Ironman

Jacob is proud of his x-ray showing the location of his meta-port. This port allows him to receive medication and fluids without the need to stick him with a needle. The port is also used to take blood samples for testing.

The port is located just below the skin, so he will be able to take showers and later this summer he will be able to go swimming without having to remove any equipment. He has enjoyed showing all of his visitors his battle scars and describing it's new uses.

Treatment Update

Good Morning!

Jacob made it through the the night wonderfully well. He was up a couple of times going to the bathroom and having vitals taken, but other then that he got some good sleep - and the slight fever he was running broke in the middle of the night! He is feeling very little pain (3-4 on the smiley face scale) from his med port placement and is on no pain medicine right now. At this moment he is watching Saturday morning cartoons, playing with Indiana Jones Legos and waiting for his buttermilk pancakes to be delivered.

Brian and I both stayed with Jake last night and worked on mastering the skill of the sleeper chair. Our awesome night nurse helped us wrangle an extra one in and both of us were able to get some shut eye as well. The entire staff at P/SL (our hospital) is top notch and they are taking the best care of our entire family.

Last night we spent a long time discussing treatment options with Dr Odom (Jakes Oncologist). She reviewed the Bone Marrow Biopsy and it confirms that Jacob has ALL. The spinal tap fluid from his surgery yesterday shows no Leukemia cells on initial examination which is really good. During surgery they did administer the first round of Chemo into the spinal fluid. This helps to decrees leukemia cells from "hiding out" in the spinal cord as the other chemotherapy agents are introduced and start to work.

After a very lengthy discussion (our Dr is amazingly thorough and patient) and a detailed analysis of benefit / risk we have consented for and started Jacob on a standard risk ALL chemotherapy regiment. We started last night and for the next four weeks will be in the induction phase of this plan. Today is day 2. They are using 3 main chemo agents during this phase and expect to see by day 15 a reduction in leukemia cells from 100% to under 5%.

During this induction phase, we will see Jacob's immune system weaken and that does place him at a very high risk for infection. With that in mind Brian and I are trying to leap into our role as patient advocate and watch for any signs of infection in Jake and in anyone he comes in contact with. The Dr has OK'd visits - ALL VISITORS MUST BE HEALTHY AND INFECTION FREE!!! If you are fighting any sickness we ask that you call and pray but wait to visit until your health is recovered. We are also asking that visits be kept under an hour so that Jacob and family have time to rest. If for any reason Jacob needs to stop receiving visitors we will post that hear on the blog.

We had a packed house yesterday - both in the hospital room and across the blog. We are sharing all emails & comments on the blog with Jake and it has been very encouraging. He loves knowing (once he gets over a little shyness) that there are people around the country thinking about him, checking on him and praying. For those who were able to stop by the hospital he loves looking at all his cards on the bulletin board and the Legos, games, snacks, books and colors are helping to fill the time around treatment. Thank You for loving our son so much.

For those that I have not spoken to directly we are Presbyterian / St Luke Hospital. This is the Rocky Mountain hospital for children and has an outstanding reputation for patient care, especially for pediatric oncology care. They just celebrated their 125th anniversary and we are so thankful for God leading us to this site. Brian and I have complete trust and peace in the care Jacob is getting. The address for those of you who have been asking is

Presbyterian / St Luke
1719 E 19th Avenue
Denver, CO 80218

We are in room 802 and the room number is (303) 839-7802.

The earliest we could leave the hospital is Monday and they are currently expecting this visit to go to Tues / Wed.

Jake is getting concerned over the absence of his pancakes - so I will post more later.

Surgery follow-up

We met with Jacob's doctor this evening to discuss the results of the surgery from earlier today and some of their findings.

We will post more details in the morning concerning the names of medications and the frequency, but with the sheer number of people who are looking for updates, we felt it was best to get something out there.

The initial tests on the spinal fluid came back with ZERO leukemia cells in the spinal fluid. YAY!!!!
The tests on the bone marrow did confirm the initial diagnosis, that the type of leukemia Jacob has is ALL. Because they were able to confirm this, we chose to begin chemotherapy treatment starting this evening. Jacob has taken his initial doses for the night and they will take a blood sample in the morning with the hopes of being able to see some significant changes in his blood cell counts. We have been given printouts of the pre-op cell counts and will be given a copy of the updated ones in the morning. We will be sure and share this information as well.

Tanya and I are staying the night with Jake tonight since his treatment has begun.

We thank you again for all of your prayers. We have had a great time sharing your messages of prayers and encouragement with Jacob.

Surgery Update #2

WOW - what an amazing God we have!!!!!

Jacob is back up in his new room now, doing better than ever. He came out of the anesthetic better than expected, and the pain is at a level that they are able to control with some meds.

Thanks to all of your emails and voice mails offering encouragement and help. We will never be able to thank you all enough.


Next steps....waiting on the biopsy results so that we can start putting together a plan for chemotherapy treatments.

Here are a couple of post-surgery pictures of Jake.

Surgery update.....

Jacob has moved on from surgery and is now in the recovery room.

From all indications from the surgeons, the processes all went incredibly well.

We will update more details as we get them.


- Jacob, just prior to leaving for surgery.

Where were you.....

It has been a number of weeks (months) since the last update on our blog. We figured now would be a good time to start back up.

For many years, I have listened to and enjoyed the song by Alan Jackson - "Where Were You When the World Stop Turning". Every time I hear that song I think about where I was on 9/11 when I first heard what was happening. I can relate with a number of feelings that are shared within that song. Today, the title of this song has brought a different meaning to my life.

Jacob went into the Doctor on 5/14 with the expectation of being diagnosed with pink eye. He did in fact have pink eye, but he came away with some much larger. They drew some blood from him and did some additional tests. The next morning we received a call from the doctor asking us to take Jacob into the ER so that they could run some additional tests. These tests confirmed the tests from the previous day. Jacob has acute lymphocytic leukemia. I am not sure how, as a parent, you can ever prepare yourself for this news. Especially when you are taking your child in for pink eye, but other than that he has been an exceptionally healthy child. Sure, looking back we can see some signs that there may have been an underlying issue. But kids get colds, kids get the flu, kids get fevers.

There have been many tough days in my life, many of which I would give anything to have changed the outcome. This one has now taken over the top spot. To have your day go from sitting in meetings at work, to driving across town to a hospital as you can hardly see straight because the fear of the unknown has caused the tears to pour out faster than you can wipe them away.

Tomorrow - May 16th @1:00pm MT, just more than 24 hours after being diagnosed with leukemia, Jacob will be taken into surgery as they perform a bone marrow biopsy, a spinal tap, and they will also insert a tunneled catheter in his chest that will be used as they start his chemotherapy treatment. The surgery is expected to last about 1 1/2 hours.

Tanya and I have received an incredible amount of support from our family and friends, we are doing our best to try and keep people informed as to what is going on and what we know. It has been a difficult day, to say the least. Our plan is to try and update this blog on a regular basis so that anyone interested in an update will have a place they can check and it will also allow us to get the information out in the open.

I ask that you continue to pray for Jacob and his family as we continue on our new journey.