Day 174 - Meeting with Make-A-Wish Foundation

     This evening the family and I met with representatives from Make-A-Wish.  They came to the house to interview Evan and walk us through the legalities and process of granting wishes to children with life threatening illnesses.  The ladies brought him some balloons and his own Christmas ornament.  I was very entertained watching Evan navigate through the questions and hearing his responses.  It gave me an idea to do a separate Q and A session with Evan in the future for use on the blog.
 

Make-A-Wish ornament for Evan.

     What was Evan's wish?  Like most kids he wants to visit Disney World.  The MaW folks have their own resort that we would stay in with other children that are in the same situation as us.  They'd help coordinate medical assistance for us and phone Evan's treatment plan to the Oncology team at Disney.  No dates were given, or even promises that the wish would be fulfilled, but it was humbling to even be considered.
     Evan's cancer treatments are on-going.  We're on the daily 6-MP (Mercaptopurine) and Methotrexate on Thursdays.  Our next scheduled appointment is not until Wednesday.  At that time they'll check his counts and advise on us on next steps.  We still have twice a week PT sessions that will be on-going for sometime.  The focus of those is to at least maintain the strength that he had gained prior to this second leg/ankle surgery and increase his core strength.
     With Evan's counts looking a little better until the latest round of chemo has had a chance to kick in we've been taking him out in public a bit more often.  On Sunday we went to breakfast and browsed one of the local stores.  Cristy took the boys to Menchie's later in the day.  I think I mentioned it in a previous blog, but the owners have been through the same challenges that Cristy and I are facing and have been very gracious to the family every time we've visited.  Needless to say it is quickly becoming one of our favorite establishments and our frequency will almost certainly increase.

Getting a little yogurt at Menchie's.

     From a day-to-day perspective I'm enjoying this lull in excitement.  Evan's energy level seems to be good despite being on two types of chemo drugs.  His appetite has decreased quite a bit, but we're not as worried this time due to the feeding tube that we're able to utilize in the evenings.  Overall his weight still seems healthy to me and he's able to eat enough during the day to get the vitamins and nutrients he needs.  Hoping another quiet week/weekend as we work our way closer and closer to Christmas.

Checking out the displays at And That....