Jake's Recent Updates

Jake's mom, Kim recently posted the following update.

Cancer World Stinks!

Posted Oct 8, 2009 11:03am

That is a given on any day but I'm finding out today that yesterday was particularly bad. Nothing changed for us at clinic but we saw 2 of our long time patient friends there yesterday and found out this morning that they both got not great news after their appointments. Please say a few prayers for Charlotte and Kira who don't deserve any of this. Both kids looked great and it is hard to hear the news.

Yesterday at clinic was like old home week-yes crazy that is how we see clinic sometime. We saw so many of our old friends on and off treatment that have been living this as long or longer then us. Jake joined a pizza party with his friends Chris and Hayley and was happy to see so many others. I love to see the kids making the best of this situation. It was great to see Maddie and her mom Paula who is one of our inspirations since she just passed her one year off treatment visit from the relapse protocol that we are on right now. Yay maddie! She looks beautiful and Jake even blushed a little when he saw her. :)She gives us the hope we need for the future.

Jake has been feeling good still. His night terrors stopped shortly after I posted last, which was a relief. He is back on steroids this past week and has been eating like a champ. He has gained a few pounds which will be a good buffer going into this next more difficult cycle where he likely will lose some weight. His blood counts were great and was able to get his last dose of chemo for this cycle. Next week he will move into the next phase which runs for 24 weeks(until we hit our 1 year mark) Next Wednesday he will have to begin going inpatient again pretty frequently. He will start off with the very tough Ara-C which is the one that drops his counts to nothing for an extended time. So I will be gearing up to bunk at Chez Children's for planned and unplanned stays. We will also have to start the blood thinning shots daily next week again and and GCSF shots too so we will be back to 2 shots a day many days. He is not happy about this in the least. Neither are we! He still has bruises all over his legs from the last round. The alternative is that the clot in his heart gets bigger and that is just not an option in our book!

For now we will enjoy our last weekend of unbridled fun, sports, etc before the shoe drops. I am just so thankful for the summer we had and that he has been able to be in school for the first 6 weeks to get settled. I never thought that would even happen. We got some pictures in the mail yesterday that were taken at Hole in the wall Camp(courtesy of Flashes of Hope) of our beautiful bald boy. I will post one in the photo gallery soon! It show how far he has come even from July. Thanks for checking in!

Prayers for all our friends, please...

Love, Kim

You can keep up with Jake's updates at www.carepages.com/carepages/JakeMaguire


PHAT Tuesday

An update from Kira's carepage

Below is the reason PHAT Tuesday rides the Pan-Mass Challenge. Kira Corning, a member of our PHAT Tuesday PHamily and our 2006/2007 Pedal Partner.

Not as planned

Posted 10/08/09

We just got punched in the stomach again. Although the preliminary read of Kira’s MRI said her spine was clear, the senior radiologist noticed something showing up, a very small enhancement, in her lower spine. Unfortunately this was noticed after we were told stable last week and long after Kira was out of the MRI machine. Now this could be a blood vessel as it isn’t presenting as a typical tumor. Kira doesn’t do anything “typically” so no matter how much they are trying to tell us they aren’t alarmed, and that this is just “unsettling” and not alarming, we are sick to our stomachs. Bottom line, we need to get more pictures and some cross sections to determine what this enhancement is in her spine. The plan is to get another MRI of brain and spine, with thinner slices and do it hopefully in 3 weeks as her end of treatment MRI. And hopefully, fingers crossed, this will actually be just an end of treatment MRI and not the start of something new.

KIRA KNOWS NOTHING about this. She doesn’t need to know. They’ll redo the MRI and then we’ll either be done, or figure out the next line of treatment. Until we figure out what we have, we are just going along as “normal”. Yeah, easier said than done. Our oncologist did go over some advances they have made thanks to people raising money for them to do research. So if you donated to Kira’s Kruisers recently, you’ve really helped us out! Our team has contributed over $83,000 to research. If this is not a blood vessel in Kira’s spine and in fact disease, we have a lot of new medicines that we can try thanks to research being done.

Some other friends at clinic got some bad news yesterday too. I just cannot ever get used to hearing our friends continually relapse. Hey, some also got good news too and I’m so very happy for that. Please just keep all our clinic friends in your thoughts.

ENOUGH DOOM AND GLOOM! Kira’s 8th birthday was this past weekend and we had a blast. We went to the RainForest Café for lunch with the Eisnors and then to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in 3D! The slideshow I’ve been using isn’t allowing me the edits I want, so a few comments on the slideshow. There is one picture when Mary sees Kira and basically goes air born into Kira’s arms! Then there’s a few where the girls are looking around SCREAMING during the “rain storm” in the restaurant. It was hysterical!

Copy and paste the link below into your browser to see the slideshow:

http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=reneecorning&SID=259906&Show=Y&p=

To read more about Kira, you can visit her carepage at www.carepages.com/carepages/KirasCorner

Fund Raising Update - Oct 1

Greetings! October 1st is the deadline for all PMC riders to have their "minimum" in. At this time, all members of the PHAT Tuesday team have met their minimum fund raising requirement and then some. (Though it is never to late to give. www.pmc.org/tp0049 )

PHAT Tuesday's team total is at $112,642.77. Just $1,360 short of making us a Heavy Hitter team. Still an outstanding job!

On behalf of the entire team, "Thank you" to all who supported team PHAT Tuesday in 2009!

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