Having recovered from my food induced coma...I have some more pics to offer. No news, but isn't that supposed to be good news?

Here's the whole crowd for Thanksgiving, minus Buddy, who was behind the camera. I was going to identify everyone here, but I figure if you don't know who they are, you probably don't care!



Hey, I could do it like this - from left to right, Chase's Uncle, Chase's Grandmother, Chase's Cousin, Chase's Uncle, Chase's Aunt, Chase's Aunt, Chase's Grandmother, and Chase! And smack in the middle of things (nothing new there) is Chase's Mom. Well, and Chase's Mom's Dog, but you figured that out all by yourself, didn't you.

Did Jacob not know we were all coming for Thanksgiving dinner?
Sorry sweetie, you missed out! But I'm sure you had fun with Joey.

Torturing the dog - do dogs really need coats? In NC?
It was shorts weather today!

Buddy and Chase watching football on the big screen.
I swear they're looking more alike every day...

So now can I start with the Christmas decorating? Please? I have a bunch of new Christmas music to listen to!

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving, and boy do we have a lot to be thankful for! Chase is doing very well, and tomorrow we'll all be snoozing in front of football on the big screen TV at the Jones' house after eating too much good food, I'm sure. Well, most of us will, but Chase will escape shortly after dinner to spend the rest of the weekend with his friend Griffin. Oh, and Jacob's already left for a weekend with a friend too. Hmmmm.... could be a very quiet weekend then. YES! :: fist pump ::

Ahem.

Of course we'd rather they were here with us, but we make the neccesary sacrifices so the kids will be happy.

Speaking of happy - Chase finally got someone to shave the fuzzies off his head. Looks good!

So far he's hanging on to his eyebrows and lashes, which is nice. Hope it lasts!

Here are a couple of old pics Judith just sent me, both taken as he was being released from the NICU back in early October. Can you tell we'd just gotten the good news that this was a beatable tumor?

His two favorite NICU nurses.

Judith's favorite picture.

Monday he gets a Vincristine shot, and then he'll have some bloodwork around the 5th of December to see when he can start on his next 5 day inpatient chemo session.

Until then, Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all!

:: drags self back to the kitchen to peel more potatoes ::

Heh. I finally turned the tables on Judith and woke her up with a phone call! I have to gloat 'cause that just never happens!

One anecdote to add from yesterday. Unbeknownst to Chase, a very nice nurse passed two tickets for the basketball game on to Judith and Buddy. They slipped into their seats, caught sight of Chase closer to the floor, and called his cell phone.

"Look up and to your right, Chase".

"No Way!"

:: waves ::

Poor kid can't ever get away from his parents...

I'm still waiting for the promised phone call from Judith, so all I know about today is that he flew through chemo, got released Sunday morning, watched Carolina blow by some insignificant basketball team*, and then got stuck in that awful I-40 construction traffic on their way to Raleigh for dinner with Buddy's family. Well, that and they reclaimed their dog from Mom and headed for Greensboro for a couple days.

I'm sure Mom misses JD's company, but not the paw prints on the bed!

Chase gets another shot of Vincristine either late this week or early next, depending on the hospital's holiday schedule, then he's not due back until December 5th at the earliest.

Is this whole chemo thing slow or what?

*Apologies to any Garner-Webb fans, but 103 to 50???

Late blog tonight, but I learned something today - if you want to get treated quickly at the ER, show up in an ambulance! That still doesn't mean you'll get out quickly, but thankfully Chase's uncle John is fine (and I have a few more gray hairs). Any more hospital tours and we'll be forced to start writing reviews to keep them all straight!

Although I didn't win one stinkin' game of Mexican Train today, Chase had a decent, if boring, day. This round of chemo is much quicker and less nausea inducing than the last one, so he should be out by the time Carolina plays basketball tomorrow at 1PM. Speaking of basketball:



That's Eric Montross towering over Chase! And Chase is, what, about 5'9"? So that makes Eric...really, really tall. He played for UNC in the 90's, went on to play in the NBA and is now UNC's basketball commentator. He has a Father's Day basketball camp that has donated thousands to the North Carolina's Children's hospital, so he was there on the radiothon day to help out. Thanks, Eric!

And with that, I'm off to bed. May tomorrow be completely uneventful. And may Carolina win.