that George’s ANC (white blood count) was 560!!! He has officially Engrafted. This is the whole goal of transplant. Engraftment. He went from 100 yesterday to 520 this morning. This is a miracle. This is only day +11 from the day of his transplant. Engraftment is typically between days 15-30. The drs and nur

George woke up this morning and immediately hopped out of bed and walked over to his toy corner. Not a wobble, not a hesitation. He hasn’t sat down since. Running at some points throughout the day. Has had zero complaints about any pain anywhere. It’s like it never happened. Another thing to have gone away is a ton more of his hair. I would say it’s about 75% gone now. It’s everywhere. I can only imagine this is what it is like to live with a golden retriever.  His counts are up again today and he is now down to only 2 IV bags on his pole. Since the day we checked in he has been on 7 different bags of medicine at all times. All those lines were really fun to keep untangled with this active boy. He has started taking some of those medicines orally which is what he will be doing when we go home. His journey doesn’t end when we check out of here. He will still be on so many different medications to keep him well. I will save that for another day though. Today we dance with joy that the pa

George slept great last night and seems to be feeling a little better today. His counts are slowly coming up and he is showing great signs of healing. His legs seem to still be the cause of most of his pain so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I figured the longer he doesn’t move the worse off he would be so what would anyone naturally do? Get on their physical therapy hat and pretend to know what I am doing. I am making him stand (assisted) in one minute increments. Take a few Steps (assisted) and squat and stand back up several times. He doesn’t love this but believe it or not, it has made a difference. Not a huge one but by the end of tomorrow I bet I’ll have him walking again. He is scared of the pain so is hesitant to trust me in this method. He still loves me and I swear it isn’t torture. He hardly cries. Just is nervous. Today his hair has really started falling out. I would say about half is gone just from this morning to now. Fortunately he has so much of it to beg

Today was another very sick day for George. He is not sick as in physically getting sick but he is sick internally. He feels terrible. His little body is going through so much right now. His legs are still in horrible pain. He has been on morphine round the clock to help him manage this. Even on the medicine he screams in terror if you even mention his legs. He ate barely anything once again today but is back to nursing which makes me feel better knowing he is getting a little nutrition in him. He did not stand up once today and only sat up a few times. Just laid perfectly still on the couch. He did not complain as much today so that is good. Huge praise is that his blood work this morning showed Kate!!!! Her neutrophils were in his blood. Now just a few but this excited the drs very much which obviously excited us as well. This process is hard and long but it will all be worth it in the end. We will all be better from it. We are so thankful for this glimmer of wonderful news in these

Last night George started feeling really sick. The nurses and drs were sure he was about to spike a fever which would then send us into an evening of all sorts of testing and scans to determine the problem. To everyone’s surprise, his fever never came. He had a very uncomfortable night though so was put on pain medicine to help him relax. Today was the first day in the entire process that George was very sick. He is in a ton of pain in his legs and in his whole body really and has been put on Morphine to help with the discomfort. When I say discomfort I mean tremendously painful side effects from all of the medications and from the lack of cells in his body. This was all suppose to start when he began chemo back in July. I believe God spared him from all the sickness and pain to make his body strong enough to endure this part of transplant. He has not moved but to sit up once for ice cream all day. He is very pale and very uncomfortable. He is sad. You know it has to scare him  to fee

This morning my wonderful mother came up to the hospital at the crack of dawn (literally) to allow me to run home to get Bowers off for her first day of second grade. My mom has been so incredibly helpful to me and my family throughout this entire process and I can not thank her enough for always putting us first and allowing me to not miss out on such a special moment this morning. It meant the world to me and especially to Bowers. It’s hard to balance being away and keeping normalcy but we are trying. Bowers is amazing. We are so proud of her and how she handles life.  George is having a little bit of a bad day today. Nothing was off on his morning reports but he is for sure off. He has just been sad and wanting to be held all day. They also had to change his dressings on his PIC line and change his needle is his port which is a huge and traumatizing process. But in true Wolfson fashion, the Wolfie Wagon pulled up to our room with snacks and Superman. This cheered him up at the momen

George had a great report back from the drs today. They said he is doing just wonderfully. Exceptionally well. This is what you call answered prayers folks. Now, he still has several weeks minimum to go and every day that goes by is another day of new concerns. So the prayers will not  cease and the believing that God will heal George will never go away. Good days and bad days, we will not stop praising and rejoicing for all that God has done for George and our family.   Since Bowers starts school tomorrow I needed to go home and pack her lunches for the week and get all her outfits laid out.  It was a fun time with the girls but also a little emotional knowing I won’t be there physically for her in this exciting time. But needless to say we still had a great time preparing. The girls also were able to come say hello to our little patient while Mitch and I did the trade off. They got their hug and made sure to hit the nurses up for some icees.  George also was reunited with two of his