Since we've been on facebook, we haven't updated our blog as often as we should.
Brandon is doing ok. He recently finished chemotherapy. Dr. Affifi up at Primary Children's did such a great job with Brandon. Dr. Abraham is awesome too. The surgeon, Dr. Randall, is the best in the state! We're so thankful to all the doctors and nurses that have cared for Brandon.
Now that chemo is over, you would think that our worries would be over too. Not so. Chemo, as awful as it was (throwing up, sickness, pain, tingling sensations, with so many possible side-effects), it was also providing protection from cancer growth. As parents we have been worried about cancer growing back. This was kind of a bone cancer (Ewings Sarcoma), and as long as it doesn't crop up in a 2nd location, he ought to be ok. We'll see how it goes. We pray all the time for him.
Brandon still has left over pain from the surgeries & chemo. He still gets twinges and aches. He even gets similar pains (that he had in the beginning) in his leg. Each time he winces in pain, it worries us. Although he's working on rehabing his leg, he still limps on that leg, and has some numb spots (since the doc's had to remove nerves from his leg too).
This year for Halloween the Make-A-Wish foundation is sending our family to Disney World in Florida. That will be awesome! We've never been, can't afford to with 6 kids in our house. We only had 5 kids when Brandon made his wish (because my oldest son Mitchel was living with my ex-wife at the time), but now Mitchel is living back at home with us.
Before cancer, we had always heard what a financial strain it is on a family to have such an event strike a family. We had no idea. I thought the big financial burdon was just the cancer bills. Those add up to about 75 - 90 thousand a month, and fortunately we didn't have to pay all of that. After a couple of months we did qualify for Medicaid because I was laid off from my job of a year & a half (due to the economic slow down). At first that was devastating, but after some time, we came to wonder how much more impossible helping Brandon fight cancer for so long would have been if I wasn't available to care for him for that year. His treatment was part of a clinical study and it was more aggressive. He did 5 days of chemo, then 8 days off, then 5 days on, 8 days off. With a few exceptions, the year of chemo pretty much went that way. Seemed like about a week at home, a week at the hospital. Which wouldn't have been so bad if the hospital was in our town, but it wasn't - it was 4 hours north of us. So, each time was quite a drive.
So, after more than a year of traveling (which isn't over yet - he has ongoing care to come), finding places to stay, missing work, wear & tear on the van, no jobs, (income bottomed out & expenses through the roof), - we're still limping along. We can recover, it's just going to take time. We're working on qualifying for a 2007 Honda Odyssey with the Rear DVD entertainment system (keeps the kids quiet on the long trips up to the hospital), to replace our rapidly dying 2003 Honda Odyssey. It's been a good van, and has served us well through the cancer, but it's on it's last leg. Makes many funny noises, and is in need of thousands of dollars worth of work.
My credit is destroyed & will be for years to come probably, and although my wife's credit was hit very hard (her's was perfect before btw), with having to survive on credit cards for about a year (with many unexpected expenses), I am working hard to repair my wife's credit. We're going to try to do a fundraiser soon. After all that we've borrowed, lost, fell behind on, and owe, I'd say we are personally in debt less than most people who fight cancer - but it is still
more than we will be able to personally raise for many years to come. We would be happy if we could just get our noses back above water at this point. But that could take many years, even if I could double what I earn right now.
We've set up a PayPal donation account to help our family in our fight against Brandon's cancer.
The link is here:
http://tinyurl.com/mq55wr**YOU DO NOT have to be a member of paypal to donate.
You can
1.) Fill in amount
2.) Click "Update Total" button
3.) click "Continue" on the bottom left side of the page it says: Don't have a PayPal account? Use your credit card or bank account (where available). "Continue"
We hope to reach as many people as possible. We know times are tough right now, and we don't expect much of anything - we certainly know we aren't owed anything from anybody. We just figured, the more people that donate a dollar or a few dollars - that's not much to an individual (but a world of difference to us) -- if a hundred thousand people donated a dollar, or if fifty thousand ppl donated two dollars, or if 20,000 people donated $5 each, we'd financially be able to recover from this - and be able to focus once again on Brandon and his physical recovery & rehabilitation.
Thanks to all who visit our blog
and Brandon's facebook
http://www.facebook.com/BrandonBeatingCancerHe has a lot of fans now!
Thanks again!
The Hammett family
