Christmas with Grammy & Aunt Kathy

After a whirlwind trip to Gatlinburg we came home to our first Christmas celebration of the year. Grammy and Aunt Kathy came by for a dinner. It was my first attempt at lemon butter sauces, fish, and corn chowder. The corn chowder was pretty good. As for the rest of it, OK I guess.

Jack really enjoyed his presents. He snatched up a Diego bicycle and the Diego Dino Adventure.

Gatlinburg Again

We met with Mr. Freddie and Mr. Joey in Gatlinburg. It was good to see Hannah, Joey's little girl for the first time in years. Jack had never met her before. It was a rocky relationship for the weekend. All in all, though, we had a good time.

Thanksgiving 2008

This year Thanksgiving was celebrated at our house. But this year we were not in total isolation so had a few guests. Grandmama, Granddaddy, and Uncle B joined us for dinner. It was a nice, quiet day. It makes me sad that the rest of the family couldn't visit, but with marginal counts Jack couldn't be around the illnesses floating through the rest of them.

Welcome to Jack's Playground!

So I finally have this blog updated throughout the majority of Jack's life. This blog is really more of an archive of past posts that would be spaced a little further apart compared to the daily or weekly entries of Jack's Caringbridge page.

Old posts that have been transferred from AOL (2004 - May 2008) have photo slideshows attached. However, AOL pictures will be closing Dec 31, 2008 so those slideshows will diappear.

To the right you will find a link to Clark Color where you can see my Jack's Playground group room. Just click on Jack's baby photo to be redirected. You will have to sign up for an account there to be able to view the pictures. Hopefully I will figure out a way to post them to this blog soon.

Please feel free to become a follower of this blog by clicking the link to the right. Also, let me know what you think.

Halloween 2008

Jack couldn't quite figure out what he wanted to be for Halloween until about 2 1/2 weeks before. Well, that was about the time we were leaving for vacation, so we didn't order a costume just to have it sit on the front porch for a week. Yep, ordered... Jack wanted to be Larry Boy. Larry Boy is the superhero version of Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales. There are no commercial costumes out there for this character. Even the regular Larry costumes are sparse. There is a lady of eBay who makes great Larry Boy costumes, though. However, when we got back from vacation it was October 26. By that time the prices on her costumes had sored to $60. By the time I thought about it they were $75. Needless to say I was then in a delimma. I had Jeff buy the regular Larry costume. We had a Larry Boy hat from the Veggie Tales show. So, I went out to JoAnn's Fabrics to get some purple and yellow materials. I made a purple cape that Jack liked wearing. Then made a superhero shirt that was never touched. In fact, when October 30 came along and the Larry costume arrived, Jack decided he didn't want to wear his Larry Boy accessories at all. It was a little sporadic. Plain Larry for school and some of the grandparent's houses. Larry Boy for others. This year we went to all the great-grandparent's houses to Trick or Treat. It was a long drive but nice to know that they got to see him in his costume this year. Likely in the future we will just stick around our house and do the door-to-door thing.

St. Augustine

So the three of us took a trip down to Florida this fall. It was great! The weather was a little cooler than I had wished, but we still got in some time at the beach without being terribly uncomfortable. Actually, once you got in the water it was fine.

We met with Great Aunt Kathy, her friend Jan, Jan's daughter Leslie, and granddaughter Natalie. During two different outings we ate dinner in downtown St. Augustine at Columbia. And we went to Spooktacular at the Jacksonville zoo.

Mr. Freddie gave us the grand tour of his "pirate" ship. Jack liked sitting in the captain's seat at the dinner table and "pretend talking" on the phone.

October and New Doc #2 for Mommy

Wow! October brought doc #3 to TCHC! I (Crystal) and super excited but am sure that Jeff and Jack will be equally excited once things die down from the transition. It means that we have 3 docs in the call rotation now within our practice and 5 for weekends when you add Cumberland Peds. Too exciting for words!

Welcome, Dr. Claycomb!!!

One Year with Leukemia

So we hit the one year mark and did ABSOULTELY NORMAL STUFF!!! It was my goal to NOT make an aniversary out of this day. Now that we've passed it we simply move into the second year of treatment. If my calculations are correct Jack will finish chemo in January 2011.

Labor Day in Gatlinburg

We took a short trip up to Gatlinburg for Labor Day weekend. Jack was on/off with his attitude, though I think it was a little better than the March trip. We did some fishing, shopping, and sightseeing. Mostly, though, we did some resting. Oh, and it's my 32nd birthday. Shhhhh.....

Wilson Co Fair

So this is year #3 for our WC fair. The first year I had just started with Cumberland Pediatrics, so I was marketing myself every night. That is how I met most of the nursing staff for both pediatrics and nursery. The second year I was moving from Cumberland Pediatrics to Tennessee Children's Healthcare. This year, I was just helping out Dr. Whelihan who joined us this year. YEAH!!

Jack really likes Dr. Kristen. And he was also glad that we spent more time in the fair this year and less time in the tent.

Eye Infection & a Harley?

The bright red left eye was a clue that all was not well in the world of heme/onc. A trip to the hospital was in order for some IV antibiotics, yet again. This admission was also accompanied by the dreaded repeat bone marrow. Thankfully there were no leukemic cells. The "dysplasia" worried me a little, but they assure me it's from the chemo.

Just days after being discharged we went out to "Tha Boro" and got... a Harley.

Team ARRGH!!!

Jack led a team of pirates to plunder for the ACS. We formed a Relay for Life team. We sold shirts and items on CafePress, collected various donations, and made ice cream for the event itself. Not too shabby for our first attempt.

3rd Birthday Bash

We had a huge birthday bash at our house for Jack's 3rd birthday. There were over 50 people here. Thank goodness for good weather so we could get a slew of people outside and onto the playground. Jack was lavished with love, family, and friends... and gifts. Thanks to all who attended!

For the second year we had a Spongebob theme. This year we had a baker make a gluten-free cake with some cupcakes. Instead of ice cream we had sorbet. Everything was "Jack-friendly" for food.

I wonder what theme we'll try next year...

Vernon Family Photos

Thanks to Stacy Kellum for making our family pictures this summer. Jeff and I had a little up and down in conversation over whether to get family pics with baldy. But I wanted to have a few professional photos before Jack's hair began to return.

Bacillus

So another cancer complication... If you have plastic in your body it WILL inevitably get infected. UUGH!!! Jack got a line infection with the bacteria Bacillus. It was taking too long to "clear" so his line was pulled. He got another placed before going into long term maintenance.

Good points about this stay was that Jack made some new friends. He met Cody, Tristan, and Andy. They all seemed to play well and, since they were on 6A, there was a playroom for them to use. It was great to see these three kids running all over the halls. Though I am sure there were some parents who wanted us to reign them in a little better.

Nate's 3rd Birthday

Jack had lots and lots of fun with Nate at his party yesterday. Since it was outside we decided we would take a chance and let him get a little bit of socialization. He misses his friends so much. Of course he had to "help" Nate with his presents. Those two are the best of buds.

April 20 Photo Session (by Mom)

Here's some pics from a photo shoot Mommy did of me with my bald head.

Steroids Again

Well, the steroids started March 17 and lasted a total of 21 days. That gave Jack just enough time to put on 8 pounds, going from 28-36 pounds. (He lost down to 24 before the mucositis hospitalization.) See www.caringbridge.org/visit/jacksonvernon for details about the mucositis, steroids, Jack-isms, and more.

An Early (and very cold) Easter

The week we got home from Gatlinburg we experienced St. Patty's day and Easter all within 7 days! It's the earliest Easter ever. (Well, not really ever, but at least for my lifetime, and Jack's, too, for that matter.) Jack loved to hunt all 75 of his eggs and wanted to look for even more. I thought that was plenty. They were all confined to his playground, so at least we knew we couldn't miss them by too much. Easter dinner was a treat.

Gatilinburg Vacation

We took Jack's first trip to Gatlinburg from March 14th-16th. Jack was having some ups and downs having just gotten over mucositis. A lot of the trip was spent wanting to go home. But we did get a few smiles in the play area of the Aquarium as well as when we stopped at a roadside creek to do some fishing.

Valentine's Party

Jack visited his school for their Valentine's party. That was lots of fun. He had a blast being around all the kids. And he remembered pretty much all of their names after having been gone 5 months! I, personally, thought that was pretty advanced for a 2 year old.

A January 3rd Christmas Party at HOME!

January 3rd was our go-home day from Vanderbilt. You can see our trending chart above that kept us looking toward the prize of discharge. Even with the trend we had to BEG to get out that day.

These are the pictures from our Christmas at home. There were so many presents from events we missed while Jack was in the hospital. It took him about 2 hours to open everything.

A Vanderbilt Christmas.... The Hospital, Not the Family

Well, we all spent Christmas in the hospital with Jack. He went in December 21 and was there through Christmas and New Years. It all started with a fever and line infection. Since his counts were rock bottom we had to stay until his counts began to show  an "upward trend."

The pics you see include our home "photo session" in the SpongeBob 'jamas next to Jack's own Christmas tree. Then Santa came down our street and let Jack get in the sleigh with him. There are also pictures of Jack in the hospital spreading Christmas cheer, getting visits from Santa, and opening presents. The big bag-o-gifts delivered by Santa are from the hospital and include special gifts from Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. Jack kept saying "Oh, Thank you, Santa, Thank you." The final Santa pic is "Dr. Santa" one of our favorite Heme/Onc attendings, Dr. Engel, who came to give us the depressing news Christmas morning that we were stuck there.

All in all, the day wasn't as bad as it could have been. We actually ended up seeing more family over Christmas than we would have seen otherwise.

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving was different this year. We had a family dinner with just the 3 of us as Jack's counts weren't really high enough to go out to family dinners. Also, I was on call for 2 practices here in town. As for dinner, Jack was just loving the green beans that day and couldn't hardly wait for them to get off the stove before eating them.