Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (late)

Elliot began his 4th cycle of Maintenance last Tuesday. We kicked if off with his 24^th Lumbar Puncture, and 5-day stretch of steroids. It continues to amaze us how his mood changes as soon as he starts steroids. He was excited to get his “white medicine”. He loves to carry an empty syringe around and pretend to inject us with “white medicine” to make us fall asleep. Perhaps, he will be a doctor someday!

Cousin Riley, Elliot, big sister Addie

We've had a busy few months full of travel. In November, we headed north for a week to visit family and attend Dave’s brother’s wedding. On the last night of our trip, Elliot spiked a fever, and we thought we might have to visit the local children’s hospital. Fortunately, we had gone to a local hospital earlier in the week to have his labs checked; since we knew his white blood cell counts were good, his oncologist said we could just bring him to the clinic when we got home. His fever went away after that first night.

His right cheek swollen

A couple days after we arrived home, Elliot began exhibiting symptoms of mumps. One side of his cheek swelled up and was very painful to him. The swelling was caused by a swollen parotid gland (or salivary gland). The swelling lasted three days, and we thought he was over it but then the other side of his check swelled up. He had his oncologists puzzled. The official diagnosis was “viral parotitis” which might or might not have been caused by the mumps virus. Thankfully, this whole mumps scare happened during our one week home in between trips, and it  cleared up by the time we headed to Disney World with Dave’s family.

We enjoyed a trip to Disney World the 1^st week of December. We had a great time except Dave and his dad got the flu the 2^nd day of the trip so they were out of commission. Fortunately, God protected the rest of our family (especially Elliot!), and we were able to avoid visiting the local children’s hospital!