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Beginning of the Journey...Closing the book

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 “Beginning of the Journey” We started this blog over 2 years ago, August 18th 2018.  The worst day of our lives.  Cooper, our 5 year old, our first born, our joy was within weeks of starting Kindergarten, hockey, normal life milestones that come with transitioning from a toddler to a young boy.  He had already transitioned to being a new big brother only 4 weeks earlier when Evyn was born, but the life-altering, earth-shattering changes were only beginning for him. Cooper was diagnosed with B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic leukemia at age 5. Today, we announce his continued NED (no evidence of disease) and most importantly, his end of treatment, 26 months later. We titled the first blog post “Beginning of the Road” because we thought this was a road that had a beginning and an end.  Today, we are publishing, God willing, the final post that we will ever write on this blog...  But this is not the end.  A major milestone, yes.  A celebration of the amazing accomplishments and bravery of Coope
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Pack the Parade

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  On Saturday we had a Drive By Party for Cooper's end of treatment, complete with Halloween Costumes, candy, Darth Vader, and a Storm Trooper. The Woodsboro Fire Department came out to lead the parade.  Cooper had SO many friends and family show up for him and we had co workers, and friends come as well. In addition there were some other cancer warriors that we have met along the way who came out to support Cooper, which meant a lot because we know that they really understand the struggle.  Cooper had an absolute blast as Harry Potter, Evyn as Hedwig, and Grandad even dressed up as Hagrid which was extra awesome. It did our souls good to see so many faces who have supported us over the last 2 years. We miss all of you dearly!
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Ring That Bell!!!!

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  Ring this bell three time well, It's toll to clearly say, My treatment's done, This course is run, And now I'm on my way.  On Friday afternoon, the day after Cooper took his last chemo we had a small bell ringing outside at our house with some close friends and family as well as Cooper's former attending doctor. Due to COVID we did not ring the bell at the hospital but wanted to make sure that Cooper had the chance to do this with family and people who love his surrounding him. We had an amazing cake delivered by the Icing Smiles foundation and baker Kimberly Sabatano who completely outdid herself. Cooper received a Harry Potter celebration dream cake that was more than we could have imagined. The cake even had a section in it that had a music box and played the Harry Potter theme song. The Hogwarts train lit up and the cake had everything that Cooper loves about Harry Potter all in one amazingly fabulous cake.  We cannot thank our amazing doctors enough who got us to
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10/29/2020

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  Today Cooper took his last CHEMO EVER! It was a surreal and strange feeling for all of us. Cooper hasn't not had chemo in his body for about 800 days which is insane. We cannot wait to see how he feels off of this horrible medicine and see how he thrives.  Cooper got some End of Chemo strawberries from the wonderful Dianna Zientek who has an awesome business called Delicious Dips by Dee. We met Dianna and her beautiful family at Hopkins. She has her own little warrior Kamila, who just recently finished chemo herself.  Cooper also had some amazing cookies made by Mara Costello which were so awesome and tasty!
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Bye Bye Port

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  Today was a huge milestone! As we have gone through this journey, we’ve learned to fully appreciate the importance of milestones.  Every surgery and procedure completed, phase completed, every medication where Cooper took the last dose, was a major celebration in our house.   While celebrating the milestones was important and key component of this journey, each milestone also bore some difficulties for two reasons.  First, each milestone was a reminder of just how far Cooper has come and the tole this process has taken on his body and life.  Second, was the reminder of just how far we have left to go. Well today was when we started forgetting about the second one. Today, Cooper had is surgical access port removed! What this means is the doctors have no more need to access his central line for chemotherapy administration, frequent blood checks, blood and platelet transfusions, IgG infusions;  I think you get the point - the list goes on and on why doctors would need to pump any variet
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Raven Greene

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 So many of you know all about Raven Greene, Cooper's buddy. Raven never ceases to amaze us with his kindness throughout Cooper's journey, something he had no part in knew someone out there was battling something bigger than himself. Raven quickly became one of Cooper's favorite people, a friend, and quite the role model to our kid. Raven and Cooper have kind of a poetic connection, if I do say so myself. You see Raven is no stranger to difficult situations over the last 2 years either. Shortly after Raven reached out to Cooper initially, he was injured and missed several games of his Rookie season. This past year after Cooper and Raven met for the first time, Raven suffered a hit in a game that required him to go on IR and also have surgery. Cooper and Raven remained in contact throughout all of it. I truly believe that they brought each other a lot of strength. This year Raven is doing really well. The week after Cooper finished his last IV chemo Raven wore his Super Coop
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