Saturday, June 19, 2010

Living Life

I know it’s been quite some time since I’ve written, but life lately has been extremely busy consisting of baseball, weddings, graduations and then…more baseball! I have found myself saying a lot lately, “That’s ok because we’re living life and a year ago, we weren’t living life”!
Since I last wrote Jordan has spoke at a fundraising dinner for the American Cancer Society and spoke like a pro! His doctor even attended and spoke, she expressed how pleased she was with Jordan’s recovery and talked about how depleted he was when she first saw him. He amazed everyone at the dinner (including us) with his poise as he shared his story and how money raised is so important for research. How important you learn these things are, when it happens to you.

We’ve been to Bakersfield for his cousin graduation, had my niece’s wedding, ended our home school journey with Jordan’s wonderful teacher, attended Tristen’s graduation ceremony for completing the 6th grade and moving on up to middle school, and have attended many baseball games between both boys.

Baseball season with Little League is officially over but I must say…Tristen and Shawn’s team definitely ended on a high note! They had an amazing team who finished 1st place in the regular season with an outstanding 17 wins and only 1 lost. They ended the season with a tournament where they placed 1st and received trophies for both! How very proud I am of them both! What an accomplishment!

Jordan’s team did well, finishing the season in 4th place of 9 teams and ended up in 3rd for the tournament. It was an accomplishment in its self that he even played and did so well! (It was purely his determination because I know his body still has a lot of strength and weight to gain). Which by the way…he finally weights 70 lbs.

Both boys made it for All Stars! Shawn has chosen to coach Jordan’s team. Jordan will be on the 10 year old team and their tournament will take place in Yucaipa and Tristen will be on the 11 year old team, playing his tournament in Yucca Valley. So practices with their new teammates are full steam ahead.

Jordan is due to get “Cranium Radiation” as a preventative treatment for T-cell Leukemia. We have a consultation coming up this Tuesday in Hollywood to discuss and make plans for treatment. I haven’t made mention of this yet because I just wasn’t ready to deal with it and wanted to focus on and enjoy the baseball season. Like the chemo did, the whole radiation thing makes me ill! But we know it’s needed to help keep this sick disease away. I don’t know how he will respond, I don’t know side effects or when this will even take place. All I know is the focus of prayer will need to be to get us through! Jordan especially!

On Jordan’s one year anniversary (May 26th) since his diagnosis, to celebrate we let orange (the leukemia color) balloons go with all his teammates in honor of everyone who has had to fight and endure this type of cancer. After, Jordan wanted Sushi…so we went, which he claims will now be our tradition.

With it being one year, everything takes me back where we were exactly a year ago and emotions take me all over the place. I have found myself doing a lot of reminiscing about long hospital stays, the images of Jordan being on life support, the day he coded and they prepared us for brain damage, Tristen not being able to finish his school year, Jordan learning how to walk, talk and eat again…the list goes on. I think about how a lot of people’s life stopped that day because ours did and really I don’t know how we made it through.

I appreciate the small things in life now, for instance just falling asleep in my own bed, and knowing we are all under the same roof. I appreciate the love and support from family and friends who never left our sides when the only thing that surrounded us seemed to be more and more bad news of despair. Really…we felt our life was over but thanks to our Heavenly Father he had different plans!

I now can share our story of success and how MIRACLES can happen! As a mother, I hope I can be an example to others. Our hearts are always going to be heavy and worry for our children but it’s our job to never let up on our constant battle for them, especially in prayer.

I’ve seen Shawn be the true example of a father whose strength stood strong for his family when we needed him most. I’m in awe of what a large burden he had to carry when all odds seemed against him, when I was so weak and couldn’t even make a decision, he was right there being the backbone of our family, lifting us up, NEVER giving up.

I’ve seen Tristen be a devoted brother that was in his bible daily, praying and crying himself to sleep every night for his brother that he wanted to see come home so badly. And because of our trust and faith in God it happened!

Thank you again for your continued support through prayer and encouragement as we are not done yet, we still are in battle everyday especially with this radiation coming up.

I’ll keep you posted as Jordan’s Journey continues…

4 comments:

  1. I do not even know you but heard of your battles & triumphs through a neighbor & have followed your blog ever since. I just want you to now that I am touched every time I read your updates! Thank-you for reminding me of the importance of the small things! God Bless!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. from one of Jordan's nurses, it is so amazing to watch his progress through this blog, much love to your family.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm so happy for you, Melissa. We send you lots of love and hugs. - C, B & T

    ReplyDelete