A big weekend, and the big day

Hi friends! Lots to share, so here goes:

My parents came in this weekend to celebrate birthday's with us, Mother's Day, and be here to help after Jenson's procedure today.

It was a really fun weekend. First my dad's birthday on Friday, Sydney's 4th birthday on Saturday, Mother's Day on Sunday, and my mom's birthday today. I think it was good to have a lot of fun stuff going on this weekend as there wasn't time to really dwell on what was coming up today for Jenson.

Sydney is really into birthdays (both hers and other people's just as much), and loves giving and receiving gifts. She wanted to have a "Princess Party" this year and dress up in a princess dress and have her friends do the same. Syd and I have been planning it for the last 5 weeks so it would have lots of fun activities (like a castle pinata, pin the crown on the princess game, fingernail "gems" for her friends), lots of fun stuff for her friends in the gift bags (like a tiara and jewelry to wear at the party), and other goodies like her "favorite pizza" and a "crown on her cake" to match the one she was wearing. We had a lot of fun planning it together. It was especially important to me for it to be a really special day for her given how hard this past year has been and how much of the focus has needed to be on Jenson... this was a day to focus on Sydney and make her feel extra special. I think she had a great time!!! I still can't believe she's 4. Time really flys in some ways.

Mother's Day was sweet too! My mom and I went out to dinner together and had great conversation. I'm so fortunate to have a mom so loving and caring that gave me such a strong foundation for life. I'm very blessed.

Today was Jenson's big scope appointment. First let me say thank you to everyone for all the prayers and support. We could definitely feel them strengthening us through this time. We don't know everything yet, but are clinging to what we do know so far.

Let's start with the good news... he made it through the procedure with no complications (whew, big sigh of relief from me). I do have to say this time before the procedure was pretty hard. Jenson is older and more aware of what was happening. He was starving and not happy we weren't feeding him in the morning, which you can't when scheduled for this type of procedure. The hardest part though was right before the procedure when we had to take him into the room and hold him down so they could start giving him some of the anesthesia. He was MAD and screaming and it took several of us to hold him down. Then he looked up at me crying with this look like "why are you letting them hurt me?" while screaming, and I started crying. The doctor said, "this part is always the hardest on the moms". Man was he right.

So now to the update. This is the 3rd scope he's had since the vomiting started back in July, and Dr Heyman said it definitely looks a lot better visually in his GI tract than when we did the 1st or 2nd scopes. Jenson's narrowing into his small intestine has widened to the point that it is almost normal now...praise God for that because on his 1st scope back in July it was so narrow they couldn't even fit the scope down and it was close to cutting off access completely to his small intestine. We originally thought he was going to need a surgery on this area in the future regardless if they could get the histio cells under control because it was so narrow. So, one HUGE blessing.

Dr Heyman also said the tissue looks better visually, but there are still a couple areas that don't look completely normal. It could be due to many factors, so he didn't want to speculate. So now it's a waiting game until Wednesday when the biopsy results come back which will confirm whether there is or isn't still presence of LCH (histiocyte) cells in his GI tract.

So one funny thing did happen... Jenson was in the recovery room and waking up from the anesthesia. He was sitting on my lap and next thing I know he completely ripped off the heart rate monitor on his finger, incredible hulk style. It went flying across the room which triggered the machine to start beeping frantically. Guess he didn't want it on anymore. My little boy is getting strong opinions. Hilarious.

Next Monday we'll meet with our oncologist Dr Goldsby to review the results of everything and make a decision about the path forward. If there are LCH cells still in his GI tract, we will have to continue chemo. No other option. If there aren't, we may be able to stop. We keep praying for a miracle. God is faithful and has already answered one huge prayer for us regarding his narrowing.

I'm sure tomorrow will be a tough day on Jenson as he's recovering from the scope and biopsies (today he's still medicated), so please pray for a speedy recovery for him.

We're all exhausted after today. More to come later this week and early next week but wanted to share what we know so far.

Kristin