Super Hero Cooper

A little sibling rivalry we could have done without! On Friday Evyn was transported to Hopkins via ambulance. Everyone is fine but I guess she HAD to get that ambulance ride in before Cooper. Never a dull moment. Evyn aspirated a very small piece of her snack into her lung while she was eating when she coughed. She went into surgery on Saturday morning to have it removed. She is a champ and is doing very well. It was a bit much for mommy and daddy considering we were in the E R and inpatient the same week we were when Cooper was diagnosed last year and the last time we got “sent to Hopkins” our Coop had cancer. Everyone is ok though but it has been a very long few days. Thank you to everyone who has checked on us, given us lots of patience, and gotten us back on our feet. Our awesome neighbors and Grammy and Grandad came to the rescue to help once again! We are so thankful! We are grateful that this time was more simple than the last.

One year ago today, our family was rocked and we were very unsure what the future held.  It has been one year since our sweet Cooper was diagnosed with B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL).  My hope and prayer has and will always be that none of you reading this have to experience the fear, anger, frustration and uncertainty that comes with an ER doctor saying the words "your child has cancer - but that's all we know now".  Sadly however we know many of you reading this have experienced that slow motion moment where the world seems to stop and you struggle to find a way to move on. On this day, the day the world stopped spinning, We have struggled to find the words. We have also seen 4 other parents struggle to find the words, as Cooper was one of 5 children just at Hopkins diagnosed during this week in 2018. It is a surreal feeling and difficult to find the right words. What we can say is that we have watched those 5 children and countless others battle triumpha...

C.S. Lewis once said “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching” I firmly believe that Raven Greene is the person that embodies this. For those of you who have followed our story, you may remember the posts about the JMU Duke game where Coach Houston gave Cooper the #5 jersey worn by Raven who now plays for Green Bay. Shortly after, Raven sent Cooper a box of “updated swag” so he could sport a Packers jersey with the #36 on the back. This box of swag made Cooper a Pack fan for life, but most of all made him a Raven Greene fan, because this man, had no dog in this fight. He had no reason to do anything for our kid, but he did. That’s class right there my friends. Our story gets more awesome. After the NFL schedule came out I saw that Green Bay was coming to play the Ravens in preseason, so I texted Raven to tell him we were going to take Cooper to the game. I asked him if there was any way Cooper could meet him to thank him while he was in town. Raven resp...

In July we got to go on a wonderful family vacation courtesy of the Believe in Tomorrow Children's Foundation which has a condo in Myrtle Beach. Cooper was so excited to get away and go to the ocean for a week. We played putt putt, went to the aquarium, played in the sand, went to a magic show, Top Golf...you name it, we did it! Grammy and Grandad were able to drive down and spend some days with the kiddos as well and have a fun date night out with Cooper.  Putt Putt at Captain Hook I'd love to tell you all that Evyn had a wonderful time leisurely playing at the beach, but mostly she ran into the ocean and shoved handfuls of sand in her mouth. Needless to say, we learned quickly that the beach with a 1 year old is not exactly a "vacation". Coop and Evyn playing in the sand.  Cooper building a car at Race Makers at Broadway at the Beach Margaritaville

While this is a blog to keep people update on Cooper and our situation, I feel that it is only fair to post about Evyn's First Birthday! Evyn has been such a light in this dark time and sometime we look back and we don't know how we did all of this with a newborn, but boy are we glad that we have her! She is so happy and full of energy and sass. We are so thankful that she is in our life. Cooper just loves her to pieces!!! Happy Birthday Miss Ev!!!! 

  One of our summer bucket list items was to get some pictures done of our family around Evyn’s 1 st   birthday. We also wanted some happy pictures of our family as I feel like I have a giant hole in our family albums. We have about a year of pictures that are hard to look at and the unfortunate part is that those are of Evyn’s first year of life. Our friend Nicole from Snips and Snails Photography, has done pictures of our family prior to Evyn but also did the pictures of Evyn and Coop right before diagnosis. Remember those awesome Christmas pictures of Cooper during treatment…yep! That was her! She is amazingly talented but more than that she is a wonderful person and has been so good to our family. Thanks so much for capturing our kiddos in such a fun and happy way!

Trying to find the words for today is a tough one. We've seen hundreds of people’s pictures of their kids first day of school and their last day and how they have compared the 2 and how much they have grown and changed over the year. We have that picture too, but ours looks very different. Looking at those pictures are heart-wrenching, not only because it isn’t normal, but because of the eyes. The eyes changed. There was a point where there was nothing behind them because of  being weathered by the storm, because of the loss of his innocence, because of the things he has seen and had to do. In that same respect, the progress is beyond words. When Cooper’s first day of school was supposed to be, we were in a hospital still very much unsure about the details of his diagnosis, prognosis, and what this meant for our family as a whole. Since Cooper was supposed to start kindergarten he has changed immensely, some because of progress, but also because of how sick he really was. Wh...