An Update

Brody and all of us had a wonderful Christmas together.   Brody felt great and was full of energy for Christmas Day.   After Christmas we enjoyed a visit to Cincinnati area to see my Uncle Rob who had come home from London,  England.   Brody felt pretty good for most of this trip and we enjoyed our time with Rob and the rest of the family. 

Brody has continued to feel well most of the time these past couple of weeks.   However,  recently (over the past week) he has been having frequent leg cramps and some very bad sudden headaches.   His legs get tired and hurt very quickly with activity.   He was doing better in this regard since switching to the new chemo regimen but more recently he seems to be declining with regards to these symptoms.   Keeping Brody extremely well hydrated seems to help lessen the leg cramps but he does still have them frequently even when hydrated well.   Brody's tumor impairs blood flow to his legs significantly.   Slight changes in the size of his tumor can greatly effect Brody's leg pains (and many other problems too).  

Brody will be headed to the hospital for chemo this week on Wednesday followed by a CT scan next week.    This next CT scan will let us know how the new chemo regimen is working.   Symptoms and palpitating his abdomen to feel size of the tumor don't provide enough information.   As far as symptoms go though,  he is definitely doing better now than he was prior to switching to the new chemo regimen.   But,  this past week he seems to be getting worse (not quite as bad as previously but getting worse rather than better this week).  

Brody really wanted to play in the snow with his brothers and his friend,  Lucy today.   He was really trying to but he kept having leg cramps.   He came back inside and rested and drank LOTS of water and then tried to head back out again.  He did better in that he wasn't having leg cramps but his legs would get too tired  and start to ache very quickly.   He kept having to sit down and rest after every few steps.   He decided to just sit in one spot and make a bunch of snowballs.   He waited for his brothers to come running by and he launched his attack.   Geordi and Jaden were nice and kept running by just close enough that Brody could stay sitting where he was and manage to keep hitting his brothers with his snowball stash.   He had a great time with the snowball fight.   He got tired and very cold pretty quick though and decided he would rather go inside and watch his brothers from the warm house while enjoying some hot chocolate.  

Brody continues to amaze me.  It's insane all the difficult and painful things he has to deal with every day.  But Brody does not let it all crush his spirits.   He is a very happy boy.   He does not dwell on the tough stuff.   He just gets through it and doesn't waste any time getting back to just having fun.   He is not a worrier and continues to live in the moment and truely just enjoy so many wonderful moments.   I strive every day to be more like him.