Monday, January 9th, 2009

He did get some tests today, though not for cancer. These tests were for signs of side-effects from his chemotherapy. The big concerns are bone development and heart problems. There were no signs of either. He will continue to be checked for signs of side-effects for another decade, but they won't be checking for cancer anymore. That is gone for good.

To celebrate, we went out to dinner at The Ram. Nicholas got a big old piece of mud pie, and a magician guy totally blew the mind of his 4-year-old sister and cousins. It was one of the best nights out we've had in a long time.

Saturday, September 17th, 2005

We had 15 people plus 5 babies. Nicholas led the way most of the time. He felt it was his responsibility, since it was "his team." We had a good time and did some good for victims of Leukemia and Lymphoma.

I have a big "Thank you" to all of you who made a donation. I hope someday soon we find a cure, and no one will have to go through what Nicholas did. I keep saying it, but I am truly amazed at your generosity. I have done a good job of putting Nicholas illness out of my mind. He has been in remission for a year and a half now, and those long months of his chemotherapy seem another lifetime ago. But there are times, like tonight, where I am reminded of that experience. It is hard, but I also am reminded of what wonderful friends and family we have, and how lucky we are that you come through for us when we need it. Thank you so much.

Monday, August 15th, 2005

With some types of cancer, there is a real risk of recurrence at a certain milestone - the two year mark or the three year mark or something. During our stay at Children's, we saw many kids who had hit their mark and their cancer had returned. With Nicholas' cancer, the longer he goes without it coming back, the less chance he has of it ever returning. During his last scan and checkup in June, the doctor said that at this point, with Nicholas' medical history, there is almost no chance of his cancer returning. They will continue to do scans until the 5 year mark, but the doctor is pretty confident that Nicholas is cured. So how is that for all kinds of awesome?

Looking over the past blog entries, I see that last year I was talking about how Nicholas still had some worries about his cancer, and how he didn't like to think about his time undergoing treatment, because it scared him. How things have changed in a year. Last month, he said something that made his mom's and my jaws drop. He said sometimes he wished he was back in the hospital! We asked him what he meant and he told us how fun it was to be at Children's. He got to watch all the cartoons he wanted and play video games whenever he felt like it. Never let it be said that a child's mind is not resiliant.

So, as I said, Light the Night is coming up, and we want to raise $3000 to help find a cure for Lymphoma. We hope you can help us reach our goal, and maybe come out to Greenlake and walk with us. This is our 3rd year participating. The first year, back in 2003, Nicholas couldn't come because he was in the hospital at the time. Last year he walked and carried a survivor balloon, and this year he will again. We've set up a website for our team, Nick's Squad, at www.active.com/donate/ltnWA-AK/ltnHawk1. You can make a donation online there, and our team will get credit. You can also send a check or cash to us directly, and we will turn it in with our the rest of the money our team raises. If you want to send money, make checks out the the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and send them to:

The Hawks
13230 35th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98125

We will be walking in honor of Nicholas and our friend Michael Wolberg. Michael and his wife Kirsten and their kids visited us back in February. Michael's lymphoma is in remission, but he continues to have health problems that are related to his cancer and it's treatement. Michael and Kirsten helped us so much during Nicholas' treatment. It was great to see them, and great to see the two cancer survivors together.

Saturday, September 4th, 2004

Last year, we had a great team that raised almost $3000. This year, with the new baby, we have gotten a late start and so we have set our goal a little lower at $2000. Please help us out. We will be walking around Greenlake on September 19th, carrying lighted balloons for the fundraiser, with several hundred others. If you would like to join us, check back here for details soon.

Thursday, August 19th

Other news, Nicholas had another checkup this week, with a CT scan. The doctor said that Nicholas is boring. That is very good. No interesting medical problems here. He is in full remission with no sign of cancer. He will be getting another bone scan in 3 months, and if that is all clear, we will be dropping down to checkups every six months.

Nicholas seems to have forgotten all about his ordeal, but once in a while, he will ask a question that reminds us that his chemotherapy had a huge impact on his life, and is still effecting him. He says he doesn't usually like to talk about when he was sick, because that just makes him scared. However, he recently asked his grandma about his chances of the cancer coming back. I think he must've overheard a conversation between Stephanie and I, as we mentioned it when we were discussing this week's appointment. We talked to him about it, explained that the chemotherapy sometimes doesn't work, and the cancer can come back. But we told him that right now the doctors couldn't see any sign of it coming back, and every day we go without that, the better it is. I told him that if it didn't come back before he was 10 years old, it wouldn't come back. This thrilled him. He was very happy at this news. I was suprised because I didn't think he had been worried about it.

Coming up in a few weeks is the Light the Night Walk, put on by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. It will be on Saturday, September 18th in Seattle, at Greenlake. Last year, we put a team together to walk in honor of Nicholas. He couldn't come because he was stuck in Children's Hospital getting treatment, but this year he will walk with a survivor balloon. We have been very busy with the impending birth in the family, and we don't yet have a team set up on the Leukemia & Lymphoma website. We soon will, but if you want to make a donation through our team right now, you can send a check made out to "The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society" to us at:

The Hawks
13230 35th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98125

We will add it to our team's pile and donate it at the walk. If you live in Seattle and would like to join us at the walk, I will be posting more details on how to do that soon. Just keep the evening of September 19th free. It is scheduled to go from 6:00 to 9:00.

Well, that's the latest. Check back next week for pictures of what I'm sure will be the cutest baby since Madeline was born.

Sunday, July 25th, 2004

Then, there are other times. Two weeks ago was a kind of perfect storm of cancer rememberance. It was the one year anniversary of Nicholas' diagnosis. It was his 6th month checkup, and it was the Make-A-Wish radiothon on a radio station here in Seattle. I was supposed to have had a blog entry about a month ago about the radiothon, but I am very lazy. Nicholas (and Stephanie and I) were interviewed by the Mitch and Lisa in the Morning on Mix 92.5 about a month ago. Nicholas had a bit of stage fright when they shoved the big-ass microphone in his face. They managed to salvage a bit in the editing room, and Nicholas and Stephanie and I were on the radio a couple of times. I was supposed to blog about this earlier so you all could listen and hear us and make a donation. Bad me!

Anyways, that week, I listened to two days of the radiothon. In addition to us, there were lots of other families telling similar stories. It brought everything back. I was suddenly reliving everything that I hadn't thought about for months. I heard a lot of people say a lot of the same stuff I felt. They talked about how their kids had to spend the summer in the hospital, missing out on so much, feeling like crap. They talked about how difficult it was for their families, with siblings shuttled off to friends and relatives, different shifts at the hospital for husbands and wives, etc. All the stuff that we felt. So, driving to and from work, I listened to the stories and thought about Nichoals' lost summer, and cried a lot. So that's when it seems like it was yesterday.

Nicholas' appointment came during that time. Going back to Children's Hospital for half a day brought back even more. Seeing the same rooms (waiting and exam) in which we had spent so much time last year was tough. Another thing that was strangely hard was seeing all the kids in the waiting room. Most were bald, but this time, Nicholas had hair. I felt kinda guilty that Nicholas is in remission. A friend pointed out to me something about survivors guilt, and how we identify with people going through the same stuff as us, like we are all on the same team, and we want everyone on the team to do well. It made some sense to me, and helped a bit.

I talked to Stephanie about all this. She said she was suprised it hadn't happened sooner. With the exception of a few bad days, I never got too emotional when Nicholas was undergoing his treatment. I was in denial a bit, I felt like I had to be strong for the people around me, and I figured I could defer the emotion to when and if the chemo didn't work. But I guess you can't really ignore the emotions that this kind of ordeal evokes. They come out sooner or later. (Can you believe I'm just posting this on the internet? It's a kind of therapy I guess. But usually you keep that private, between you and a shrink, not between you and the world.)

So I've blathered on about my emotional crisis and casually mentioned that Nicholas had his 6 month checkup, but never bothered to tell you how it went. Am I a self-absorbed or what? Nicholas is doing great. No sign of cancer. He's gained about 12 pounds since the chemo ended. He never lost any weight during chemo, which is a bit unusual, but he didn't gain a pound for 6 months, which is unusual for a normal kid his age. His hair has all grown back now. It's been back since about March. He will get another bone scan next month, and then his appointments will drop to once every three months, instead of monthly. The doctors say they are really pleased with his condition, and that he is in great health. I keep telling myself that's great, but the thing that always stops me is that he was in great health when we first got the original diagnosis.

The past couple months have been great. Nicholas has spent a lot of time playing with his friends and cousins. He's gone to Mariner's games, been out at Mom's house on Hood Canal palying on the beach, played baseball and gone swimming at the pool a lot. He is very close to learning to ride his bike without training wheels (we've been working on that the past couple days). It makes me happy to see him doing this stuff, and it also reminds me of what he didn't get to do last summer.

It seems our lives are really back to normal, but weeks like the one I just had remind me that "the cancer thing" is always going to be there. Maybe Nicholas will be able to forget about it. He's still pretty little, and kids are pretty resiliant. But I wonder. I know (now more than I did a couple weeks ago) it has made much more of an impact on me than I ever realized.

Wednesday, May 19th, 2004

So that's great news. We'll have another scan in three months, and every three months for the next 2 years, then they'll be every 6 months for the 3 years after that. It was interesting to us how casual the doctor was about going over the scan results. Obviously, it was something we were very concered about. But seeing how she handled the situation made us realize that Nicholas is truly in remission, and there isn't the urgency that was there when he had cancer. Which is a really good thing, if sometimes nerve wracking.

Tuesday, April 13th, 2004

Madeline is not suffering at all. She barely notices she has chicken pox. She never had a fever and she only has minimal sores, mostly confined to the right half of her torso. She is missing her last week of daycare, however, since she is presumably contagious. Perhaps she can go in for a day after she has recovered, for a going away party or something. The pox ruined our Easter plans. We were all set to go to Spokane, where grandpa Marlin was having a big easter egg hunt in his back yard, and cousins and friends would all be there to play with. The kids were very disappointed. We went to Hood Canal instead. The kids got to have fun on the beach and go for a little boat ride and visit their other grandma and grandpa without exposing any other kids to health risks. It worked out pretty well, but we missed out on large family togetherness.

Stephanie has been laid off, pretty much on schedule. That's why Madeline is in her last week of daycare. We've known this would happen for almost three years. That's when the first talk of moving her office to the town of Burlington, about an hour north of Seattle, began. The move is pretty much complete, and they are laying off the redundant staff at the Seattle office. So, after 7 years at Regence, Steph is unemployed.

Tuesday, March 30th, 2004

The place is a mini amusement park in and of itself. There is a 9-hole miniature golf course with a dinosaur theme. There is a train that circles around the arcade building. There is an arcade building with video games, toy train, a pond with radio controlled boats. There is a movie theater, and they show movies twice a day. There is a carousel and a toy palace with a puppet theater and clown shows. There is a swimming pool that is wheelchair accessible. (They have pool wheelchairs that can go in the water, and a ramp going into the pool). A couple days a week they have horse rides, and at the lake they hold weekly fishing tournaments.

There was a cafeteria there, open for breakfast and dinner. It was all staffed by volunteers, mostly retirees, and everyone was so great. They would come around and get you more food or drink, or clear your plates for you. There were usually clowns hanging out during mealtimes. The food was cafeteria food, and not the best, but it was okay. Breakfast was very good. GKTW also has an ice cream parlor. One day, Nicholas had a banana split for breakfast. I know it's extravagant, but it was his big wish. (The ice cream parlor also had deli sandwiches for lunch). All the food was free.

We spent one day just at GKTW. I think it was our 4th day, and the kids were pretty exhausted from all the walking at Disney and Universal Studios. They took power naps that day. There was much to do at GKTW and we were able walk back to our villa and watch TV or have a snack when we got tired. Nicholas played mini-golf every day, usually after breakfast and before we left for the big parks. On the day we stayed home, he played a lot of golf. He's just like Tiger Woods, if Tiger played on courses with snorting T-Rexes.

We also made heavy use of the pool. It was the first time Nicholas had been swimming since his diagnosis. The doctors discourage swimming for kids with central lines, and he had had his line taken out just two weeks prior to the trip. One night, GKTW had a pool party. Dinner was served at the pool instead of the cafeteria. It was a barbaque affair. They had a DJ playing music and some characters from the big parks were there. There was a big sprinkler area, where kids could run through various contraptions that squirted them. But it was February, and even in Florida it was a little too cold for that. Nicholas was in the pool for about 2 hours that night. He absolutely loved being able to swim again. He didn't want to get out of the water to eat dinner. I was almost in tears seeing him so happy.

We met a few other people in the same boat as us. One boy, about the same age as Nicholas had just finished cancer treatment. He came up to Nicholas on the patio and asked, "Did you have chemo?" He had noticed Nicholas' bald head and scar from the central line. The boy had the same small red spot on his upper right chest as Nicholas, but he had short hair grown back in. It was the first time swimming since diagnosis for this boy as well. We talked with his parents while the boys played in the pool together. They were nice people from the mid-west, and there story was a lot like ours. Their son's cancer had been in the brain and it has a much higher relapse rate. It made us feel lucky that Nicholas 'only' has a one in three chance of the cancer coming back.

Kids sure are funny. They have no inhibitions and lots of curiosity. All the kids at GKTW have serious medical problems. Many are in wheelchairs or have respirators or other machines attached to them. I know we got more than a few stares when Nicholas was bald from the chemo. He never noticed that or at least never cared. So all the sick kids stared at each other a lot and whispered to their parents "what's wrong with that boy?" or "what's that thing plugged in to that girl?" You would think that having lots of expereince being pointed out in the same way might discourage a child from saying something like that, but it didn't.

Well, it has been a month and a half since we were in Florida. Nicholas is back in school every day and his hair has grown in enough that he looks like a normal kid with a short haircut. Telling this story has made me realize how much I have forgotten and put behind me. I don't think about Nicholas' cancer at all any more. It's suprising to me how much it's out of my thoughts. I guess that's a good thing. Nick's cancer was such a difficult ordeal, and it dominated our lives for so long. Now it's pretty much over (knock on wood), and it is replaced with a normal childhood, a normal school schedule, normal friends, a normal 6-year-old life. You can't beat that.

Sunday, March 21st, 2004

In additional baby news, Stephanie's brother Ben and his wife Traci had a boy on Thursday. Check out pictures here. Traci gave birth at around 7:30 in the morning after about 24 hours of labor. Mama and son are both doing great. The baby is named after his grandfather, Roger Sauvage. Madeline was excited that we now have two Roger's in the family, baby Roger and Poppy Roger. She told us all she would have liked it better if Ben and Traci had given the baby the middle name of Roger and the first name of Poppy, so we would have two Poppy Roger's in the family.

The baby is very cute and tiny. He has little thin Sauvage family lips and a little baby butt chin (cleft). Ben was delighted that the baby arrived before the NCAA tournament started, so he didn't have to miss any basketball just to be there for the delivery of his first-born child. So little Roger is a March Madness baby, and he has had the tournament on in his room basically since he was born. I suspect he will grow up to be a big basketball fan.

Monday, March 15th, 2004

The return to real life has been a bit bumpy. Both Stephanie's and my work have put us on notice that since Nicholas is no longer undergoing treatment, they actually expect us to start showing up again. On time, even. I can't complain, both our companies have been extremely flexible and supportive during our ordeal, and they are right, it's time to get back to work. But that has proved to be a bit jarring for us. It used to be that we could let just about anything go. Big meeting this week? Sorry, my son's health takes priority. House a mess? Too bad, Nicholas won't be left alone at the hospital. Family get-together in Eastern Washington? We can't make it, we have to stay close to the hospital in case of a problem with Nicholas.

Now, things are different. We are back to juggling a bunch of competing priorities. School, work, friends, family, etc. Added to that is a large sense of indebtedness to a lot of people who helped us through the last nine months. For example, my sister visited us from Spokane every month that Nicholas was in chemo, usually cleaning our house during her visits. She wasn't the only visitor from Spokane, just the most frequent. We hadn't been to Spokane since Nicholas' diagnosis. So I feel like I owe many family and friends some visits to the eastside. (We have taken one trip to Spokane, but in the 48 hours we were there, I visited less than 1/2 the people who I wanted to visit.) Anyways, I feel very busy and a little overwhelmed by real life.

Still, I am going to make an effort to get this site up to date. I don't want to wait until I have the whole story of the Disney trip and Nicholas' school life and everything that's happened in the last month and a half. If I do that, I will never catch up, and if I do, you would have several thousand words to read all in one helping. So I will try to add two or three entries a week for a while, and give you some highligts and catch up gradually. Here's hoping I can stick to that schedule.

So, some big news from last week is that we got in on another Make-a-Wish deal. In conjunction with the UW athletic department and King 5 TV, Make-a-Wish has this Lucky Dawg program. One kid gets to be the honorary team captain of the University of Washington football or basketball team for a game. Nicholas was selected for this, and since it is basketball season, he got to be the captain of the cinderella story of the NCAA. What that entails is that Nicholas got to go down before the game and sit on the bench with the team. When the starting 5 were announced, they also announced Nicholas and he got to run out onto the court in front of a packed Hec Ed pavillion. When the team huddled up, Nicholas was right there in the middle of it. He also got a basketball autographed by the team and a T-shirt. He got to hang out with the cheerleaders and the mascot. And he got to hook up his family with 4 tickets to the sold-out game.

This actually happened last week, when the Huskies played Cal. It was before they beat Stanford and made it to the final game of the Pac-10 tournament and got into the big dance. There were serious questions about whether the Huskies could beat Cal. Both teams had similar conference records. So it was a huge game for the UW. It was the biggest game in Mike Jensen's college career up to that point (they've had a couple bigger games since then). And what did he do to get himself psyched for the game? He spent the 5 minutes before the tipoff sitting on the bench talking to Nicholas. It keeps on surpising me how great people are.

Nicholas was really thrilled to get to go down courtside before the game. Chatting with the cheerleaders and the mascot was a lot of fun. But when he went out and sat down on the bench, I think it was pretty overwhelming for him. He looked kind of nervous out there in front of ten thousand basketball fans. He stuck pretty close to Mike Jensen when the starters walked out onto the court, and I think he was relieved to walk off.

Then we went back to our seats and watched a great game. Nicholas says that basketball is now his favorite sport, eclipsing baseball. Partly that is because his Uncle Ben gave him a kid-sized hoop, and Nicholas now shoots baskets with me or Stephanie or Ben 4 or 5 times a week. And partly that is because of his night as honorary team captain.

Okay, there's a fun, happy story for y'all. I'll be back in a couple days with a tale from Disneyworld, I promise.

Monday, February 2nd, 2004

Nicholas is loving school. He has already joined the children's choir and sang at mass two Sundays ago. He is making lots of friends and having a great time. He is returning to being a regular kid pretty quickly. It's great to see.

Nicholas had his Hickman line removed on Thursday. He was really freaked out about being sedated. He hates that. When we went into the operating room, Nicholas got hysterical. He was crying, and he got mad at Stephanie and I when we tried to distract him. It was only a couple minutes before the anesthetic put him out. The operation was pretty quick, and we were only in the hospital for a couple hours in total.

Nicholas turned 6 on Wednesday, and before that, we had a party on Sunday. Nicholas' party was at the Spin Alley bowling alley. It was hilarious to watch all the little ones bowl. Madeline and her cousin could hardly get the ball down the lane. Nicholas and his friends kinda slammed the ball down at the end of the lane, and it would roll slowly down the lane. It was very cute.

We had a nice dinner on Wednesday with family and cake, too. It's kind of symbolic how he turned 6 just after the tests showed the cancer is gone. Hopefully, this whole ordeal has come to a complete end at the end of his 5th year.

The nice folks at Make A Wish Foundation got back to us. We will be going to Disneyworld on February 13th. We are all very excited about it. Nicholas' excitement waxes and wanes. I don't think he really understands what Disneyworld is like. We watched a video that showed some of the rides, but it is still pretty abstract to him. I am pretty glad he went for a trip instead of something like a ton of toys or something. It will be real nice to get away and spend 6 whole days together as a family. The whole ordeal of Nicholas' treatment over the last 6 months has really taken it's toll on us. We have been forced to spend so much time apart. Madeline spent lots of weekends and more at friends and relatives houses. When Nicholas was in the hospital, Stephanie and I spent every night apart, with one of us staying at the hospital him and one of us at home. Now that things are back to normal, there is work for Stephanie and I and school for the kids. I just think it will be really good for our family to spend a few days together relaxing and having fun.

Well, seeing how my blogging output has slowed, I don't expect to update this again until after we get back from Disneyworld. But then, I should have a of happy things to talk about and some fun pictures, too.

Tuesday, January 20th, 2004

We found out today that Nicholas' line will be removed on the 29th, a week from Thursday. Nicholas is happy to be free of the thing, but he is very nervous about the procedure. He doesn't like to talk about it. He really hates these kind of procedures. Still, he can't wait to go swimming or go in Ben and Traci's hot tub.

In other news, Roger is home with us. He is recovering from his surgery pretty quickly, and gets around the house with no problems. He has daily radiation treatments at the hospital, but they only take about a half hour. They will last for about a month. Also, there is a meeting with the doctor coming up on Thursday. They'll go over the chemotherapy plan then, if I understand everything correctly (Stephanie has pointed out that I can get the details wrong here. I really should clear this stuff with her before I post it.) Anyway, he is feeling pretty peppy, from what I can see. The kids love having him around, too.

Karen is still at Harborview hospital. Because of the holiday weekend, they haven't been doing much but waiting and running scans. Today things seemed to finally get going. She had surgery in Bellingham last week, and it looks like they might have to do that surgery over again here in Seattle. She is in a lot of pain, so Marty hopes that they will do that in the next day or so. In the meantime, he is staying in Rogers apartment when he is not at the hospital.

That's the news, most of it good for a change. We are all thankful Nicholas is healthy again and his life is getting back to normal, and we are all praying for Karen and Roger.