Not Slacking Off

I was just told by the boy himself to stop slacking off on the blog, so here we are ;)

You might be able to tell by the comment that RJ is feeling much better this round of chemo. He went to the hospital on Wednesday with a more positive outlook and that has followed him through this week of treatment - the change really is remarkable. It's hard to pinpoint what's different, but the nursing staff at the hospital got a jump on his nausea medications and his blinding headaches so he feels physically much better and because of that everything has been much easier. He's pretty active on Facebook, so feel free to comment over there too. RJ finally shaved his head last weekend (not that we didn't love the ostrich style chemo-do) and everyone agrees that he looks awesome - thank God he doesn't have a weirdly shaped head. Unfortunately, he won't allow us to post any non-hat photos, but we're working on that.

There have been some great things happening recently - the Dr. Pepper company sent RJ a great package full of cool stuff: a Tshirt, hat, pin, a patch and dogtags (which he'd better keep around his neck or they might find their way into the hands of a few of his friends who covet them). Now he can wear a Dr. Pepper T-shirt pretty much every day of the week.

Blog friend DeDe has shown up at the hospital three nights running with awesome food that RJ is gulping down (despite his particular taste in meatloaf, hers passed with flying colors) and hopefully he'll start to put on some weight. Despite the weight loss, blog central swears he's grown taller the past few months - we are tall, but he's just about to pass us which isn't right at all.

One of the best gifts for Christmas was a new iPad so that RJ can watch movies, play games and read books (even textbooks-ha!). Unfortunately, the night before he went into the hospital it just stopped working - no power, no nothing. Jessica didn't have the packaging or a receipt with her down here in the East Bay, so blog central decided to venture to the Apple Store (which, not owning even an iPod, felt a little like being a heathen in church) and explain the situation. The tech plugged it in, fiddled around for a few seconds and within five minutes we were walking out with a brand new iPad which has been great for him to have this visit. Go Apple. Blog central might have to investigate getting an iPad for headquarters.

RJ's grandma found a great program called PJammin' where kids wear pajamas as a fundraising and awareness effort as part of World Cancer Day on February 4th. Follow this link for information if your school is interested in taking part.

So - that's it for the slack from blog central. Stay tuned for any new developments!