The Ross family circus has continued to be full of high wire, trapeze, and lion taming acts, one after another, but God continues to be faithful through it all! I will give you a super fast run down of what's gone on the past 6 months (sigh... that was so long ago, sorry) and then I really need your prayers and input on a major topic we are praying through.
Abby- God has called Abby to go to a private Christian school next year (TOTALLY EVIDENCE OF GOD CHANGING HER HEART). The school is a university model, so she will go to school 3 days a week and homeschool 2 days a week, which will give her a lot more flexibility and time with the family since she is so busy with soccer. Abby continues to LOVE soccer and is excited about playing on the u13 Dash DA team next year (it's the highest level soccer you can play at her age, so it's been a goal of hers). She just had her last day of 6th grade on June 6th and the messages I read in her yearbook make me one grateful mama. A number of kids wrote how much she has impacted their lives in a positive way, helping them to make better choices and care about things that matter. While she may have just missed national honors society, etc, we continue to affirm her for being a light to those around her.
***HERE IS WHERE WE NEED YOUR PRAYERS AND INSIGHT- Andrew had a great 4th grade year. He only missed a hand full of days this year because of pain, Dr's appointments, or being sick, which is truly amazing. His pain has been well controlled, with random spurts of pain here and there that seems to come out of nowhere. He has had days where he has felt "woozy" mid morning at school, when the nurse has checked his blood sugar it has been low, so she's given him juice and crackers and he has felt better. It breaks my heart to think that he could be developing diabetes at such a young age because of his cancer, which is obviously impacting his pancreas or as a result of the shot he has to get monthly to try to slow down tumor progression. We will start checking his glucose more regularly and follow up with his oncologist to come up with a plan, so I'll keep you posted on that. His next scan is scheduled for June 25th, will you PLEASE pray that his disease continues to be stable?
Andrew has been riding horses for the past year and we have found that it is such a perfect fit for him because it requires exercise, in the sense that he uses his core a whole lot, and it takes a lot of courage (which he has a ton of). There is something about horses that brings him so much joy, peace, and confidence. He even loves taking care of the horse before and after he rides. There are intimate parts of this story that are hard for me to type, so please bear with me... So, we were suppose to go on a Make A Wish trip for Andrew in 2017, but had to reschedule it because Andrew was approved for PRRT treatment right before and we needed to jump on the opportunity, so we rescheduled the trip for 2018. However, again we had to cancel it because Andrew was in so much pain at the time that we didn't want to take him on a trip that he wouldn't be able to enjoy because he was hunched over and throwing up from pain. We tabled the Make a Wish trip until we were in a better place, so we just started praying and talking about what Andrew wants to do for his MAW trip again. You see, the last two times we talked to Andrew about what his wish would be, he was on a ton of pain meds and really not himself in so many ways. The past 6-7 months have been an experience I will never take for granted... we have seen our boys personality return, since coming off a lot of the really heavy duty pain meds. It makes my heart ache thinking about the 2 years we spent trying to help Andrew feel as "normal" as possible when his life was anything but normal and it was hard to remember what his personality was really like because the kid in front of us was so often in a manic state (I intended to explain further, but its still a little raw to go there at the moment, so more details to come at a later date). It was painful to watch his best friend (Abby) fall apart inside over and over as she would try to connect with him like she always had and constantly be faced with the reality that he was just different now. There was a spoken and unspoken sadness that we were losing our Bubba, our Buddy, My Boy, physically and emotionally. It was so super hard to reconcile. All the while, Andrew was still the same great kid, with an amazing heart, but in the battle for his life (literally) and a battle for his sense of self. He knew he was different, but he couldn't do anything about it (the pain meds were necessary to keep him comfortable). After his 4th round of PRRT, we felt like we were at a place where we could start weaning him off of some of the crazy, heavy duty pain meds in hopes of getting our boy back (ever so slowly... it was almost a 5 month process to get him off of the really heavy ones) and we were dealing with a lot of rebound pain, etc (we would wean down and have to go back up, try to go down again, and go back up, etc). During this time he began horse back riding. It was through horse back riding that we witnessed improved pain control, increased confidence, courage, and so much more in Andrew.
There are 3 more things that weigh on our hearts heavily... We spend a lot of time on the soccer field with Abby. It's easy to connect with Abby around soccer because of her passion for it and because we both enjoy sports a lot. It has been hard to find ways to connect with Andrew (for us and his friends) over the years for various reasons (one obvious one being the different world his pain meds had him in), but the reality is, Andrew doesn't love competitive sports very much (this is probably a blessing, since cancer would keep him from being able to do them in many ways because of the heat and physical exertion, which he can do, but doesn't have near the endurance his peers do), he knows he is different because of his diagnosis (he lives with realities and experiences other kids can't relate to), so we have to be creative in trying to find ways to get into his world. Horse back riding is one way that we can get into his world! While we spend a lot of money on Andrew's health, we want to be able to invest time and money into something he loves, since he obviously doesn't love being treated for cancer and that will be his reality as long as he's on this side of heaven, as there isn't a cure for his type of cancer. This brings me to the biggest and hardest point to type... In many ways, I feel like Andrew's 5th grade year is monumental because February 22nd of this next school year marks the time frame his Oncologist told us he would likely no longer be with us. I so badly want to forget that statement (in addition to the "we are just kicking the can down the road" statement), but the enemy won't let me; therefore, I have to lay that date, that statement on the alter daily and remind myself that God is the author of this story and nobody else!
This is the place we find ourselves when we began discussing with Andrew what he wanted to do for his MAW trip next year and he says "I don't want to go anywhere, I just really want a horse." We have tried to sell him on any trip or experience under the sun, but there is no question a horse is the deepest desire of his heart (even when we make the responsibility of a horse sound dreadful).
Here is where you come in, will you please join us in praying about how to handle Andrew's request? We love the idea of allowing Andrew to be all in on his passion like Abby gets to do with hers and for us to have something we can do alongside Andrew (spend time at the barn, etc) more than just an hour a week. BUT it sounds SO overwhelming and unrealistic. While MAW would cover some of the expenses, like the horse and some initial vet bills, etc, this is a long term (expensive) commitment. It's hard to picture how in the world we could afford the equivalent of another car payment. In addition to praying for wisdom for us, please pray that God would align Andrew's heart with His will. Also, we would love any insight y'all have to offer. If you are a horse person or know someone that is, we would welcome your insight and advice... PLEASE! You can comment on the blog, message David or I on facebook, email us, or call us. Thank you for riding this roller coaster with us always! We are literally sustained by your prayers, so please keep bringing our family before the throne because our God hears, sees, and cares deeply for His children and their requests! #butGod #hopeon
