Hello all- it has thankfully been a quiet few days and I have been at home catching up on time with Alex, house chores, grocery shopping, cooking, etc.

Mason has had a few pretty okay days in a row.

On Thursday, he walked himself down to the cafeteria for lunch. In order to get to the cafeteria, he had to walk essentially half of one of his laps on this floor, take an elevator to the first floor, walk the equivalent of a full lap to a second elevator, take that elevator down to the cafeteria level, and then walk about half a lap to get to the tables. He ate lunch out on the patio, then made his way back upstairs, only using the wheelchair for a short stretch on the ground floor. This was huge for him!

Later that afternoon, he and John went down to the basketball court, where the report to me was that "Mason lost 5-7 in a game of "walking" basketball, but he broke both of the main rules (only walking and no jumping)"- the kid just can't help himself.

On Friday, Mason's nausea was a little stronger, although to be fair, they have been slowly decreasing his anti-nausea meds, so it may be that we just found the point where he is not ready for that decrease yet. He fought through it to eat breakfast and get himself cleaned up- including shaving the wispy hair that he still had (we were told he would most likely start losing it in the next few days).

On Friday afternoon, one of his friends came to visit. He arrived with homemade chocolate chip cookies and plenty of other fun snacks. They played NBA 2K on the PlayStation for awhile, then went down to the basketball court to play for a short bit, then it was back up to the room to play chess. The visit kept Mason occupied for almost two straight hours, and he was so happy to have had the time with his friend.

Following the visit and all of his laps, he was exhausted. He fell asleep and rested for most of Friday evening. His nausea crept back up a little, and he went to sleep early. His blood counts were low, so they did give him a blood transfusion overnight in the hopes that it would help perk him up a bit more.

On Saturday, he rested. He made sure to get his calories in, and his weight continues to fluctuate in the same 3 pound area- still up several pounds from his lowest point. He had an uneventful Saturday overall- which we think was exactly what he needed.

As I packed up this morning, Alex decided to FaceTime his brother to check in. This led to them joining Lego Fortnite together on the PlayStation. I didn't want to ask Alex to leave his bonding time to go to church, so I left him home while I went to church and hit up Target for some new "good" pillows for Mason, per his request. When I got home almost three hours later, they were still playing together. Say what you will about technology and how much time kids these days spend on it- I will never knock it again as I have seen how much it improves Mason's mood to be connected to others even from his hospital bed. But I still don't understand this game AT ALL- one minute he is a banana and the next he is a pea pod- that runs and jumps and shoots?

Mason's platelet count this morning was below two, which is the lowest threshold they will allow, so he did receive a platelet transfusion earlier today. While he and Alex finished their time, he rolled right into playing with his buddies from school. I arrived about an hour ago, and he has already worked his way through Pirate's Booty popcorn, turkey bites, a chocolate chip muffin and Skittles. I'm going to suggest that MAYBE the nausea is a little bit from that combination of snacks... but we will continue to take the appetite and feed him whatever it is he wants if it means the weight on that scale continues to go up.

At this time, we would ask for specific prayers that the appetite remains strong, that he continues to feel strong enough to get up out of bed for laps, and that we start to see his blood counts rebound and come back up over the next week or so. IF we can get those counts to come back up, there is a potential that Mason might be able to go home toward the end of July for a week or two before we start the next round of chemo- and that would mean the world to this kid and the rest of his family!