GRADUATION!!!!

Ben's Crazy Class - We love these kiddos!!
























Shaun walking in ready to sing his bumble bee song - guess who sang / screamed the loudest?

Ben and "my lovely teacher Ms Jessica" as he calls her!
















Hello All


Last night was the end of the year ceremony and Graduation for Brighter Horizons. Man can those kids put on a show, watch out American Idol!! Needless to say Ms Melanie & Ms Jessica's classes were the BEST - my judgement could not possibly be clouded by the fact that those are the classes MY KIDS are in!!

All the classes did great, and the the yearbooks this year were great! For those of you who aren't privileged enough to have your kids go to BH, 1. I'm sorry for you and 2. you don't know about yearbooks. So here is a brief explanation! Each child gets a yearbook customised for them, pictures of them and there friends , special art projects and papers they have done through out the year - basically they do a scrapbook for each individual child, not mass produced for the school or even the class. Individualized for each child - the amount of time and energy that goes into this undertaking is incredible! So Ben and Shaun's were super cute again this year!

The other really fun thing they do at graduation is tell you fun facts they get from each graduate. They do a survey a few weeks before graduation and then announce all the answers the kids gave. The best are usually what they want to be when they grow up, and what there parents do for a living! Here are Ben's answers!

Ben lives in Louisiana, his favorite TV show is NCIS, his mom work at the zoo, his dad work at Renaissance Arts, he has a brother named Shaun who spends his day being crazy, his favorite person is Ms Jessica (big shock), his favorite football team is Alabama (another big shock), his favorite food is salami and string cheese, and he wants to be "a Navy" when he grows up!

So his answers were pretty right on, my favorites are the kids who's parents work "at their work" , the kids who make up having brothers and sisters, and the kids who want to be super heroes like Superman when they grow up!!

So all in all a really great night. We are sad Ben is moving on, but we will still get to harass all the BH teachers everyday when we go to drop off and pick up Shaun - who knows if Ben doesn't like St Andrew's we'll just put him back in Pre-K!

No clinic today or for the next two weeks!!!! So thats exciting, and summer camp starts next week, so Ben is SUPPER excited about riding the school bus with Mr Art everyday and swimming and skate country (roller skating just what a kid with bad balance should be excited about!!!!) and ALL the other super fun things that go along with BH summer camp!

Having fun as always!!

The Sarrat Family

Mini Trip to Children's Hospital

Just a quick note to clear up a few rumors and let everyone know Ben is doing great. Saturday afternoon the boys and I went to a friends house for a BBQ. Ben was having a great time running around and playing. He tripped and landed face first on concrete. He immediately had a very large bruise forming above his right eye and all along the right side of his head. Because Ben is on his chemo right now and one of the side effects can be low platelets I was a little concerned about a bleed. I called the oncologist and he thought Ben should come in for a CT scan to check for a bleed. So off to Children's. The CT scan showed no bleed and Ben's platelets were great, however the Radiology resident thought there was a small skull fracture above Ben's right eye and he wanted the attending to look at it, the attending agreed with the resident and wanted the Neuro Surgeon to look at it...Neuro Surgeon said if the radiologist thinks its a fracture then he needs to be admitted for a 24 hour watch. So around 1 am Ben and I finally made it out of the ER and into a room on 4 West (the Oncology floor). The next morning the Neuro Surgeon took all the CT scans and built a 3-D image of Ben's skull, it turns out its not a fracture but rather a channel that a blood vessel runs through - most peoples runs vertically ...Ben's runs horizontally leave it to Ben to have things running the wrong way in his head!! So we were released around noon. He does have some very nice bruises though!

Ben enjoyed his brief stay on 4 west he got to watch cartoons and have breakfast in bed, catch up with his favorite nurse Ms Tina, and meet a new nurse on 4 West who is a HUGE Alabama fan - needless to say Ben really likes her!

Ben finished his chemo last night and is very excited for graduation on Tuesday! Grandma and Grandpa arrived yesterday afternoon, so let the spoiling begin!

I know the word spread quick that Ben was in the hospital, Thank you all for all the extra prayers...I'm sorry we worried you for nothing. But we were happy the doctors were as cautious with Ben as they were!

Happy Memorial Day...And THANK YOU to all the Men and Women who serve and who have served to protect our freedom!

Erin

A Big THANK YOU!!!

Ben with Rene & Becker from Hogs for the Cause!

As many of you remember March 26th a fundraiser was held by two fellow Jesuit alum (Ben Sr's high school). Hogs for the Cause was a day long party celebrating PORK!! We were unfortunately unable to attend because we were on Ben's Make A Wish trip, but everyone we talked to said it was a GREAT time! Ben was this years beneficiary for Hogs for the Cause. Tonight we were able to meet up with Rene and Becker, they gave Ben the seven thousand dollars raised by the event, and Ben told jokes! We would like to thank Becker and Rene and EVERYONE who attended and donated to Hogs for the Cause - what an amazingly generous community we live in. I know you've heard me say it before but Thank You never seems to be a big enough word...we will never forget how generous and supportive you all have been and it will take us a life time but we WILL pay it forward. We are already looking forward to NEXT years Hogs for the Cause - we will definitely be attending!!

Today we had a very LONG clinic day. I not sure what happened but we were there for 4+ hours and only saw the doctor for 5 minutes - so needless to say mommy was a little frustrated. Ben was fine he never complains, but I was definitely having an ADD day and the sitting around waiting was unbearable! But it was good news Ben is doing great and gets a three week break from clinic. We start another round of chemo tonight, but Ben has been handling it well so we are not worried.

Now for the T-Ball news...

TOMORROW NIGHT... BELLE CHASSE ...6 PM Pirates vs Grey Socks - thats right the the battle of the Brighter Horizons T-ball teams is tomorrow!!! Be there and wear maroon! GO PIRATES (and grey socks)!!!

Check out the new joke...Ben was definitely on a roll today! And we will post after tomorrow game!!!

Love to you all! And remember May is Brain Cancer Awareness Month. Learn more about DIPG (Ben's cancer) and more kids fighting this monster visit dipgkids.blogspot.com and www.icouldbeyourchild.org !!!

Erin

STABLE - No Disease Progression

Okay so the tumor is still there, but we didn't really think it was going to disappear. Todays MRI results are "stable tumor with no disease progression". So that is great news. Ben's condition is stable and we will continue on with our current treatment plan. He will do another five days of chemo starting next Wednesday, and we will continue to have more fun!

Thank you for all the extra prayers, happy thoughts and good juju today! I think we needed them more for the adults to have patients than for the actual MRI. It was a VERY LONG day of hurry up and wait! Man I wish they would let me run that clinic - the doctors would be less than thrilled with my system I'm sure, but kids wouldn't be just sitting in waiting rooms ALL DAY I guarentee that! I keep offering to whip them into shape but they keep turning me down!

Big game tomorrow 6pm!

Love to all!

Erin and family

MRI on Wednesday!

Okay MRI first thing tomorrow morning! We will probably have results right away, and I'll post as soon as I am able. Please send us all your prayers, happy thoughts, good juju...we will take it all! Ben is doing great right now and thats truly all we can ask for...but I am always nervous they are going to tell us something ugly is on the way!

Just to keep you all in the loop, Kale is home - YEAH!!! His mom was very excited to get out of the hospital and so was Kale!

We'll post tomorrow. MRI is scheduled for 9am!

Love you all

Erin

T-ball starts tomorrow!

Ben holding his buddy baby Bryson!

Tomorrow is Ben's first T-ball game. He is supper excited, and so are we. Then we have a Birthday party, and of course Mother's Day. So another busy weekend for us.

Ben has his MRI on Wednesday. We are of course nervous, but Ben is doing really great right now so we can't ask for anything more than that. Graduation from Brighter Horizon's is just a few weeks away, and then summer camp (at Brighter Horizon's of course). So Ben is looking forward to a great summer, and we are looking forward to sharing it with him.

Wishing all the Mothers a VERY HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY - Its your day so you steal as many kisses and hugs from your kids as you want!!! (Don't get any ideas mom!)

Love ya
Erin and the family!

Having Fun, As Always!

Time is sure flying by fast! I try to update more often but we are busy busy busy! Ben is doing really well. He hasn't even needed his protein shakes for about a week. He is eating well and seems to have plenty of energy. His balance is a little off but he doesn't seem to notice. He is using his right hand almost normally these days. And his hair is all grown in again.

We had a good week, we didn't have to go to clinic Yeah! We went to Disney on Ice of Friday with Ben's Class field trip. It was a lot of fun. T-ball practice was fun (as always). We have practice again tonight and eventually the league may give us a game schedule! But we have fun just going to practice!

Sunday was Ethan's Birthday party. So Ben and his buddies had a great time on the giant blow up slip and slide. They are a crazy bunch of kids, but they come by it honestly they have a crazy bunch of parents :)

Lil' Ben and mom had the stomach flu or food poisoning Sunday night and Monday -YUK! Even little illnesses are such a big deal these days, with Ben's compromised immune system due to the chemo we are always worried. But he did great - mom on the other hand is still recovering!

We have clinic tomorrow, hopefully it will be a short one. Please pray for our little buddy Kale, he is back in the hospital. He has been there for almost a week and is looking at 9 more days minimum. Shaun and Kale are only six days apart in age. Everyone try and imaging having Shaun locked in a tinny little room for two weeks getting poked and feeling yukky - yeah not a pretty picture. Kale is in isolation right now because his counts are so low, pray for his counts to rebound quickly and for his parents!

One more thing.....

HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ben and Shaun want to say THANK YOU to all the FABULOUS teachers at Brighter Horizons. I know you've heard it all before but I can never say enough how amazing, wonderful, fabulous, stupendous, awesome (okay I'm out of adjectives) the teachers at Brighter Horizons are. These ladies truly love our children as much as we do! On our field trip the other day I saw a teacher from another school actually yelling at the kid because he was crying because he was scared at the show. I thought never in a million years would that happen at BH. That kid would be in someones lap before the second or third tear fell.

We love all the teachers at Brighter Horizons, more than they will ever know!

Much Love, I'll try and post again soon. Next MRI date is May 13, 2009 - Think Shrink!

Erin