Mrs. Roberts’ Class,

We wanted to thank the class and especially Sarah Givens and Deanna Archer for putting together such a wonderful “basket” (or storage bin) for Travis. Travis said: “is all of this for me?”

Mrs. Roberts, could you please read this to the class and show them the picture too if you have time?

On Friday at our house, Travis was very surprised by Ellyse and Colby carrying in a huge container of items that you all had picked out just for him. He was overwhelmed! You could tell that every one of the items had been carefully picked with Travis’ interests in mind. You all went above and beyond anything that we could have ever imagined being done for our son.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You have made Travis feel so special. He misses each and every one of you and wishes he was back in school. We take things day by day. Hopefully when Travis feels up to it, he will be back. Until then, we are working on getting him stronger. Travis is a warrior!

Thank you so very much!

Lynne and Tony 

Hi Everyone,

We wanted to let you know that Travis came home this evening so we are all hoping for a good night of sleep for the first time in 10 days. He had some good days and was able to eat Oreo McFlurries from McDonalds any time he wanted (doctor’s orders).  The Castiglione’s brought over homemade chicken noodle soup, pasta and meatballs.  Travis said that if they were to sell it, he would buy it!

Now we can start preparing for the next part of our journey. We do have some follow up appointments next week to obtain some spinal fluid samples (looking for remaining cells) and to install a porta-cath (or port) under his skin in preparation for the upcoming treatments and testing. Travis is such a trooper!

Some of you have been asking about the tumor and our neuro-oncologist has identified it as Medulloblastoma (grade 4). After the successful surgery, the treatment will begin with radiation and followed by chemotherapy. We are waiting for the final genetic testing of the tumor to be complete to determine the exact dosage of each. He has recommended that we should have the radiation treatment done at MD Anderson in Houston, TX if at all possible. He said that if it was his child, that is where he would go. The reason being is that MD Anderson has 1 of only 9 Proton Beam Therapy centers in the US. San Diego has one now but it will not be used on patients until July, 2013 and he does not want to wait that long after surgery. The difference between Proton Beam and Photon Beam is that Proton Beam is a newer technology that allows for more precise delivery of the energy and has less scattering of energy that could be absorbed by surrounding organs and tissue. His suggestion is to start radiation therapy within 30 days of the surgery which would put us right around Easter time (or shortly after) and he is expecting it to last ~6-7 weeks. Then Travis would get a break and continue his chemotherapy here in San Diego.

Thanks for all of your love, well wishes, prayers and support! It means so much to us.

Love,

Tony and Lynne

We were leaving the hospital in the afternoon to go home. Travis mentioned that since he had so many balloons, he wanted to leave some for the next person who would be coming out of surgery and would be staying in his room. He picked some of the ones that represented everything he liked. We told him we thought that was a nice idea. A little later, he asked for a piece of paper, pencil and book to lean on. We assumed that he was going to draw like he usually does. He ended up writing a letter which said:

Dear Next Patient,

I am leaving these balloons for you. I am hoping you have a successful stay/operation as I did. Hopefully these balloons will cheer you up when times are hard. The doctors here are very nice and I recommend the blueberry muffins.

Your Previous Room Mate,

Travis (Age 10)

P.S. I hope you get to see the dogs.

He asked us to paper-clip the note to the balloon strings. We couldn’t believe it. Well, yes we could. Travis is one of the most giving people we know.

Travis’ school, El Camino Creek, had their annual Jog-A-Thon today. All of the students in Mrs. Roberts Class dedicated their laps to Travis.  They made a sign that said “Run for Travis, Your Laps Will Help Him Fight”.  Sarah Givens brought the sign and another one that said “Welcome Home Travis” and hung them on our front door.  Tyler did a great job decorating the inside of the house and set up a special place on the couch for Travis to be comfortable.  He also hung a huge banner that he made on the garage door.  Travis was thrilled to see everything and his face lit up!

Travis had a good day eating a lot and Tyler came to visit.  The teachers at Lynne’s Preschool (Bethlehem), made a basket full of all of Travis’ favorite things.  There was gardening items, drawing pencils, paint sets, art paper, activity books and puzzle books.  Totally awesome!

Travis has been doing physical therapy the last few days to help build up his strength again and get his range of motion back.  It tires him out for a little while but he bounces back quickly.  It is a necessary step for him to keep progressing.

There is a chance we may be heading home on Thursday and we will begin preparing for our next journey.

As parents, we have faced our share of challenges this past year but never thought in a million years we would be in this situation. All we can do is face things head on, take one step at a time and have faith that everything will work out.

The goal for Tuesday was to keep Travis eating, drinking and getting out of bed as much as possible so that he can continue building his strength.  He was alert and feeling good most of the day.  He started out eating pieces of a blueberry muffin, PB&J and washing it all down with chocolate milk.  Then mommy brought in his special request of an Oreo cookie McFlurry which didn’t last long.  The physical therapist came in the morning and had Travis sit up against the bed and kick the ball with her.  They also played catch for about 15 minutes.  Overall, he had a good day and even got by with plain Tylenol during the afternoon.  These are all small steps towards our goal of getting him home.

On the down side, we met with the neuro-oncologist in the afternoon and he confirmed that the tumor was malignant.  This means that even though the surgery to remove it was very successful, Travis will need to have further treatment of radiation and chemotherapy to make sure any remaining cells are destroyed so that it does not try to grow back.  They are waiting for a few more test results to know the exact treatment and schedule.  We do know that we have a difficult road still ahead but we are keeping our faith and taking things one step at a time.  Travis is such a Warrior!

Thanks for all of your support!

Lynne and Tony

The goal for Monday was to get Travis eating, drinking and out of bed a few times so that he can start getting his strength back.  We went for a ride in the wheel chair around the hospital in the morning and again in the afternoon.  Throughout the day, he nibbled on a pretzel and blueberry muffin.  He asked for a chocolate milk shake and drank ¾ of it over about a 4 hour period of time.  He also mixed in some “ice cold” water and Gatorade and said that if felt good on his throat.  With what he ate and combined with the milk shake, it started things moving down below and we had to rush to the bathroom which was a good thing.  We adjusted his pain medication again and he was a lot more alert.  Small steps towards our goal of getting him home.

Thanks for checking in on us!

Lynne and Tony

Travis’ first day after surgery went pretty well.  It took a little time to get the pain medications dialed in overnight but after that, Friday was a restful day.  They ended up taking him down around noon to do the post-surgery MRI.  He did amazing going through that so soon!  The results from the MRI look very positive and although there was some slight swelling in the area, the tumor appears to be completely removed.

On Saturday, he was still resting a lot but we were able to stretch out his pain medications further each time.  The physical therapist came in the morning and had him get up out of bed and into a wheel chair.  We were able to take him for a walk around the hospital even though he slept most of the time.  When we got back to his room, he sat in the wheel chair for a while before he got back in bed.  He was able to stand and get in bed with our help.

The goal for Sunday/Monday was to get him eating some and get him out of bed a few times so that he can start getting his strength back.  We went for a walk around the hospital again.

Thanks for checking in on us!

Lynne and Tony

You may be aware that Travis has been suffering some headaches and stomach nausea recently that kept getting worse over the last few weeks. He has had various tests done over the last couple of days (and past couple of months) at Rady Children’s Hospital. They have confirmed our worst fears and found a tumor in his 4th brain ventricle and performed surgery to remove it.

We met with the surgeon after the surgery on Thursday evening and he reported that the tumor came out clean and everything went as well as he expected. Travis is recovering in his room now. We are breathing a big sigh of relief over this first step. We won’t know the exact next steps for a few days since the doctors want to do a full pathology on the tumor before deciding on any future treatment. So, we are just taking things one step at a time and focusing on helping Travis to feel better.

As you can imagine, we never thought we would be here in our wildest dreams. It has been an emotional roller coaster going from talking about the possibility of migraines on Wednesday morning to finding out about the tumor that afternoon and then having the surgery Thursday. The good thing is that we have one of the top neurosurgeons in the world and he says that we caught things early. Also, Travis is a little fighter, unlike his dad who cries over a paper cut, so they are optimistic about a quick and full recovery.

Tyler has been a huge help through all of this! We have had to rely on him and trust him to be responsible at home while we are at the hospital. Since we came in here Monday night, Tyler has: taken care of dinner for himself (Monday-Wednesday); taken care of Cisco, done his homework; gotten in bed on time; and gotten up for school all by himself. We have told him over and over how much this means to us that we can depend on him to be responsible while we need to be with Travis. We have been alternating nights where one of us stays at the hospital and the other goes home before Tyler goes to bed and gets up with him in the morning. On Wednesday night, we sat down with him and explained everything we had just learned that day. Tyler said that he was nervous for Travis. Before Travis’ surgery on Thursday, we asked Tyler to make a video for Travis. He did a great job talking to Travis, showing him Cisco (our dog) and Travis’ room. Travis really liked it! On Thursday, we brought Tyler down to the hospital after school so that he could be there when Travis came out from surgery. Tyler did fine understanding what was going on and getting everything set for Travis to return to his room. But it did seem to bother him when Travis came up to his room in full head bandage and in some pain. Tyler said that he felt light headed and we had him sit down for a while. We have made arrangements for Tyler to have dinner with friends tonight and they will pick him up after school. Most likely, depending on how Travis is feeling, we are planning to have Tyler come down with us this weekend.

Love,

Tony and Lynne