I am so excited today, because I have finished my first card as a volunteer for Send Love Today. Send Love Today is a organization I kinda stumbled onto. They provide cards and small gifts to brain tumor patients. As a volunteer, you make a commitment to make a card once a week and send it to your patient. So my first card is for Connor who sounds like a really strong little boy! His birthday is this month and he will turn 4 years old. I made him this card, which is basically the same card as I made my nephew. However, this one I embossed his name using some zip glue and clear embossing powder. I like how it looks like water puddles on the letters. I encourage you to get involved. You can find a link on the left side of this blog.
Here's Connor's story as told by his mom...what a strong little boy and how much he has had to endure in his short little life...
"Connor was born August 23, 2004. In November my husband, who was in Iraq, was wounded. December 9th he was sent home. Connor was 3 ½ months old. For the next year we spent everyday going to and from occupational therapy to get my husbands hand working again. Eric deployed again in July 2005. In Nov. 2005 Connor started vomiting once a week. He was hospitalized in December for 3 days. Afterwards he started waking up in tears and hiding in the hallway, soaking about 25 diapers a day & drinking over 100 ounces of water. The vomiting got worse, it was happening every single day and he was getting thinner by the day. It became a routine, Connor would not eat anything except Doritos then at 3 am he would start coughing and then vomit. Eric came home on May 2, 2006. We drove to Wilmington for a GI appt. By now Connor weighed 19#. They hospitalized him, at UNC, to run a bunch of tests. May 26th they decided to do a head CT because all the other tests were not showing anything. I will never forget that day. When he came in he told us they found a “mass” in Connor’s brain. May 27th, he was sedated for an MRI. They told us it was a tumor. They sent in the neurosurgeon to talk to us about surgery. On May 28th at 11am we said goodbye to Connor and watched them carry him into brain surgery. It was the hardest thing I had to do so far. The surgery last for 8 hours. We talked to Dr. Ewend. He told us that they got about 95% of the tumor, the rest of the tumor was in the brain tissue so they could not get it. He couldn't hold his head up and wasn’t talking. He had sodium troubles. He ran fevers for wasn't eating well. June 1st his sodium dropped fast and he had a seizure. He aspirated chicken into his lung so he was put on a ventilator. Then he had surgery to get a port and g. A few days later we found out he has a Pilomyxoid Astrocytoma. They wanted to do another MRI to get an idea of how the tumor was and to see if it was in the spine. The brain tumor was the same size from surgery but the spine was encased in the tumor. June 22, 2006 Connor got his first chemo treatment. We went home on June 26th. We were in the hospital a total of 6 weeks. He has done 18 months of Carboplatin/vincristine & temodar. He finished the treatment with many port problems and illnesses. His MRI in February 2008 showed growth. They tried cytoxan and celebrex for 3 months and checked his progress. An MRI in June showed even more growth. He just received a dose of Vinblatine, his new chemotherapy. He used to not fear anything or anyone and now he fears almost everything.
Connor is such an amazing child. He is full of laughs and love. His favorite time of day is mail time because he loves opening mail, even if it is a credit card offer!"
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