Go Saints Go

What a great weekend! Thursday afternoon we were contacted by Ben's school, they said he had been chosen as WWL Channel 4's quite hero. They came to film him (and us) on Friday at school. Hopefully we were able to share how courageous Ben has been through this fight - and how desperately underfunded pediatric cancer research is. We will find out tonight - the story airs tonight (Tuesday) on the 5pm news on WWL. Friday afternoon Big Ben got a call from the Saints inviting Lil'Ben and all of us to practice on Saturday. Friday was also the first of several Saints Day fundraisers at St Andrew's - every home game the kids can wear a Saints shirt if they donate a dollar to Pediatric Brain Cancer Research - specifically DIPG. This Friday they raised over $1600 !

Saturday morning we woke up to find Grandma and Grandpa had arrived late the night before! They were flown in by some very special parents from St Andrew's so they could come to the Saints game on Sunday and see Ben be the Junior Captain. That was a great surprise, Aunt Mego was in town also, she had arrived Thursday evening to spend the weekend with us. She sure picked the right weekend to visit! We got to Saint's practice at 10am and was there till nearly noon. We got a tour of everything. The press conference room, all the offices, the weight room, and got to play on the outdoor practice field and tackled the tackling dummies and everything. Then we got to go inside to watch practice. It was very cool! After practice Coach Sean Patyon introduced Ben and Shaun to the team, they signed a couple of footballs for the boys and Ben got a hat signed. He meet Roman Harper (who graduated from Alabama!) and gave him a big "Roll Tide" which many of the other players did not like! He joked around with Reggie Bush and told Drew Brees that his principle Mrs Hernandez said he needed a haircut! The other players really enjoyed that - they like it when people pick on the famous quarterback! Then Ben decided to give a few tips to the Saint's Defense and tackled #72 Rod Coleman, all 6 foot 2 , 285 lbs of him! He got to meet owners Tom and Rita Benson, and picked a few plays for Coach Payton! Then the boys got to tour the locker room but they made the girls stay outside! We tried to get Lil'Ben to take the video camera in but he said no way! What a great afternoon. Those guys were so great, all of them. We headed home for some much needed rest and then that evening headed out to the Leukemia Society Light the Night Walk to support many of our very special friends we have made at clinic, Kale, Anna, Christopher, ^Timmy^, ^Carl^ and so many more. It was a great turnout - it was nice to see so much of the oncology medical and nursing staff out there!

Sunday afternoon there was a knock at the door, Ben answered it to find that a limo had arrived to take us all to the Saint's game - another surprise set up by St Andrew's. Ben LOVES limo rides. And it was raining so it was nice to get door to door service and not have to walk from a parking garage in the rain! Ben and Lil'Ben went straight down on to the field to watch warm-ups and see Lil'Ben's friend Cameron. Cameron's dad Shaun works for the Saint's so Cameron was able to get field passes - I think Lil'Ben was just as excited about seeing Cameron as he was seeing the Saints on the field! The team was sooooo great they all came up and greeted Lil'Ben. Tom Benson came and told Ben they were going to win the game for him, which they did! Coach Payton stopped and told Ben they were running one of the plays he picked as the first play of the game. #44 Heath Evans was fabulous he came and took a knee by Ben so they could chat before the game, Drew Brees walked him out onto the field for the coin toss, and someone must have paid off the video guys because I don't think the camera even showed any players on the Jumbotron during the coin toss - just Ben! Ben got to hang out on the bench for a little while and then mid first quarter he came up to our seats and fell asleep till the third quarter! Being a star makes you really tired!!! It was a great game and the SAINT WON!!!!

Grandma, Grandpa and Mego had to leave Monday morning and Ben did a full day at school, he told his class all about his great weekend! So today we have Ben's MRI. Its a big one. We are doing the MRI about 3 weeks early. Ben's oncologist is concerned that the current chemo isn't working as Ben is continuing to have symptoms. So before we do another dose (Wednesday) we will have an MRI to check for progression. If we find the tumors have grown we will skip Wednesdays chemo so we can start something different next week. This will probably need to be at another facility (St Jude or Texas Children's possibly). So our BIG SAINTS WEEKEND was a great distraction from what we have to face this week. We can never thank St Andrew's and the Saint's enough for this great weekend! What wonderful memories we will always have. Also BIG Thank you to the St Andrew's families that have started providing meals for our family. It makes my life so much easier not having to plan and prepare meals - the boys and I get to spend more time playing in the yard and swimming which is what they love to do after school!

So Big Ben, Mommy and Lil'Ben are all fasting this morning, Lil'Ben's MRI is at 1pm so no food or drink after 7am! Lil'Ben always does much better at this than Mom does my tummy is already growling!!! We are off to Children's at 10am. We will try and post tonight to let you all know how the MRI goes.

Hope you like the Saints pics!!!

Much Love
The Sarrat Family