C/P text from Stacie

Hit your knees and praise God! The tumor is GONE. There is a little sliver, but it looks dead. His eyes are still a concern, so keep praying for them.

One more reason to clean...

...is putting up holiday decorations!

Cash is in surgery now.

Cash and his big sister, Haley.
I guess Stacie's warming up to those Sooners after all. :)

He went back a little before 7:30.

Please join me in praying for the Caywood family, Cash, and the surgical team.

10:32 am - the tumor is coming out great. The team is still working on the middle of it, but Cash is stable and doing great! Keep praying!

12:21 pm - They are closing up now. Stacie should be able to talk to the surgeon in about an hour.
2:01 pm - they're in the PICU. They will do an MRI tomorrow to see exactly how much of the tumor they got. The surgeon said that the middle of the tumor was "very dead". :)

The prayer is for there to be NO TUMOR tomorrow.

Cash Caywood, miracle boy

I've touched on this situation here before, but not gone into much detail. I'm laying it out to you now because he's at a crucial part of his fight.

Cash is my friend, Stacie's, son. He's 6 weeks younger than Callie, born Nov 1, 2008.

When he was 9 months old, she took him to the ER because he was extremely lethargic and running a fever. The on-call Ped told her that he was severely anemic because of a viral infection and that his white blood cell count was low because his body was fighting it off. They discharged her from the hospital a couple of days later and she scheduled a follow up appt with her regular Dr on Tuesday.

When she was getting ready to bring him to town for his 330 appt, she changed his diaper and noticed a lump in his abdomen. At the appt, she asked about it and the Dr ordered an ultrasound, which revealed a "mass" on his kidney. They sent her to OU Children's in OKC, where they met with a team that evening. The MRI showed a large tumor, and they scheduled surgery for Thursday.

His initial diagnosis was Wilms Tumor. If a kid's going to get a pediatric cancer, Wilms is the type to have. It's highly curable and since standard protocol is to remove the kidney AND the tumor, it doesn't really come back.

They removed his left kidney and a baseball sized tumor. The surgeon remarked that it was the most vascular wilms tumor that he'd seen and commented that it was fairly aggressive which explained how quickly it had grown.

In the weeks to follow, they diagnosed Cash as actually having a mean cousin of the Wilms Tumor - he actually has Rhabdoid Tumors. There were spots on his lungs. And there was a quarter-sized tumor in his brain. Rhabdoid tumors are very rare, and it is even more rare to have Rhabdoid of the kidney AND Rhabdoid of the brain. They don't have a set protocol for patients that have both, but there is a team at Harvard that is developing chemo treatments for both. Until Cash, they hadn't done both.

For the last 3 1/2 months, Cash has been undergoing chemo, which has caused the spots on his lungs to commit cancer suicide and shrank the tumor in his brain to less than a dime size.

On Tuesday, they're going to operate and remove what's left of the tumor in his brain.

This little boy has beaten the odds - going from a 90% chance of survival to less than 20% to well over 50%, all in the span of a couple of months.


Please pray for him. Send happy vibes, hug your kids, throw your change in the little Ronald McDonald house bucket at McD's.

Specific prayer requests:
Dr. Gross (neurosurgeon) has asked us to pray for:
- her baby to sleep through the night the night before.
- God to guide her hands-that the tumor cooperates and comes out easy and doesn't stick to anything
- Cash's head will move correctly and she won't have problems getting his head into position to remove the tumor. (because his head is so small)

The surgery team:
- knowledge and guidance

Cash:
- fast and easy recovery
- little to no pain
- no problems during the surgery
- no problems after the surgery
- complete removal of the tumor

The rest of the Caywoods:
- understanding for Haylie
- patience for Jason and Stacie
- Peace for the family
- Calmness before and during the surgery

Stacie has a CaringBridge page: Cash Caywood.

* All pictures in this post are from the private collection of Stacie Caywood, and all rights are reserved.

My New Favorite Picture:

Courtesy of the fabulous photographic eye of my cousin Chip.

My Husband Went Deer Hunting...

and was much more sucessful than last year.

We won't be eating him (sorry, Gauntlets) because of the way that the Great Hunter shot him and the facts that he's old and has been fighting. But there are still two and a half weekends and two full weeks of deer rifle season left for the Great Hunter to get a nice tender doe.

Because I Must Be Bored

Chasing a toddler, growing a newbie, working full time, and housewifing aren't taking up enough of my time. So I let my friends talk me into taking up quilting

Here are my Top Three choices.

We should know Ralphy's gender by the time the quilt along starts, but if not, I'll just have to make myself a quilt in a throw size out of these fabrics:

Or make this one for Ralphy (I think that I can make a crib sized quilt AND whip up some sort of bumper):
But, if Ralphy's a Ralphie, I could make her this one (I LOVE it and it would coordinate with Callie's stuff without being too matchy matchy):

oh, yeah, Halloween?

We got a Halloween Outfit instead of an actual costume. Second year running, because I'm a neglectful mom like that. :)

Haley got one, too, but her mom loves her more than I love Callie - she got to change into a nifty clown costume and go trick or treating later.

Did either girl look at the camera for documentary pictures?

Well...... not at the same time. Callie hasn't learned her "Cheese!" face yet.

My Notmykid (and His Fiancee)

Pictures taken by Moi. They make you want me to take yours, huh?

I love this kid. Actually, I love them both, but I'm particularly attached to the boy. :) I'm so proud of the sweet, considerate, caring person that he's grown up to be.

"BLOG!" you say?

"NO!" I say! But I'll give you pictures. And a sort of story.

Last weekend, we had a caravan of sorts across the Great Midwest (aka the Very Boring Flatlands) to go and visit the "Lau" portion of the Laumooretskers. See, Sister Sarah is expecting, and no sister can be expecting without her sisters throwing her a Baby Shower. And, since Sister Sarah is the Queen of Surprises, we thought it might be fun to turn the tables on her a teeny tiny bit with a Surprise Sister Visit and a Surprise Baby Shower.

Callie *may* have helped herself to one or two of the presents.
She especially liked this newly crocheted green monkey, nicknamed "Kosher".

Ethan here is Sarah's friend Diana's little boy. Diana delivered Ethan in the room next door to where I was laboring with Callie. E is about an hour and a half older than C.

It really only took about 6 seconds to figure out the stairs.
Blanket and all. :)

Callie's first "linen napkin" restaurant. It was actually a place called Martinelli's in Salina, KS. If you're ever in the neighborhood, and want a family style Italian meal, I recommend it. (And they might have had real napkins, but the atmosphere was more like having the whole family around your aunt's table than it was fancy restaurant.)

Isn't she a helpful girl? She LOVES to put things in (and take things out of) the dryer.

That's about all I have. Gauntlets, does that count as a blog?

My daughter likes sushi...

Well, California Rolls, to be specific. I love me some sticky rice. I love me some cucumber and avacado. I love me some nori (roasted seaweed). Roll it all up into a handy dandy portable(ish) self contained finger food and I am THERE. I'm glad that Callie likes them too.

This week...

Cousin Haley came to stay with us while Avadelle and Brent went on a Grown Up Vacation. For the first ... half day ... two toddlers was about four times as hard as one, but then we got the routine all figured out and two toddlers became only about 1 1/2 times as hard as one. :) Uncle/Daddy Wes read Haley's favorite book (Counting Kisses, if you're wondering)
Two sweet girls in their matchy-matchies, playing with "the Door". "the Door" was Callie's birthday present from Mama and Daddy. It's awesome.

We (Haley) blew bubbles outside. Haley LOVES bubbles!

Callie picked flowers. :)

This was actually a couple weekends ago. Wes's cousin was a Homecoming candidate (and probably the only one EVER that really didn't want to win). She wants to be Band Queen instead and if she would have won Homecoming Queen, she wouldn't have been eligible.

Callie liked just about everything about the football game, except that it started right about bedtime. She was a great sport and loved the action on the field and danced when the band played.

Does this post really need captions?

Happy Birthday, Callie Moore!