Since his last round of chemotherapy, after his blood cell counts started coming up, Jackson has been able to spend time with all of his grandparents.  

He recently spent some special quiet time reading books with his Grandma Doris (aka “GooMa”).  He is very particular about which stories she is supposed to read to him.  It’s really sweet.  

Also, this weekend, Grandpa Jim and Grandma Sheryl drove up from Los Angeles and brought Jackson a puppy!  Thankfully for me, the puppy is made of wood and it doesn’t eat, it doesn’t bark, and it doesn’t poop!!  But it is on wheels and Jackson can pull it around by its leash.  I’ve never really seen anything like it, and I can’t really describe it too well, except to say it’s a wooden puppy on wheels—sort of like a Trojan horse without the invading troops inside.  He loves it so much he sleeps with it now.  It’s also very good for his physical therapy, but we don’t tell him that!  

Today, while Jackson was in the hospital, my folks (his paternal grandparents) came out from Sacramento.  While Grandma Pam was quickly put to work babysitting Wyatt during one of Jack’s procedures, Papa Ellwin surprised Jack with a visit at the hospital during the six-hour long blood test. When he got there, Jackson was eating peanut butter with a spoon (much like Casey Newton at the DA’s office).  Because of this, his “papa”  kept calling Jack ‘Peanut.”  Jackson kept saying, “No, butter.”  Finally, with a little help from his own dad, Jackson learned how to put the old guy in his place by knocking his hat right off his head.  Every time papa’s hat fell off, Jackson laughed and laughed.  For a little bit, it was like Jackson wasn’t in the hospital at all.    

Once Jack came home this evening, he saw that Grandma Pam was here, too!  He was fired up.  Grandma Pam and Papa Ellwin had brought him a kid sized table and chairs, ostensibly for him and Wyatt to sit at to eat and color, etc.  It’s great, if you’re a grandma and you can leave, because it also makes for a perfect forum for them to sit and bicker with each other face to face!  Seriously, though, they each love it in their own ways consistent with their own personalities.  After making sure he got the red chair and Wyatt was relegated to the lowly yellow chair, Jackson sat in his chair and ate like a dignified British diplomat (except for the butter all over his fingers).  Wyatt, on the other hand, preferred to spill food all over the table and knock the chairs over on purpose—more like a soccer hooligan.  Meanwhile Jack was telling his grandma to ‘keen’ (clean) up Wyatt’s ‘mess.’  It was like watching Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison.   

Obviously, his blood counts are finally back up and he's doing pretty good—otherwise he wouldn’t care too much about his brother’s mess.  But they don't let that go for too long around here--he's still undergoing a battery of tests to make sure he is ready for the upcoming high-dose chemotherapy with stem-cell rescue portion of his treatment.  There may be some alterations to the treatment (potential surgery, etc.) that could postpone the treatment, but for now that 's the plan.  In addition to the echocardiogram, etc., he had another hearing test under anesthesia recently, and today he had the aforementioned blood test to test his renal functions. Tomorrow he has some more appointments as well, including his MRI.    

Wish us luck as we go on to the next phase!  Thank you for being supporters of Team Jackson!