Purification Day 3 & 4

We had a friend that prayed that the radiation would purify and cleanse Ryan's body of the cancer cells. I liked the thought of purification better than radiation, so that is how I think of it now. Yesterday and today were better for Ryan ... yesterday was 1 1/2 hours and then today was just an hour .... much better! He woke up today very quickly and was ready to go. I am praying that most days will be that way for him. A prayer concern right now is that Ryan has HUGE tonsils .... this seems to be making the pediatrican and the anesthesia folks farely concerned with the sedation aspect. They are having to place a breathing tube each time so that he has a good airway. Obviously we will not be able to stop treatment to have his tonsils out, so please pray that this can all be worked out. Ryan's throat is fairly irritated and he is getting some mouth sores. His throat may be due to the breathing tube, but they also think he may have something viral going on or possibly thrush. They will check it out more while he is sleeping tomorrow to see if they can pin point what the cause is. Radiation can cause this too, but it seems early on for that to happen ... if it is that, then that is not good in that it probably will only get worse. Please pray that that is not the case ... I can't imagine how we would ever get him to eat if it gets worse, he isn't eating all that great right now anyway. Anyway, please pray that his mouth would heal and we would not have to contend with that.

On a more positive note, we did have a good weekend. I think Rob mentioned that. It was good to see Ryan running and just being a normal kid. We raked some leaves and he and Addie loved jumping in them and throwing them, at one point I looked up and Ryan was swinging with both arms from a tree branch ... it was great to see that for a while he had forgotten his port :). Another blessing is that a group of students from Station Camp High School have sponsored Ryan at Vanderbilt and he will receive a present each day before radiation! He is so excited and it makes him look forward to going!! We also had speech therapy today and we are seeing some slight improvements in his face ... it is very encouraging and continues to give us hope that we will see that precious smile again!

As always, thank you for your prayers ... please pray for Rob and I to have extra energy :).