Friday 7/14/2011

 What an amazing day we have had here at brain tumor camp.  We woke up went to breakfast and then
divided up again.  The kids were separated by age and were assigned counselors. Ellie was excited because her counselor was named Carly like iCarly.  She also had three other 7 and 8 year old girls in her group.  
Jake on the other hand was extremely excited because he had two girl counselors.  You can totally tell he has a crush on them.  He asked both of them to eat dinner with him tonight.  I was so proud of Jake he took to a
little 6 year old boy that is fighting a brain tumor. 
This little boy is walking with a walker and is legally blind from the Chemo Treatments. How amazing I feel that Jake does not see the problems he just calls him his friend Jack.  Jake is such a kind hearted kid, I am blessed.  
 
We parents got to sit down again with some experts from the hospital and discuss what we have gone through. I am so grateful to meet people going through the same thing I am, but it also scares me.  Ellie is the newest diagnosed child.  All the other children have been on Chemo for at least one year or more. I was extremely disappointed to hear their kids tolerated chemo for a while and then
their bodies took a turn for the worse.  Anything from being blind, having a walker, to be in a wheel chair.  This makes me think we have such a long journey ahead of us and who knows what the future holds.  I just hope she survives this.  We met a family that is also has a child that has a brain tumor and they have been battling for a couple of years with chemo.  The child’s tumor is on the brain stem like Ellie.  Well they just found out on Wednesday before they came that the tumor started to grow again aggressively on the brain stem and they do not know how
much longer she has.  I pray every day that I don’t get that news. Unfortunately we don’t know what the future
holds.  Ugh I want a crystal ball.  
 
We then met back up with the kids and went to the beach and swam for a little bit.  Then we all met
  back up and played minute to win it games. I was so proud of Ellie she has been participating in everything here at camp.   She is doing so well that I am thinking of sending her away to One Step  Camp next year on her own.  I think  this would be really good for her.  Then we finished the evening off with the Bubble Man.  What an amazing show this guy puts on.  He was a school teacher and decided  that it was not his dream. He wanted to put on a show for kids teaching them about bubbles and about helping their dreams come true.  He had such an inspirational message.  He  made us laugh and entertained both the kids and adults.  He even chooses Ellie to come up and be his assistant.  Then spoke with us about dreams coming true and he started to tear up. Well then there wasn’t a dry  eye in the room. It was amazing.  
 
They finished the night off around 9:30 with sausage, cheese, and cracker snacks.  All the counselors cannot believe how much energy Jake has.  They all just love him though.   I just got done putting Ellie to bed and she was saying how she was scared to go to bed because there is a monster in her head.  I’m really not sure if this is coming from being around all the other  kids with brain tumors and realizing that this is a condition that is serious.  I just held her and told  her that there is not a monster in her head just a bump and we are doing everything in our power to get rid of it.  

I wanted to tell you one more thing that is important.  So as all of us parents sat down and  spoke about our kids and the struggles they are going through.  I realized how blessed we have been to be surrounded by such a great
community and family.  Allot of the  parents were saying that the hardest thing they are going through is that there
kids have lost all their friends. They get bullied and parents don’t let their kids play with their child anymore.  Well we have been lucky on this end so far.  We have had
such fantastic support from the community, Ellie’s Friends, Ellie’s Family, and her classmates.  I cannot thank
everyone enough for being so supportive and trying really hard including  Ellie.  Thank you again I feel  blessed.  For now I need to get rest for we have a fun filled day planned for tomorrow. From Lake Geneva I am signing out.