Living life undone

  When a WISH is made there are lots of things that are done behind the scenes to make it happen and to make sure that it is magical.  Last blog post, I shared some of the story behind Kaleb's journey to make his wish and how we built a new room in preparation for Kaleb's wish to be granted.  After many emails back and forth with Make-A-Wish, we set a date and planed the big reveal.   The days leading up to his big reveal were a blur of the last bits of building, painting and, cleaning up from the construction.  Kaleb's girlfriend was a lifesaver making sure he was out of the house and busy giving us a chance to l oad the room with items that had been sent in advance from Make-a-Wish as well as a few items that we wanted to have placed into the room.   It was a big group effort to get it all done. Especially without alerting Kaleb to the fact that his wish was coming early!  It was still the summer, so it was hard to make sure that all o...

When you wish upon a star...  Do you remember when we were little and how we would love to make wishes on stars and dandelion seeds? The anticipation of possibilities with what we could wish for.  The hope that it would come true and the shear excitement when it actually did come true!     When Kaleb was first diagnosed and we were still in the induction stage of treatment, we were asked if Kaleb would get to have a wish from the Make-a-Wish Foundation by some friends. It threw us for a bit and it had not been something our medical team had mentioned to us.  We shoved it to the back burner behind everything else going on.  I mean Kaleb was going to survive this ... right?  Being told your child qualifies to make a WISH is definitely a scary thing at first. We were still in denial to some degree on how sick Kaleb was.  We knew he was sick but he was not stuck in the hospital hooked up to machines... he was at home with us.  Panic was the first...

 Well its hard to believe we are 6 months post chemo treatment!  Finding our new normal has been a journey of ups and downs but we are finding our stride. Last appointment we were told to enjoy the summer and, Kaleb was to live like any other teenager... and that he has!  Once school ended Kaleb returned to work for 3 half days per week.  Kaleb was finally cleared at work to operate the forklift once again!  He has the odd shift this summer that has had to be cut short or canceled as he was struggling with energy but in general he is able to manage.  Light duties are slowly being transitioned to more challenging tasks but his boss is very understanding and supportive of him taking small breaks when they are needed.   In the beginning of July, Kaleb learnt that his skin is even more sensitive to the sun than ever! (he was so sure he was going to be invincible to the ways of the sun but not so much....) We also found out that Kaleb's allergy to mosquitoe...

Quick recap for those who need it....  When Kaleb was diagnosed and had completed his initial PET-scan tests it was determined that he had had Hodgkin Lymphoma stage 4b Cancer in his neck, chest, lungs, abdomen and pelvis.   After 7 months of active treatment (6 rounds of chemotherapy) Kaleb rung the gong.  We were told that Kaleb could slowly get back to living a normal life with some restrictions and that we would have to go back to London in 3 months to have more scans to determine if the cancer was dying or if it would start to re-grow.  This would be a CT scan for the 3 month mark. Types of scans:  PET Scan- is the most detailed imaging scan they do CT Scan- is more detailed imaging than an x-ray but not as detailed as a PET scan X-Ray- is considered a entry level imaging.  During these past 3 months:                    Kaleb was able to see his friends only once and sadly contracted Covid-19....

 It's been almost a week since Kaleb's last dose of chemo.... since he rang the "bell".  It's funny, I have been dreading writing this blog because when you hear the "bell" ring it is surreal, a mixed bag of emotions ... we are still processing.  We are so thankful that Kaleb was so fortunate to have the opportunity to a ring the bell that many do not.  Kaleb is still under "active treatment" for several more days. Bloodwork in London in two weeks and from there we will wait. When talking to someone on Kaleb's team, She said the mixed emotions are normal.  You see when this all started back in August, it was like we found out our son was drowning in illness.  Our medical and support teams threw Kaleb a life vest making sure he could stay afloat and get treatment.  Now that the active treatment is completed that life vest is being ripped away and we have to wait and see if Kaleb can swim again.  Waiting is hard and its scary.  3 months is a ...