Riding for Roses

We are all home again.

Last night Jacob turned the corner. His blood oxygen came up to around 96% on room air. He got really active – so active that he fell and split his lip playing in his bed. They wrote the discharge orders as Spencer arrived at the other building for his chemotherapy. Jacob [...]

If I were reading our story in a novel right now, I think I’d toss the book. The timing of overly melodramatic events is far too contrived to be true. Any author resorting to such plot devices should not be published. Yet, there it is – real life. For a change, this posting is not [...]

Our story so far: During the 2004 Ride for the Roses, four year old Spencer Sartin was running a fever. On October 22, 2004, Spencer was admitted to Children’s Hospital of Austin and diagnosed with pre-B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (also called acute lymphocytic leukemia, both abbreviated ALL). Spencer began treatment the next day after having [...]

Today marks the beginning of Spencer’s Delayed Intensification #1 phase of chemotherapy. He is on Arm II of CCG-1991 phase III clinical trial.

Delayed intensification I (7 weeks)

oral DM twice daily on days 0-6 and 14-20
VCR IV and doxorubicin (DOX) IV over 15 minutes to 2 hours on days 0, 7, and 14
PEG-ASP IM on [...]

As I mentioned a while back, we bought about 250 LiveStrong wristbands and we give them out just to help raise awareness and support for Cancer Survivorship issues. On occasion, quite frequently in fact, people will give us small amounts of cash after we give them a wristband. Often, people give one dollar for each [...]

Lance Armstrong is on Oprah today and Oprah challenged her viewers to break the one day sales record for LiveStrong wristbands – the current record is 386,890. Go ahead, break the record. If you are a cancer survivor, or are supporting a cancer survivor, check out the LiveStrong for support information. Finally, if you want [...]

Lance Armstrong is going to be on Oprah on February 11. Check you local listings to see when Oprah is on. Sheryl Crow will be with him. Naturally, discussion will include cycling, cancer, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation plus I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some discussion of relationships. According to the information I [...]

It’s birthday week at our house. Jacob’s birthday was Friday and Spencer’s is today. We had a party for Spencer at Capital Gymnastics on Saturday and had about 20 kids. They have two huge gyms and they have the kids do one session in each room with a water break between. They have trampolines, balance [...]

Jacob is one year old today!

He is his own little boy. Different from the start from his older brother, Spencer. He laughs hysterically with ease, sometimes at strange things and sometimes simply at watching his mother eat dinner. He is a speed demon at crawling. He is on the cusp of learning to walk, taking [...]

Spencer was January “Kid of the Month” at our health club, Full Court Fitness. Next time, we go, I will pick up the little form and post an actual quote. I think the main criteria for kid of the month are frequent attendance, good attitude, and cooperating with the staff. With high energy and spirits, [...]