Some recent Pictures

Sarah and David were having fun with the camera again...

 Endurance enjoying a good day.  He's trying to suck his thumb that's always hiding in his fist!

He's holding onto his little mouse friend's paw.  He loves these mice!  Endurance and his mice have stirred up many a conversation between doctors, nurses, and RT's.  We're looking for one more so they can become the three blind mice group.

This necklace has a story of it's own...

I saw a poster in the oncology department here at the hospital when David and I were went exploring back in November.  The organization promoting the poster is called Beads of Change.  How it works is a patient (cancer and cardiac)  can sign up for a necklace and everytime they receive a certain treatment or go through something like a surgery, have a blood transfusion, ICU stay, etc; they receive a special glass bead that corresponds to the procedure listed on a chart.  The beads add up and a necklace is formed during a lengthy hospital stay.

So about six weeks ago I asked Wendy from the Child Life dept. if Endurance could get something through the Beads of Change, as I went on their website and Seattle Children's does it, and is the only one in WA that does.  She said she'd find out for me.  She came back later to say that Children's actually only does this for the cancer patients, but she could figure something out for Endurance.  This got back to an oncology nurse who put this together with Wendy.  Wendy told her what she knew of what Endurance had gone through and they found the corresponding beads to tell his "story."  She even added two glow-in-the-dark beads for radiation treatments, "just because they're pretty and he'll like them," she said.  (They're the ones two beads away from both sides of his name).

The above necklace is what Wendy brought to Endurance a couple of weeks ago.  For just guessing, she did pretty well.  I cried and gave her a huge hug!  The only thing is, the oncology nurse that helped Wendy do this said that since they only do cancer patients here, not to let everyone know about what she did for Endurance.  So keep this to yourselves please! Ha!  :)  We will need to do the rest on our own.  We'll have to add about 30 more beads and we'll be caught up to date!  I'd love to finish it off with a purple heart, which if I can remember correctly, it means that treatment is all finished!  Only God knows even the length of this necklace.

Thank you for letting me share this.  ~heather