One Amazing Birthday Party!

Michael had an amazing first birthday!  We held a birthday party in our backyard for him back on July 2nd, complete with bounce house, cotton candy machine, and face painting!  The weather cooperated beautifully, with a nice cloud cover so it wasn't too hot, and no rain until after the party was over. 

First, let me tell you a little how this thing came together.  Originally I had planned to have a simple backyard party with cake and ice cream.  However, my dear friend Sandra asked if she could take over the planning and I couldn't resist taking the stress off my plate.  Little did I know what an amazing party she could pull off in just a week!  Sandra starting calling businesses and friends like crazy in Fort Collins telling them all about Michael and his special birthday.  People were so incredibly generous so everything for Michael's party was donated by businesses or paid for by friends.  We just can't thank people enough for their goodness.  (We've included links to some of the businesses if people want to "like" them on facebook to thank them for their generosity.)

There are a lot of pictures coming so sit back, relax and enjoy! Thanks to good friends for snapping pictures for us.

Thanks to Marcus and Whole Foods for donating two huge birthday cakes and several large fruit platters.  Marcus delivered the goods himself so he could meet Michael.

Sorry for the blurry pic but it was so great to meet Marcus in person

Sandra, master party planner with one of Michael's huge delicious birthday cakes provided by Whole Foods

This cake was made by American Baking Girl

He loved it except when his face broke out in hives afterwords!  I'm thinking we have a food allergy of some kind.

A huge thanks to TCBY for donating all of these single serve frozen yogurts.  We went through 175 of them.

One of our favorite visitors:  Hazel and her parents came all the way from Denver to help Michael celebrate his birthday!  Hazel has the same type of brain cancer as Michael and recently finished her radiation treatments. 

Alyssa was our fantastic balloon artist. She made swords for the kids.

After the party, our 6-year old Sarah told us she wants the same party when it's her birthday.  How do we top something like this?  Sorry Sarah, this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal!
-Liz

Michael's First Year Video

In honor of Michael's first birthday his Aunt Julie made a great video for him.  It gets the waterworks going every time we watch it.  We love you Michael!

Michael's First Year Video

Radiation Begins

Michael had his first day of radiation last Thursday, July 5th so we've completed a little more than a week of treatments.  He is receiving his treatments at the Anschutz Cancer Pavillion which is part of the University of Colorado Hospital, which is right across the street from the Children's Hospital.  His appointments this week were at 8:30 AM and the total time was about 1 hour.  We go everyday, Monday thru Friday, get a break for the weekends and we will finish treatments around August 16th.  The radiation has left him feeling pretty nauseous,and he's had some pretty long naps, but otherwise he seems to be handling it pretty well.

Here is an overview of what each day is like:

When we arrive at the Cancer Center in Denver we're greeted by Bill, the receptionist.
He's super nice and it's obvious he loves his job and the people he serves.

Then we meet with Dr. Liu, Michael's pediatric radiation oncologist, in the children's playroom
(typically we only see Dr. Liu on Fridays).

Then we enter the radiation room.  The radiation machine is on the left.  Foreground are all the cds they use to play nice relaxing music.  Michael is sedated for his radiation as he must remain perfectly still.  In the room are the nurse, the anesthesiologist, Dr. Liu and two of the technicians who operate the machine.

When we enter the radiation room, we sit on a chair next to the bed set up for Michael.  The nurse (on the left) is setting up Michael's port for anesthesia while the anesthesiologist (on the right) prepares to administer the Propofol drug to cause him to fall asleep.

Michael falls asleep quickly and peacefully.  We give him a kiss and then place him on the bed where the doctors and nurse arrange him in place.

We leave the room but the workers remain to finish preparations.  This is a picture of the monitor outside the radiation room.  The nurse, doctor and technicians have placed the special mask over Michael's head to make sure the radiation is pinpoint perfect where it is administered.  

This is another monitor the doctors and technicians use that shows the positioning of Michael's head to ensure accuracy with the radiation.

When the radiation is ready to be administered, everyone except Michael leave the radiation room and head to the monitoring area.  The radiation is administered simply in a matter of several seconds.  A series of clicking noises occur so that the technicians know precisely when the radiation is being administered.  During this time as well, part of the radiation machine rotates to deliver the radiation in an arc.  At times, Michael's bed is moved as well to ensure the radiation is targeting the right areas of the brain.  So during the process, the nurse, doctors, and technicians will enter and leave the room to position and check on Michael.

Here is a two minute clip I took from the monitoring room while Dr. Liu was explaining the process to us and answering our questions.  About half way through the clip, you can see the radiation machine moving as it delivers the radiation.

Click here to see the video (since I'm having trouble with the blog software uploading it tonight).

When the treatment is complete (it takes about 20 minutes), Michael is taken to a recovery room where he awakens.  I then give him something to eat (as he has to be fasting because of the anesthesia) and then we go home until the next morning.

One Big Surprise

Last Saturday morning, my sister Julie was visiting from Utah and we were spending the morning putting together a slide-show video for Michael's birthday.  It was a great video, but emotionally difficult to put together, especially watching Michael's transformations.  Around 10:30, we all heard singing outside of our house.  I could vaguely see out by our front door that there were people gathering on our front porch with balloons and they were singing "Happy Birthday" to Michael.  I thought it was probably some of our neighbors or friends from church.  Instead, I was absolutely stunned when I opened the door and saw my entire family standing there singing.  None of my family live nearby and in fact some of them have never even been to Fort Collins. And my family has 7 kids in it, so something like this was only in my dreams.   It was one of the most heavenly and welcomed sights and Tim and I both burst into tears.  We had just been talking together that morning about how emotionally difficult the last couple of weeks had been, so to have my whole family there felt like the much needed angels to help lift us up.  There was lots of love and tears from everyone.

Little did Tim and I know that my family had been planning this surprise for awhile.  Everyone drove the 8-hour drive sometime Friday and stayed in nearby hotels.  My sister, Julie, had taken a "run" Friday night to meet up with the family and pick up the video camera for the big suprise the following morning.  She had been in on the surprise the whole time.  My family had brought everything to have a big birthday picnic for Michael and then they were planning to go home as they didn't want to burden us.  Not in our dreams did we want them to leave so quickly.  "Please stay," seemed like the only words that kept coming out of my mouth.  Luckily, we were able to convince most of them to stay through the day.  We had a pinata, visiting, trampoline games and topped it off with swimming at the Marriott where most of them stayed in that night.

Here are some more pictures of that incredible day: