thank you

Thank you all so much for the emails, calls, and comments. Hopefully I will soon have lots of time at the hospital to reply.

So today we got a treatment plan for radiation. We spent the appointment in a CT scanner marking my leg to get the radiation in the right place. They decided on one high dose day instead of spreading it out. Sounds good to me. As long as we hit the right spot (they assure me they will). They aren't expecting any side effects, and it only takes minutes on the table. We do that tomorrow after my heart and lung tests.

I wanted to share our New Year's letter. We never sent them out. This was written before the cancer had returned. How wonderfully boring life was a month ago. Sigh.

Hi. I’m James and I got stuck with the boring task of writing the family…(my mom just told me it was called a newsletter). And I am also the editor, darn.
Dad-Dad likes to play basketball, and does not like to work on computers because he works on them all day and probably gets bored. He coaches Sam’s basketball team (and I’m the assistant coach). He plays on the ward team and a city league. He is a good leader and takes every opportunity to boss everyone else around on the court. Dad got direct TV and now watches all the cool football games (and the not cool ones too). He has to take Ginger to the park every night and play fetch with her. Of course, she only listens to him and ignores everything I say (except for the words treat and park). Like most grown-ups, he likes to nap instead of doing something else.

Mom-Mom complains about how much work she has to do cleaning around the house for us. She catches a break by running with dad, leaving me to play video games. Mom switches dinner with people (she cooks for three other families on Monday and gets to take a break Tues, Wed, and Thursday) and makes me eat every bite. Mom has cancer so we get to go on trips. Once we went to Hawaii for a vacation. Beautiful place, but the spiders are way too big. Snorkeling was great, we saw some sweet fish. We went on a boat tour and saw whales and spinner dolphins. Luke occasionally talks mom into taking him to Trafalga (local fun center) which is totally NOT her favorite pastime. Mom makes often DI runs and picks up every book she sees.

James-This year I started karate. We learned these sweet moves that I use against dad when we spar. I have a punching bag hanging up in my room. It’s currently on the floor, seeing as I kicked it about half as hard as I could have. I like to mess with legos and hex bugs. I like to shoot my brothers with nerf guns. My mom forces me to play piano. I have to play a grueling 40 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Talk about torture. Mom is really excited about my Beethoven song, which sounds more like a dance.  My mom also forces me to go to school, which is not a fun experience. We have to do like three hours of homework (true story).

Sam-Does the same sports as me and also plays football. He goes to school and hates reading. He has seven girlfriends, and an army of regular friends that come over and mess up my room. He plays the piano and is totally unreasonable about it. When he thinks a note is a G and it is really a C he and mom get in a big fight. He is a nice brother, and takes care of all the animals for us. He is Winton’s (our cat) favorite human and Ginger likes to chew on him like he is a dog. He got a bow and arrow for Christmas and he is a great shot. He is in the middle of painting his room (which looks to me like a bunch of scribbles). His favorite subject in school is lunch.

Luke-Likes to play games. All games. And that about sums him up. Just kidding. He loves sports, but mostly bowling. He has been busy with his T-ball, football, and basketball teams. His favorite subject in school is math. For Christmas he got a bunch of new board games that he is constantly begging us all the play. His real love is video games (which he rarely gets to play). He is always telling us about Chop Chop Caveman and no one has any idea what he is talking about (“you know the jungle, and how there is like the graveyard and stuff, on level 5 you have to be the boss on each one, and the one on the jungle one is Szchuan. And then you go to the graveyard and you have to defeat the 4 levels and then the boss, and the boss is the Wade. And when you kill him, then you get to the swamp……”).