Welcome Home!

After not having our beds for 10 days, we were all so happy to finally be back home last night! Wanna hear some more amazing miracles regarding Brayden's diagnosis from yesterday? Are you sitting down? He had another bone marrow aspirate and spinal, which would be infused with another shot of chemo for his brain. When he came back from his procedures, he had done so well again with the anesthesia. Suddenly his Dr. came back because right before Brayden was administered his medicine, he was asking for him. How sweet! He just wanted to share with us the chest x-ray showed the tumor was continuing to shrink. His blood work all looked good. And his kidneys were looking normal again! He responded well to the blood transfusion and all looks good! Bryan and I asked when we'd know the results of the bone marrow and spinal and he said within an hour or so. I asked about remission, because we heard some patients can go into remission by the 8th day. He reminded us this wasn't likely. Brayden had the aggressive "T" form of Leukemia, which has a 'slow' response to chemo. If the blasts show less than 5%, then it's called a "RER - Rapid Early Response" which was not likely. We thanked him for all he's done and he was glad to see Brayden going home. I guess we didn't need to expect to hear from anyone about those results since they're routine and don't usually produce anything worth getting excited about this early. Everyone seemed surprised we asked.

About an hour later, his Dr. came back to see us, which we didn't expect. He said he wanted us to know that Brayden had NO LEUKEMIA CELLS in his sprinal fluid!!!!!! AND - guess what? His blasts in his bone marrow - that rare RER? Brayden had a rapid early response of less than 2% in his mone marrow!!! WHAT!?!?! Can you say God? We were amazed and the Dr. said he literally couldn't possibly be doing any better. This is extremely rare for it to happen with T-cell. YEAH!!!

Going home was so stressful, but Bryan and I made it through. I won't go into all the details, but was thankful Brayden was finally able to drift off. But not before the quote of the day. I've tried to burn it in my memory, but just couldn't. He said a prayer as we were leaving Little Rock and I just burst into tears. It was the most beautiful prayer, just like our daily prayers on the way to school, but it was different. He sounded like Brayden again. Back in the car; back driving together; realizing it was spring. It was green everywhere. When did that happen? He thanked God for his ability to go home. He prayed for the other children who didn't get to go home yet, that he would help heal them. He prayed for the leaders at the Capital Building we were driving by, that God would help them make the right decisions! He prayed for our safe journey home. And I suddenly felt so peaceful again. I called Bryan after he started drifting off. We were talking about all the good-bye's we got on our way out from everyone. It's only for a time; we'll be back next week and for the next 2 yrs, but hopefully not for hospital stays every time.

Turning on our main road brought so many smiles! We just couldn't believe how beautiful everything looked! Even though we talk about it every day, I think our eyes were opened EVEN MORE! When we left, dogwoods were just starting to bloom in our neighborhood and suddenly ALL THE LEAVES were out! Seeing our pretty grass reminded me of how sweet our friend Michael was to take care of that for Bryan and us. And seeing my white Azalea had bloomed out was like a special God-hug to us. Brayden ran in the house and couldn't wait to just play! No cords connected (his picc-line is still in and will be for the duration of chemo). We saw our back windows look so pretty as all of our trees make the view look so amazing. It was spring. Momma went into cleaning mode, but we won't go there. Was it not expected?

Best part of the night, after dinner, after his 10 pills and liquid he has to drink, snuggle time on the couch filled my heart back up. It was like old times. Kisses and just holding my sweet boy and then remembering there is still hurt he has to go through. He wants to see a movie that's coming out and can't. He wants to go bowling. He wants to celebrate and go to a restaurant. He can't. Then he starts talking about his hair. I'm trying to convince him it's the one time he can do ANYTHING to his hair and mom won't care! I think a mohawk would be SO COOL! We saw another boy from a distance that had one and it's still too much for Brayden to take in. He's touching it constantly and it's starting to itch him and the Dr. told him since it was Day 8 (it falls out between day 7-10) it's the hair folicles that are dying. We're hoping he'll go ahead and just have fun with it. But he admitted he's scared people will make fun of him. My heart just breaks for him. So that's our next emotional hurdle for him. Please say a prayer he'll try to find a way to be more accepting of it and it won't be so devastating for him.

Thank you again to all of you for your prayers. We're praying now for no secondary infections now that we're home. We're praying he stays healthy and we don't have to make another ER visit or drive to Little Rock outside of our weekly visits. Driving past the hospital helipad on the way home was so surreal. We're so thankful to be where we're at.