Tuesday and Wednesday February 19th and 20th, Range of Emotions

Ingram and the girls were happy to be back at school hanging out with all their friends after the long weekend.  I came home and actually got  a lot done before the kids got home from school, but still feel so behind in so many areas!  It however quickly turned into a regular soccer night with Madison having practice at one soccer complex while Lindsey had a game at another complex at the same time.  Ingram was loving the car ride because he passed McDonald's a few times along the way and kept telling me to pull over for his dinner (of which I did not do!) and then he went about playing his game.  It was super cold and I have to admit that even though we were bundled up, I was very happy when he told me he was ready to leave to get warm. 

"Super Dad" finished out the game with Peanut then picked up Madison from her practice only to bring them home to a terrible tasting Chicken Tortilla Soup I had made AND company at the house.  Did I mention they both had soccer which meant they both smelled bad and needed to eat dinner and needed to shower all before they could go to bed??  So it begins at the Dismuke house again for another season of competitive soccer which we really do love!  Both of the girls have great friends on their teams and despite the crazy hours we keep and the amount of gas we guzzle through, they love playing soccer so we keep it up.  Back to our company, Mr. David and Mrs. Laurie came in town for Mr. David's birthday and stopped by the house so it wasn't a big deal with all the chaos and bad food, they're used to it!

Wednesday was exciting for us because we were back at St. Jude and I noticed myself waving wildly at the security guard as we were coming through the gate of the parking lot.  I chuckled and so did Ingram because he was just as excited to be "home" just like me.  After we saw Mrs. Penny and Mrs. Gloria, we headed over to the lab to get his port flushed where we saw our first set of familiar patient faces, our sweet friend Jacqueline who is a little over 2 and was diagnosed with our same tumor type about a month after us.  We could tell she was excited to see us too, but she started talking in Spanish and her mother and I started laughing and Ingram just said his traditional deep voiced "Hey" to her.  Back in the lab, we had Mrs. Virginia (who we love) and she couldn't believe how much Ingram had grown.  Ingram took it one step further and told me he didn't need for me to sit with him while he got poked and I said we could try it and see how far he gets.  Well with Mrs. Virginia on his side, he was listening to her talk the whole time he was getting poked and he didn't even need me to hold him at all.  We're soooo very proud of him and can't believe he's to this point on being such a big boy. 

After labs, we ran to the Cafe for snacks to celebrate (they have a candy jar bar) and Ingram picked Hershey Kisses and M&M's and Blue Gatorade for his treat.  We ran into another friend that we were hoping to meet today since we had been messaging back and forth for a few months now.  I love when we can actually meet people face to face that we've been talking to for a while; by the time you actually see the person, you already feel like family!  Ingram had speech with Mrs. Angela and he had the best time as they worked on blends and then it was off to lunch.  Once the girls got home from school, Ingram was still talking about sitting by himself and we were having fun while doing homework and snacks before we headed to drop off Ingram and Madison with Craig to speak at our church tonight in the Youth Department. 

As we were heading to Craig's office, it's like everything came to a screeching halt.  Not the car or anything like that, my heart just sank as I found out that Aaron Bell, known as Aaron the Amazing, lost his battle with Ependymoma just an hour earlier.  Aaron's family is another one that we have been talking with long before we met in person too.  Aaron had been battling our same tumor since his initial diagnosis back in 2007 and we met them in the hallways of SJ in the Fall, saw them again at the Memphis Marathon Hero Pasta Dinner, and more recently, in January when they came in for his scans after symptoms starting coming back.  Our hearts go out to his parents Kristie and Chris as they had to walk their 17 year old only son through the finals days of his life.  We hate you Ependymoma.

Yeah Baby!
That Didn't Hurt At All!

Stud Alert!

Spoiled Rotten!

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Aaron Bell 

Photo taken on Valentines Day 2013
Aaron The Amazing

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