Hey friends and family,
It has been a while, but no news is good news right :)
Grayson is doing so well and I just wanted to share some of his latest and greatest moments.
In October, Grayson broke his leg after falling in the grocery store. It wasn't a bad fall, he just twisted it just enough to break both his tibia and fibula. Here is a video of him with his cast on. You can't really see it and within a week he was running and jumping on it. Looking back at this video I can't believe how much he's grown in just 3 months. He still looks like a little baby here.
So precious~
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of family. Here is a picture of Grayson and Gavin before turkey. After turkey he was covered in food.
On December 19th Grayson had his 1 year bone marrow aspirate and biopsy which came back 100% donor cells! We are one year out and still cancer free!!!! Praise God for that!
We also had Grayson's first Christmas at home!! This Christmas we spent the night at Grandmom and PopPop Brown's and got to wake up Christmas morning with the whole family plus Tom's Aunt and Uncle and cousins from Japan. It was such a fun morning. Our children were completely spoiled rotten and of course we were all just happy to have our son home and healthy!
Then on January 19, Grayson celebrated his 2nd birthday. This was so much better then the first birthday you all witnessed. Looking back, I realize just how very sick he was and how very blessed we are to have him here. One of Tom's co-workers that was such a huge support to me personally told me last year that for Grayson's second birthday she was making the cakes! She designed and created these awesome cakes for his party. Grayson is all about Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and she made not only a clubhouse cake, but also a Mickey Hat that he could really dig into. In addition she made me a cake as well because my birthday was on the eleventh. She knew I had just finished my first half-marathon so she made an awesome pink sneaker shoe! Thank you so much Sue! The cakes were a huge hit and delicious!
Grayson is talking in full sentences and knows most of his letters now (thanks to leap frog letter factory). His growth never hit a plateau as the doctors had anticipated and they continue to be amazed by his height and weight. He's in the 97th percentile for his height and 78th for weight. This child eats so well! Broccoli is his favorite food but he'll eat almost anything I put on his plate. After two very picky eaters I am so relieved to have one that eats it all.
We decided along with the doctors that we would remove his port at the very end of December and that went really well. We even had his first clinic appointment with blood draw, which meant a stick, but he handled it like a champ! We are still waiting on some blood work results to see if we can start re-immunizing him.
Grayson's first year post transplant really went better than expected. No fever or sickness besides the occasional runny nose. This past week he caught a nasty GI bug, and wound up back at Hopkins for severe dehydration. They pumped him full of fluids and then sent us home but it was a scary moment to be back there and have him be sick like that. However, I am so thankful that he got sick now after the port was out because it meant when he got a fever, he did not automatically have to be admitted for 48 hours of antibiotics. He is still trying to fight this off and its been almost a week of throwing up and diarrhea. He has not been eating and we are having a hard time keeping fluid down. During the days he seems like he's doing better. He is active and drinks and then at night, the vomiting starts all over again. If you can keep this in prayer, I would appreciate it. The oncology department is not concerned and said he is pretty much like any other kid with a tummy bug right now. Although it may take him a little longer to get better. We are supposed to leave on Sunday for Deep Creek. Believe in Tomorrow gave us a trip to one of their respite facilities and we are so excited to get away for a little while as a family. As long as Grayson can kick this bug we will go and have some fun in the snow!
Speaking of Believe in Tomorrow, we are participating in our second Port to Fort 6K for their organization. We our hoping our team, Racin' for Grayson, will continue to grow in participation each year in order to raise funds for this fabulous organization that provided our family housing downtown during Grayson's treatment. If you live in Maryland and want to join our team, please follow the link and register! http://believeintomorrow.org/p2f/index.html *Remember to put "Racin' for Grayson" when it asks for a team name!
If you can't do the race but would like to donate to Believe in Tomorrow you can do that on our Team page here: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/grayson-brown/port2fort2012
FYI: We are looking for a sponsor for our team t-shirts. If you know any companies interested in having a ton of us racing downtown with their company name & logo plastered on us, send me a message please ;)
I think that's all for now. If Grayson is better and we wind up taking our trip to Deep Creek, I will post pictures!
Love,
Pam
