Forester's 8th Birthday Slideshow

Forester's 8th Birthday Highlights

HOME!!

Forester is HOME!  He had a wonderful birthday in the hospital with lots of visitors and attention from the docs and nurses.  The rest of his stay was uneventful (which is great!).  He arrived back home about 11:30 am and you should have seen the smile on his face!  He has spent most of the day putting together one of his birthday bionicles - his favorite thing!  He is resting now and in a couple hours we will have a family celebration including some birthday presents he wanted to wait and open tonight.  We have much to CELEBRATE!! Praise the Lord!

We're so thankful the hospital stay is OVER but we still have the roughest part of the month ahead of us. Tomorrow we start the GCSF shots.  Forester's  blood counts are going to go down.  He will get one more dose of Vincristine on Friday and if trends continue, also a blood transfusion.  Please continue to pray for us!  Pray for me as Pete is now out of town on business until Friday.  Please pray for protection over all of us against any illness.  Thank you! 
I will upload pictures soon.

We love you,
Whitney for the Bradburn 5

Let's Rock and Roll

Forester's ANC jumped from .730 to 1300 in 2 DAYS! Miraculous! Am I surprised? No. Cause my God does stuff like that!  Am I excited?  YES! Let's get this last round over with! Prayers please for the smoothest treatment yet.

I'll keep you posted - tomorrow is the big birthday! 

 

**HUGE thank you to our family inside our church family, the St. Andrews Worship Team.  Pete and I were able to go downtown for a date last night thanks to them.  We had a great time and it was a much needed.  Thank you Grandma, for babysitting!

6th treatment is delayed

**Several of you told me the link the the Halloween slideshow didn't work.  So, I re-uploaded it and you can view it by clicking here.

Today we were all geared up to start the LAST in patient treatment for Forester.  When his blood counts came back this morning his ANC (absolute neutraphil count - white cells) was only .730.  Normal is around 5,000.  It has to be at least .750 in order to be admitted to start chemo.  So, no chemo today.  There isn't anything we can do at this point to increase his count so we just have to wait for it to go up on it's own.  The higher his blood count when he starts the better.  So, we'll just pray it really goes up! We return Friday morning to check his count again and hopefully it will be high enough for him to be admitted.  They only downside to this, besides all of us being ready for this to be over now, is Forester's 8th birthday is on Saturday.  We had really hoped he would be able to be home on his birthday and so did he.  But, as I reflect on this, maybe it will be more fun in the hospital...minus the chemo part.  Maybe he'll get lots of birthday wishes and special treatment from the nurses and doctors?  I think I will make giant posters to put on his hospital room door and do my best to be obnoxious and tell everyone, IT'S FORESTER'S BIRTHDAY!  ;-0   Hey, there is a positive side to every situation, right? Right.  Forester seems to be fine with this change in plans which is pretty miraculous!  Thank you, Lord. My little fighter rolls with the punches.

A few moments ago I was looking at some pictures from Forester's birthday last year.  Ugh. It made my heartache to look into that happy face.  He's been through so much since then. He's lost so much innocence, had to be so brave, had to endure so much pain and sickness and change.  It seems like yesterday and forever ago.  It seems like forever ago that he had hair! But yet, I believe with every fiber of my being that God has a greater purpose in all of this.  Forester's story is just beginning.  God is just in the beginning stages of doing miraculous things through the life of Forester James Bradburn.

"And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."  

Romans 5:2b-4 

(one year ago)

I'll keep you posted.

Love,

Whitney

Halloween Video Slideshow (revised & working link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkJRP2VPmUQ

Micah's Birthday Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ2krFIhjIc

Update: Round 5 Week 3

It's been a week since my last post and it's been quite uneventful. Yahoo! Forester's counts were back up on Thursday and we were able to stop the GCSF shots.  As of yesterday his platelets were still on the low side but not low enough for a transfusion.  We go back on Friday to check his counts again and then round 6 (FINAL!) is scheduled for the following Wednesday, Nov. 4th.  So we have another week of feeling pretty good and just being together before we start all over again.  Thank you, Lord!  Thursday is Micah's 5th birthday.  Because of our situation we are have a very small family party which Micah seems completely fine with.  He's chosen a Super Mario Brothers theme with a Pumpkin cake. Interesting...  I have a couple crafts planned so it should be fun.  I can't believe he's going to be FIVE!

We're trying to stay indoors as much as possible but please continue to pray protection over our family against any illnesses - especially the flu! Forester is in the high risk category and as I've said before we don't want anything to prolong his treatment! Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement.

Love,
Whitney

More blood, please.

As you know, Forester recieved a blood transfusion on Thursday.  I knew this wouldn't help too much because his white count hasn't bottomed out.  It's taken us a while to understand how all of this works but it generally takes 10-12 days for Forester's white blood cell count to hit rock bottom.  Until this happens, it continues to pull all of his other counts down with it.  So, even though Forester received blood on Thursday, his white cell count is still pulling that red cell count down.  Make sense?  It's not as low as it was on Thursday but it's still low. All that's to say is it's 4 days later and Forester will be getting another blood transfusion and also a platelet transfusion today.  Our hope is that his white cell count will bottom out soon and all his counts will start to recover.  Meanwhile,  we have to continue doing daily shots until his next appt (Thursday).  This is the first time we've had to do more than 10 days in a row of shots.  Blah.
I'm so ready for all of this to be over for Forester and our family.  Though I admit I can hardly imagine it!   Really.  It's so hard to picture a life without the hospital, chemo and shots, pills and analyzing blood counts and worry...but we'll get there. As we continue to run this marathon, we are all so weary and tired.   I have to remind myself daily, keep one foot in front of the other, just keep going......
The end is in sight.  Please keep praying for us.

Praying for all of you today who pray for us!
Whitney