A Great Therapeutic Weekend
Chase had a great therapeutic weekend with his cousins, Chelsea and Alexis, who drove over with Uncle Mark for the weekend. After his clinic appointment and church on Sunday, they went with him to the Space Center. This was just what he needed – to get out and have some fun, like he’s usually pretty good at. He’s generally quite interested in space (in fact that he’s always talking about wanting to buy a rocket) and he seemed to be into most of the Space Center exhibits, but he didn’t last too long (his energy was waning as we got later in the afternoon). We got him a healthy snack and that seemed to give him a bit more boost, but he’s just not up to speed yet and he crashed out pretty hard during the drive home.
On Monday, after his treatment, we took Chase to the Aquarium. This was definitely a “hit” – it was early enough in the day so he had plenty of energy and he was excited about everything he saw (sharks, alligators, snakes, etc.). He also enjoyed a few “light” rides (train, merry-go-round, ferris wheel). We think one of the most important keys to keeping him engaged was having the right kind of snacks – we’ve been plowing through the Jeanne Wallace report and it is full of incredible info on how to balance his diet. We can already see that following the suggestions is making a huge difference – Carol’s staying on top of this and it’s really working. For the next several months, there won’t be many restaurant meals, but this is a small sacrifice to help Chase win his battle.
Jeanne had several other analogies in her report that really rang home for us. One analogy was that brain tumor diagnosis is like being in a major game of tug-of-war against a formidable opponent – cancer. Chase’s medical treatments and each nutritional / botanical agent we use represents an additional team member, who grabs the rope and adds to Chase’s pull. We agree completely – this effort is in addition to the growing ranks of prayer support that is clearly working strongly on his behalf.
Another interesting analogy relative to the nutritional side of Chase’s treatment is to imagine this as a battle / war and the brain tumor as an “enemy camp” with many roads leading out of the camp. The idea is to use as many natural agents as possible to synergistically target different aspects of cancer biology and compliment the medical treatment. In order to effectively control / defeat the enemy, we need to set up a road block on as many roads as possible. Some of these are natural anti-inflammatory agents to block the tumor from growing, while others are immune boosters, or just ways of cutting off / reducing the supply lines to tumor.
We can really relate to these approaches as we realize that it will take an all-out effort to ensure that Chase has every chance to succeed. We are now visualizing Chase’s story being displayed at the Burzynski clinic as his fastest case of complete response (i.e. total remission)! We firmly believe we are on the right track and it’s just a matter of time before we see the results. With all the additional angles we’re giving Chase to defeat this disease, it may be hard to determine what was the “final blow” in the end, but that’ll be a good problem to have – we’ll let his doctors guess what it might’ve been after he’s given a clean bill of health.
In the meantime, he’s continuing to be a great sport and having fun with this “experience”. He sees all of these challenges as a way of earning more money. For example, today we wanted him to eat cherry tomatoes as part of his breakfast, which he wanted nothing to do with initially. But at a quarter a piece, he wanted to eat as many as gave him and quickly converted the quarters into dollars. Then came the afternoon snack that included carrot sticks – once again, he really wanted something “sweet” but at a quarter a piece, he was all for ‘em. Now he’s actually asking what he can do to earn the next buck (i.e. “when do I get to take the next meds”). It’s a good thing we named him after a large bank – ironically, this weekend was the first time he realized this. We saw his name on a large office building in Houston and he got a real chuckle out of it. He saved up enough to get a black belt karate outfit and a kick bag from Target and he’s got his eye on some other things he’s saving for (in addition to College – he recently accumulated enough for his first $50 bill). At least we don’t have to wonder how to motivate him to cooperate with all of these treatments and remedies…now it’s only a matter of what it’ll cost…
Thanks again for all the prayerful support! You’re all a part of Chase’s winning tug-of-war team against this tumor!
Love,
John & Carol
Chase & Barbara
On Monday, after his treatment, we took Chase to the Aquarium. This was definitely a “hit” – it was early enough in the day so he had plenty of energy and he was excited about everything he saw (sharks, alligators, snakes, etc.). He also enjoyed a few “light” rides (train, merry-go-round, ferris wheel). We think one of the most important keys to keeping him engaged was having the right kind of snacks – we’ve been plowing through the Jeanne Wallace report and it is full of incredible info on how to balance his diet. We can already see that following the suggestions is making a huge difference – Carol’s staying on top of this and it’s really working. For the next several months, there won’t be many restaurant meals, but this is a small sacrifice to help Chase win his battle.
Jeanne had several other analogies in her report that really rang home for us. One analogy was that brain tumor diagnosis is like being in a major game of tug-of-war against a formidable opponent – cancer. Chase’s medical treatments and each nutritional / botanical agent we use represents an additional team member, who grabs the rope and adds to Chase’s pull. We agree completely – this effort is in addition to the growing ranks of prayer support that is clearly working strongly on his behalf.
Another interesting analogy relative to the nutritional side of Chase’s treatment is to imagine this as a battle / war and the brain tumor as an “enemy camp” with many roads leading out of the camp. The idea is to use as many natural agents as possible to synergistically target different aspects of cancer biology and compliment the medical treatment. In order to effectively control / defeat the enemy, we need to set up a road block on as many roads as possible. Some of these are natural anti-inflammatory agents to block the tumor from growing, while others are immune boosters, or just ways of cutting off / reducing the supply lines to tumor.
We can really relate to these approaches as we realize that it will take an all-out effort to ensure that Chase has every chance to succeed. We are now visualizing Chase’s story being displayed at the Burzynski clinic as his fastest case of complete response (i.e. total remission)! We firmly believe we are on the right track and it’s just a matter of time before we see the results. With all the additional angles we’re giving Chase to defeat this disease, it may be hard to determine what was the “final blow” in the end, but that’ll be a good problem to have – we’ll let his doctors guess what it might’ve been after he’s given a clean bill of health.
In the meantime, he’s continuing to be a great sport and having fun with this “experience”. He sees all of these challenges as a way of earning more money. For example, today we wanted him to eat cherry tomatoes as part of his breakfast, which he wanted nothing to do with initially. But at a quarter a piece, he wanted to eat as many as gave him and quickly converted the quarters into dollars. Then came the afternoon snack that included carrot sticks – once again, he really wanted something “sweet” but at a quarter a piece, he was all for ‘em. Now he’s actually asking what he can do to earn the next buck (i.e. “when do I get to take the next meds”). It’s a good thing we named him after a large bank – ironically, this weekend was the first time he realized this. We saw his name on a large office building in Houston and he got a real chuckle out of it. He saved up enough to get a black belt karate outfit and a kick bag from Target and he’s got his eye on some other things he’s saving for (in addition to College – he recently accumulated enough for his first $50 bill). At least we don’t have to wonder how to motivate him to cooperate with all of these treatments and remedies…now it’s only a matter of what it’ll cost…
Thanks again for all the prayerful support! You’re all a part of Chase’s winning tug-of-war team against this tumor!
Love,
John & Carol
Chase & Barbara
posted by John & Carol Sammut at 9:16 PM
1 Comments:
At the rate of quarters he's collecting, he's going to be able to fund the next space shuttle attempt!!
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