We're Taking a Break and Getting Back to "Normal"

It's been a while since the last posting, mostly because we've not had a ton of things to report. Things are going great! JR's radiation treatments ended on October 19th and we celebrated with a trip to Texas BBQ on First Avenue, Webkinz, etc. The staff at Radiation Oncology were truly terrific and we miss them! The following Wednesday, we had a follow-up visit with Dr. Dunkel and JR's last "finger stick" for a couple of weeks (which makes him happy to no end!!). His counts were very strong, all in the normal range which means that he has a normal ability to fight infections, etc. To me, it meant that he can go ahead and be a normal kid and feel good and take a sigh of relief. He started back at school the next day for a short day (which included a nice little celebration at school and that evening at our neighbors - thank you Kimberly). He's been going in in the morning and coming home around 12:30 over the last 4 school days and we'll gradually get him to a full day. All the kids are so well trained by his teacher as far as what needs to be done each evening that we have some catching up there, but he seems to be in the mix as far as his schoolwork goes. His tutor has been very helpful and we have a nice neighborhood girl who's in his class helping out by bringing him home stuff that he needs. Thanks Amanda!
We have scheduled JR's next MRI on Nov. 14th after which he will begin his next 10 rounds (give or take) of chemo. A round as I understand it is a 28 day cycle with 5 days on (stronger dose than before) then 23 days off. Back into the unknown but not so unknown as before. He handled his first part of the treatment so well that we all expect that he'll do just fine. I try not to pressure him into feeling one way or the other by my comments and don't want him to feel as though he's disappointing us if he doesn't feel well so I encourage him to be honest about how he feels. That being said, I still feel he'll be fine!! The only caveat I have to that is that I still am unable to make plans and I still freak out now and then. The flip side of that is that it's great to just be home and not racing around and not worrying about where we need to be next. It leaves us time for our family nights and to focus on what's really important.
We braved it down to AYC on Sunday and were able to see a bunch of friends who were happy to see both my little goblins (Addie is a girl pirate and JR is a scary devil-skeleton-ish thing). As most of you know, we had just finished camp with a lot of these families when this whole thing started so we hadn't seen many since. I was one proud mama!! Looking forward to Wednesday evening's trick-or-treating which is always a fun night for us. Will touch base again soon! Thank you to everyone who keeps my boy in their prayers.