Ingram the Conqueror: Monday to Friday August 26th to 30th, One Of "Those" Weeks

We got the call from Nurse Lizzie about the official results from Ingram's ENT visit last week and have come up with a plan of sorts regarding Ingram's port. Since he's had an sinus infection or drainage every time we've had the opportunity to take his port out, we now have the "all clear" to take it out. But, with it still being warm enough to swim, healing from an incision takes forever for Ingram, and hopefully looking forward to a trip to the beach in the next month or so, we've decided to hang on to his port for a little bit longer. His next MRI is already scheduled for October 22nd and his port will be removed on the same day since he'll already be sedated for his scan. We're excited about this because it signifies so much more than just removing a port; it signifies a real end to treatment even though he's been finished since October 31st of last year. We're also nervous about removing it because of all of the "what if's" that have already been thought about by Craig and myself. When we were talking about it as a family, Madison said "it" out loud (what we'd all been thinking about" and we all stopped what we were doing, talked about it some more, but kept with our same decision to remove the port before we get his MRI results.

We've had something to do every day this week and finally decided to ditch the list and have some down time at home. Monday, we had to catch on the weekends laundry and cleaning before our week started off wrong. Tuesday, Ingram helped take the car to the shop and was amazed at how a car looks without tires. He figured it wasn't going anywhere, so we walked to the pet store and spent about an hour watching the dogs play; it was really a lot of fun! Tuesday night, Ingram went with Lindsey to her soccer game while Daddy and Madison were at practice. He got about as wet from sweat as he does from the pool playing with his buddy Ty and a lot of other kids. Wednesday was his preschool orientation and he got to do a mini-day (lasted an hour) with his friends and new teachers while I folded, sorted, and put away two loads of laundry and unloaded the dishwasher just to reload it again. Afterwards, we headed to lunch with some of our preschool friends and the boys talked about how much fun they had. Before bed, Ingram and Daddy jumped in the pool for no reason other than they could! Thursday, we were both tired and decided to watch a movie and snuggle up in bed instead of running our errands. We took a surprise "You've made it a month in 4th Grade" lunch to Lindsey and had so much fun hanging out with her during the day. Friday after school, we headed out to Dean Studio in Bartlett and started filming for our new fundraising video for the Marathon weekend! It was a fun time and Ingram did great, as did his girls. We can't wait to show it off once it's finished so keep tuned to watch for its debut!!

This whole week has been one of those roller coaster weeks for no obvious reason other than cancer just really stinks. Landan, Ingram's first friend during Radiation, had his first Angelversary this week. Ingram and Landan, along with Jayden and Cole, played together every day during their radiation treatments and all three of them are "cancer free for eternity" now. I know in our house we have cycles of emotions that we are very much aware of, but then sometimes it just hits out of the blue. Please continue to pray for our friends at St. Jude and all over the world who have lost their children to cancer and those that are still in their lifelong battle with their children.