The month of August has passed so quickly! We are in our very last days of summer; school starts for the kids on Monday. (ALL the kids go to school this year. It will be a sad day and a difficult adjustment for Mommy, but I don't suppose that you check our blog to get an update on the life crises of middle-aged women.)
During the last weeks, Michael has stayed quite busy. He began soccer practice two weeks ago. He feels that though he began quite behind the other boys in terms of physical strength and stamina, he has made great improvement. He is really enjoying playing and looks forward to his first game next Tuesday evening.
In preparation for school, Michael also began a crash course online to improve his typing skills. One of the classes that he missed last year was Keyboarding. Our focus was to keep him current in all of his core subjects, so keyboarding skills were low on our list of priorities. When he realized that his class would move on to Computer Skills this year, he decided to do what he could to catch up.
The Friends of Kids with Cancer is a wonderful organization in St. Louis that offers a wide variety of opportunities and events to encourage "kids with cancer" and their families. They provided tickets to a couple of Cardinal games recently which Michael was able to enjoy with family and friends. One evening they invited many families to attend an after-hours event at the Magic House (a children's museum and top attraction in St. Louis) and provided great entertainment, dinner, and bags of school supplies for each child.
Throw in a few sleepovers, miniature golfing, some bowling, more swimming, school shopping, and family outings . . . you are up-to-date.
Probably the biggest event of the last weeks for Michael was his latest biopsy. Last Tuesday, we took him for what is becoming a pretty routine procedure. He saw his doctors in the clinic first, and they thought he looked fine. Preliminary blood work came back looking great as well. The biopsy itself took a little longer than usual. According to the nurses, Michael was "jumpy" under the initial sedation, so they had to continue increasing his dosage. We spent a while trying to convince him that he did want to wake up and come home with us. I'm sure better parents wouldn't have so enjoyed all the distorted faces and groggy comments, but at least we stopped short of taking pictures or video. We are still waiting for the results of the biopsy.
A few days before we headed to the hospital for the biopsy, we got news that yet another family in our small world was affected by cancer. A young boy, the little brother of some of our children's classmates, was diagnosed with a pelvic cancer. We stopped by to visit with the sweet boy and his family while we were at Children's. Again we were reminded of how thankful we are for this journey that Michael is taking; it has taught us much and opened our eyes and hearts to the suffering of so many others. As we shared with our friends, we agreed that the peace that comes from knowing that our God loves and has the perfect plan for both of our sons can sustain us through any trial.
I think I can safely promise that the next update will come soon. We expect biopsy results any day now. I sure wish this lesson in patience were a little easier to learn!
