This week has been better than the last 2. Brendon is feeling much better. His mouth sores are gone. He was having really bad headaches from Sunday afternoon up until last night. They were so bad that he had to take 2 Oxycodone pills and lay down with the lights out until the headache went away. After about 3 days of headaches we started to get a little concerned. When we called the doctor to let them know about them, they thought maybe Brendon had a sinus infection. We went to CMMC for a CT scan yesterday afternoon. The results came back negative for sinus infection.. We don't really know what caused them, but he didn't have one today. We're hoping that he just had a cold and now he's getting over it. His counts are still pretty low. They've had to cancel his chemo twice because he wasn't where he needed to be. He has not been to school for about 2 weeks. He misses it, but he knows his immunity is not the greatest right now. Right now he is it getting absolutely nothing for medicine (except pain pills or nausea pills if needed). He's LOVING not having to take 15-20 pills a day... If his counts go up to where they need to be he's scheduled for chemo on Thursday, 10/25. We're hoping they do so that he can get these out of the way.. The next phase is maintenance....

Today Brendon and I went to watch a football game of his team from last year. Brendon was so excited to see the team. He really misses not playing. They were so happy to see him. They "retired" (no one else can wear his number until he's able to come back to play and take his number again.) his jersey from last year but they brought it with them and let him wear it during the game. We were only able to catch the last few minutes of the game, but he felt like part of the team. Everyone was great! They gave him a ball that everyone signed and had him sit with the team for a team picture.. The coach (Dion Jackson) called Bren to stand next to him and presented him with the ball. He told Bren that this year was dedicated to him and all of the kids have Brendon's number (66) on the front of their helmets.. It was such an emotional moment! I cried and Bren told me after that he wanted to cry. He was absolutely beaming! There is an All-Star game next week and we're hoping to go to that.. Thank you so much Jr. Lions for making Brendon feel so good!

After the game Brendon wanted to carve pumpkins so we went to Blackie's in Auburn and got 2 pumpkins for $6.. Brendon's pumpkin was almost 15 pounds! I couldn't believe how cheap they were.. He carved an amazing mask on it and it looks fantastic! He's getting really good carving designs. He does it better than I can..
He's in the football frame of mind again so he was outside playing pass with one of the neighbors. He is really hoping to be able to play again next year. Hopefully he can.

That's it for now.. Thank you for the continued thoughts and prayers. You all are amazing people! ~Amber

We are home again! YEAH!!! Brendon was discharged yesterday afternoon. We arrived home around 5pm. We had to stop and get prescriptions before coming home. It is SOOO nice to be home. Brendon was so tired that he fell asleep on the couch around 6:30 and slept all night. He woke up a few times, but he mostly slept until 9am. He's feeling much better. He hasn't taken any pain medicine since yesterday morning. He can't go to school because his counts are so low so we will be doing schoolwork at home this week. We are trying to plan some fun, easy things to do to keep him active. We will be having craft days all this week. We're trying to limit the tv watching and focus on more productive ways to pass the time..

Here are some pictures from the last hospital stay..

Brendon is still running a fever on and off. It mostly hits him in the afternoon and evening. It has been that way since Friday. His white blood cell counts are dropping and it could be from the chemo or he could be fighting an infection. They have taken blood cultures 3 times to see if anything grows. The first one came back negative so we are just waiting on the last 2. They usually take 48 hours to fully grow and the last one was taken last night. They have put Bren on a general antibiotic to try to fight infection. He has also been taking tylenol through the night to keep his fever down. The first night it went up to 102.5 and last night the highest it went was 101.5. So the bad news is that we have to stay in the hospital until he can go 24 hours without a fever and his white counts go up. So it could be 2 more days here. The good news is that Brendon is feeling better. His mouth doesn't hurt as much and the sores on the corners of his mouth are healing. The oral pain medicine is working out very well. Yesterday he only needed the pain pills 3 times throughout the entire day. This morning he woke up feeling really good. He will be able to go outside for a little while today, which will be nice.. He is getting antibiotics every 8 hours so he is free from the iv pole during that time..

He's been keeping busy (when he's been feeling good) at the hospital. We have painted pumpkins, done a little homework and drawn lots of pictures. Last night we watched the movie Elf. We've seen it lots of times, but it never gets old. We laughed so much. We're trying to make the best of being in the hospital. Hopefully now that he's feeling better we'll be able to leave the room more and do more fun things to take his mind off not being home..

Thanks for the e-mails and messages! Have a great day~