full weekend

Kevin did a lot of catching up socially this weekend. My parents came over Friday night to carve the pumpkin we puchased last weekend at the Apple Orchard. He's not spent much time with Grandma and Grandpa since he returned to St. Jude this May for Chemo. He always enjoys spending time with them, and of course getting doted on by grandma. We ate breakfast at the local Coney Island, just like old times. He's eating better but still gets full and a stomach ache pretty quickly. His staple, pancakes and sausage are pretty heavy to begin with, but he did a decent job putting a dent in his breakfast. We also purchased some more fish for our fish tanks, which is always something we enjoy doing together. He played with his friend Kyle on saturday, and even felt up to going to his friend's cub scout bonfire outing. He knew all of the kids, and had a good time. Kevin missed Kyle quite a bit when gone for all this time, and they really enjoyed spending time together. We ageed to let Kyle spend the night like old times. My parents and sister, with her husband Alex, visited again Saturday evening. We all had pasta dinner and spent quite a bit of time together along with his friend. They left late in the evening, and the boys continued their sleep over late into the night. Both boys are very strong willed and use to argue quite a bit over silly things. But I think they were so happy to play together again, that their old bickering ways were replaced with compromise and enjoying the moment. Probably a mixture of missing each other and maturity. Kevin kind of bragged about going out to eat for breakfast to his friend, and they convinced me to bring them to the diner Sunday morning. This afternoon after I dropped Kevin off at Rachels he went to a Haloween party in her neighborhood. I spoke to him over the phone, and it sounds like he had a good time and felt pretty well. Right now Kevin's going to school 1/2 days, and has enjoyed it immensly. Having missed close to 9 months of school, he's obviously behind, but he's been working really hard and making progress. His mind seems to be working well, but he is still writing very slowly. We studied for his spelling test, and although we don't have the results yet, while practicing he was able to verbally spell the list of words with great success. He'll probably go to school at least 1 more week for a 1/2 day. Tomorrow he'll contine his Monday tutoring sessions with his 2nd grade teacher from last year. I hope now that he's done so much, that Kevin allows himself to slow down a little bit. He's seemingly been trying to pack 8 + months of missed time back home into these past few weeks. Overall we're seeing quite a bit of progress, but we've seen him at his worst. Part of me almost forgets what he was like (energy, appearance, sharpness, etc...) before this all happened. He was not right for months before his diagnosis. In many ways it's been over a year since he's felt close to normal. Normal is relative now, but he feels better, looks beter, and sounds better then he has in a very long time. We pray for continued progress, and of course for the insidious medullo cells never to return. On a sad note, two brain tumor patients we've been following via blog, have passed away this past two weeks. Neither went to St. Jude but I followed their blogs throughout their terrible ordeals religiously. One was a 4 year old boy named Owen who had a reocurrence, the other a wife and mother who lived here in Michigan named Leigha. Then there are those we met at St. Jude, who are having their struggles as well. A little girl named Sarah that we met at the Ronald Mcdonlad House has been battling hard with her Brain tumor, as it's metastized. We're all part of a fraternity none of us evey wanted to be member of. However like fraternity members we'll always be linked and always care what happens to one another. It's terribly late (or early in the morning) so I should sign off. Take Care, Eric