Four month scans looking good and Serving Up Wishes

Tim and Michael were home for the weekend from school so that Tim could have his next scans and checkup and also for all of us to attend the annual Make-A-Wish fundraiser called “Serving Up Wishes”. Tim was the speaker for the evening.

The scans were all good. It seemed routine now to go in, get an IV, draw blood, go over to the imaging lab, get a CAT scan and back over to the MSTI clinic for a checkup. Routine is good in this case and we have another set of scans done with no issues and a “stable” report. I assume that means that from scan to scan, no changes are observed. Next time Tim is back in town, he’ll see the radiation oncologist for a thorough review of the scans of the neck area. The radiation field is quite evident now, since virtually no hair is growing in that area. Tim’s hair on his head is a little more coarse that before, closer to Michael’s hair in texture. It is also much darker than it used to be. But it’s all back (except for the area on his neck from the radiation).

Tim also reports that most of the feeling is back in his fingers and toes. This was a side effect of the vincristine – peripheral neuropathy. His fingers returned first and the toes are just about completely back. His left ear seems to also be clearer of hard wax. The only remaining thing now from the treatment is his lymphocyte count is still low. This causes him to need to continue taking an antibiotic on the weekends for a few more months to avoid any infection that the lymphocytes would normally take care of. He has been doing that (weekend protocol) since early in the treatment. Good thing he has no problem swallowing big pills!

The Make-A-Wish event was a well attended $125 a plate dinner fundraiser with a live auction and a few speakers. Make-A-Wish runs this in conjunction with the Boise State University athletic department. As a result, many of the athletic teams put together small groups of 5 or so student athletes to be the servers at the dinner. Hence the moniker “Serving Up Wishes”. Also present were several of the team coaches from tennis to soccer to football. The student teams compete for wish dollars which attendees purchase and then hand out to the students when they do an “activity”. We had some of the soccer players head a ball back and forth, wrestlers do a takedown and a pin, and football players sing a song. The kids and Lucille even got their shoulders massaged by some tennis players. The student teams completed for the most wish dollars collected. All of it goes to granting wishes for the kids.

These kinds of events bring out the big donors and they sure were there. Many of the live auction items were things like vacation rentals, dinner parties and the like. All in all, about $100K were donated which is probably about a third of the Make-A-Wish budget for the year. As I said before, if you’re looking for someplace to send your charity dollars, Make-A-Wish is a great organization to contribute to. In addition to granting wishes, they really have created a wonderful “family” of recipients and connections into the community. I hope the organization continues to grow.

Tim was the special guest at the dinner and as such put together about a 5 minute speech on his battle with cancer and the wish granted for him. It was quite an experience for us all. He was remarkable in his delivery and got a standing ovation at the end. Many folks came up to him afterward and congratulated him on his speech. I think it was very well received. As a precursor to the speech, the news item on Tim produced by the local NBC affiliate KTVB-7 was shown. It chronicled Tim’s year as a senior in high school, his passion for cars and how that led to his wish to see a Le Mans race and the experience there. It was a great lead in to Tim’s speech. The stage was a rather large square in the center of the room selected so the auctioneer could work around the stage and have access to the dinner tables. For a speech giver, it was daunting. There was no podium so Tim had to walk around the stage and deliver to all. He really did well, using notes a few times but really engaging the crowd with his words. A very proud moment for us all.

He covered the diagnosis, what it was like to deal with cancer for a year, his wish and the experiences there. There was no way we could have planned any of the adventure we had on the Make-A-Wish trip and the folks there really served up a wish for us. Now that we have been able to attend a Le Mans race we will likely return in the future to one. It will remind us of the last year and the way that the Make-A-Wish Foundation (both Idaho and Connecticut), the North American Audi race team, and the Lime Rock park organizers made a wish for Tim come true.

They sure know how to serve up a wish.

--bob