Okay, sorry for the short notice, but tonight is the night that Fuel TV is supposed do a piece about Johnny and his skateboard. Fuel TV (for those of you that don’t have kids under the age of 18) is a sports channel and all they cover is action sports — stuff you would see at the XGames. It is Johnny’s F A V O R I T E channel, so we are pretty excited about it. If you are in the Houston area, it is channel 111, and will be on about 8PM, and then run a few times after that.

SPRING BREAK UPDATE:
We all survived without incident! WOO HOO! Kathleen and a friend came down from Dallas and brought their dogs too. The dogs almost outnumbered the people at times, and after a few hours, everyone got along fine. Kathleen’s dog, Murphy, is still a puppy and just wanted everyone to get along and play. So did Slater (our boy doodle, you know the one with the rasta upfront and bad 80’s perm in the back –it’s weird we know), but his big sister CoCo wouldn’t have any of it and tried to shut them both down when they started rough housing. Then Kim’s dog would step in with her “OH NO YOU DIN’T JUST TRY TO BITE MY BOY MURPHY”, attitude. The humans had to run interference every now and then. But Murphy wouldn’t let it get him down. He kept after CoCo, and I swear I heard him say; “She is going to play with me and like it before this trip is over!”. By the second to the last day, CoCo gave in and tried to play. Keep in mind that CoCo and Slater are 75+lbs. and Murphy is just a snack to them at 12 lbs. — wet. You could tell they were trying their hardest not to crush the little guy — it was pretty cute.

Our friends Wendy and her kids came down for a day at Schlitterbahn. Wednesday it was — rain or shine. And BOY DID IT RAIN. We went anyway, because part of the park is covered, but if it’s lighting no matter what, we have to get out. We spent the first two hours sitting, eating pizza and catching up, W A I T I N G for the storm to pass. It did finally and we all had a great time. As Wendy and I were floating down the river watching our kids whiz (eeww… not a good word to use when talking about a waterpark) by us uncontrollably, I asked her if the park in New Brunsfuls is this crazy and out of control, and she said “yes”. We had fun, but I just don’t get how the “lazy river” passed all federal and state safety inspections! Johnny only had two melt downs when we all were separated — the kid HATES crowds and feeling out of his own control. He screams safety instructions to everyone like we are going down on the Titanic or something “GRAB MY HAND! DONT LET GO! WE CAN MAKE IT TO SHORE! JUST HOLD ON TIGHT!” I told him if he gets scared just frickin’ stand up — it’s only waist high for pete’s sake!

Anyway, our days were relaxed most of the time, we all had fun and believe it or not, no children were harmed. I’m actually looking forward to summer vacation now.

Johnny’s counts were great last week, so no real worries there. This Friday is the big stuff (spinal, vincristine, etc.) and I’m sure everything is go fine. I told him that he needs to eat really well the next few weeks so he can build his strength for the contest at the end of the month. I don’t want any unexpected ER visits! So far, he’s been eating his usual Johnny diet, Popsicles and PB&J’s.

Mike and I are trying to convince him to cut his hair again. I trimmed it, but it still looks like crap. When Kathleen was here she saw it during the day (and probably a few days dirty), so it looked passable. She said, “Hey man, it looks okay to me, you should keep it.”. Then the next morning after he woke up and Kathleen stopped laughing, she said, “dude, maybe it’s time for a trim…”. After I trimmed it Joey said to him “now we both have bad hair cuts…”. It’s just really wiry and course. I’m not asking to shave it or anything, because it’s too thin, and I think it will really make him look like he’s still on chemo. I just want it about an inch and a half or two inches all the way around. Like it did last summer, short and curly. But most of all MANAGEABLE….

Anyone still on chemo that has the same problem?

Better go get the kids at school! I’ll post photos later

love jules

Yikes! I’m so not ready for spring break! We plan to stay local, no out of town trips, just lay low.

Johnny had a few visits since the last update — one ER and a few clinic. Luckily we were not admitted, but it took all of us pretty much the rest of the week to recover from the loss of sleep. His counts are great – last Tuesday/Wednesday at the ER, his ANC was 3,900!, then at clinic on Thursday it was still 2,900. He also had chemo, and seems to be doing okay this time. Very tired, but otherwise okay…. Everything else looked good, just some sort of virius/ear infection that made his fever spike to 104. Sophie was also home sick with the “viral”-du jour last week too. Joey is our ROCK — he’s been well for a while now.

Sophie actually turned FIVE on February 19th, so she had, like, three brithday parties. Two “family” parties, and one friend party at this place on the Island called Ellie’s where she painted pottery with a few of her friends. It also happens to be the day she started getting sick too — poor thing.

We went to two more Mardi Gras parades — one was a pet parade with every kind of pet you could think of — even a giant turtle! No pet parade is complete without the Standard Pink Poodle either. It was fun, we took the doodles and they were SO good — I was pround of them. Of course they about soiled themselves when the horse behind us got too close. We all walked the parade and didn’t expect the enoumous turn out it had — we didn’t even finish the parade because it was so long. Mike loved the attenention the doodles got, he heard someone say “hey! look! surfer dogs!”, that made his day.

We also went to the Fat Tuesday parade too. It was great — hardly any crowds — which is nice when you have three kids in tow. Definately something I would do again…

Johnny’s next office visit is 3/16 for labs (counts) and pentamadine, then 3/23 for the big stuff. Spinal, vincristine — the works. We actually moved it up a week so he could go to a surfing contest at the end of the month. The doctors always get a kick out of our schedule and how we plan around contests and surfing.

FYI:
If anyone has the cable channel “Fuel TV”, keep your eyes peeled for a spot about Johnny’s skateboard during the “Daily Habit” this week. When I find out what day it will air, I will let you know.

Also, the Blood Center will be doing another spot with Johnny for their commercial as well. They gave Houston TV stations both commercials to choose from, one with all of the recipients, and one with Johnny and Matt, and all they ever play is the one with Johnny and Matt! I guess he’s a big hit!

…having a hard time posting photos and working SPELL CHECK! I can’t live without spell check!… will post photos later…