VT playdate

This week has been our last full week of summer, so we are trying to squeeze in lots of last minute fun. 

We have also had some appointments to squeeze in before school-here is Hope getting her flouride treatment at the dentist.  I love this little girl-she cracks me up! We have not seen much of Mike this week because this is a crazy time of year for him.  Hopefully soon his life as a Superintendent of Schools will calm down. 

We snuck in a chilly trip to the wave pool this week too.  It has been freakishly cool here this week but the kids braved the cool temps to enjoy the waves.

Yesterday we had a super special treat.  We headed to Blacksburg with Pops for lunch with our favorite VT basketball player, Seth Allen.  My boys were so excited to have pizza and a playdate with him.  He used his french fries to spell out Dave's name! 

After pizza and fries at the restaurant the boys and Hope had fun shooting hoops.  Seth is the real deal and we thoroughly enjoyed a couple of hours hanging out with him and laughing at David.  David was extra sassy yesterday and he was funny.  He kept calling Seth "hey old lady!"

After Buzz's bunch we are huge VT basketball fans and Coach Buzz fans.  After hearing Seth talk about how amazing Buzz is to the team I am an even bigger fan after yesterday.  Coach Buzz shares his faith with the team and teaches them life lessons that go beyond the game of basketball like money management and character.   I hope and pray that my Kyle will have a coach like Buzz in his life who cares about their character and faith and not just wins versus losses.  VT basketball is blessed by having Coach Buzz lead the team.  Without stepping foot on the court for the season yet, Coach Buzz is already a successful coach.

My boys had a blast playing this basketball arcade game with Seth.  Kyle, Seth, and David got super competitive and worked together to win the highest score on the machine ever. 

Three proud boys very excited with their record score of 299!

Dave and Seth taking selfies.  To be only 19, Seth has a good head on his shoulders and a great personality.  He is going to be very successful at VT.  I know as a Mom I was so overwhelmed and thankful for his time investment in my boys yesterday.  I am not sure at 19 I was mature enough to "get it" about making a difference in the lives of others.  After Dave's clean scan last week this was a wonderful way to celebrate Dave being two years cancer-free!

 

Thank you Seth for spending a few hours making my boys (and Hope) smile!  We will pray for you and your upcoming foot surgery and know that no matter how many wins or losses you accrue at VT, you are already a huge winner in the book of life.  May God bless you as much as you blessed our boys yesterday!

Scan News, Family Funeral, and Prayers and Friends

After three long but great days, I am home and in my pajamas. 

 

Friday morning our day started out super early as we had to be at UVA hospital by 7 a.m.  This was the most stressful part of the day for David-taking Versed the amnesia medicine to help his transition to sedation go smoothly and to help him not remember a thing.  It does taste horrible and Rocktar David really hates it.  He hated it so much he actually threw it up:(

But he did get enough in him to make him loopy -love this silly David smile!

After he woke up from sedation we took him by wheelchair to clinic in the gorgeous new Battle Building.  We saw several friends we have met along the way, and it was great seeing everyone. 

 

Truly the highlight of the day was taking the toys and unloading them into the new toy closet with Ms. Meghan!  We love her so much and it was wonderful to take these toys to fill up their new space.  To all our dear friends that came to Hope and David's party and brought gifts for the closet THANK YOU!! A cute girl named Izzy got to pick a toy from our stash as she was leaving clinic.  It was awesome to see her have a hard time picking out a new one from all the great toys.  Hope and David were so proud of their toy stash!

Overall David's checkup went very well. Labs were good and Dr. B thought he looked well.  We were not gone long from UVA when we got the call that the scan was clean!  Praise God for two years cancer-free! 

So here is the tricky part.  Now that David is two years cancer free the risk of relapse decreases which is great.  BUT, now he needs to start being monitored for late effects of all that chemo and radiation he was exposed to.  Late effects could include a secondary cancer, organ failure, stunted growth, heart problems, etc... They went over these very carefully with us when he was first diagnosed and now I am remembering them all.  So now we will switch from a sedated CT scan to a chest xray and ultrasound.

It will be wonderful that he will not be exposed to all that radiation and sedation! But, I worry that the xray and ultrasound will not be as thorough and it will not be done for perhaps four to six months down the road.  I did not like the sedation and radiation from the CT scans, but I do love how thorough they are and how much peace of mind they give us every three months. 

After leaving UVA, Hope, GG, and I headed to the eastern shore to a beautiful town of Gloucester for a funeral for my great Uncle.  It was a sad reason to get together, but it was great seeing the family.  Friday evening we went to Susan and Jeanette's house for a family dinner.  Susan and Jeanette live on the water in a gorgeous house.  Hope loved checking their crab pots to see how many crabs they had caught!!

Here is Hope on their pier with their house in the background.  It was a great evening, just sad we were all together for a funeral. 

Saturday morning after the funeral service we went to Yorktown for a yummy seafood lunch across the street from this beach on the waterfront in Yorktown.  After our lunch we had a long drive home back to our mountains of southwest Virginia. 

This morning it was wonderful to be in church praising God for all that he has done in David's life.  It was a great morning of worship and afterwards we hit the road for a tennis tournament in Bristol for Kyle.  Here is our little tennis dude playing his heart out!

Kyle's match came down to a ten-point tiebreaker and David started praying for Kyle to win!  It was so cute!  Kyle lost in a heartbreaker but he played very well and had fun.  With siblings to cheer and pray you on-how can you go wrong?

 

We ended this whirlwind last few days with a sweet treat with the Jonas family at Sweet Frogs in Bristol. 

 

Thank you all for your prayers and love over the last few days.  We are so blessed with so many great friends who encourage us on our hard UVA days.  It will be an early bedtime around here tonight!

Robinson Happenings

So this is a scan week.  That means that we will head to UVA Thursday night to be at UVA hospital bright and early Friday morning for a chest, pelvic, abdomen scan to make sure that David's cancer has not returned.  We have been through roughly seven of these over the last two years since he finished chemo and radiation.  If this one is good and clean, then we will celebrate that we made it to the two year post-chemo milestone and keep praying for three more years until we hit that magic year five. 

Scans are not too terribly stressful to David because he will be sedated.  He is gone from us for 2-3 hours for the entire procedure.  The staff is wonderful that take care of him and we have faith in trust in them and the ultimate physician, God.  He has taken such amazing care of us throughout this entire nightmare and I have no doubt He will continue to hold us in the palm of His hand.  We should know results Friday afternoon. 

These weeks are hard.  I am thankful for God and the peace that can only come from Him.  I am thankful for good friends that pray for us and encourage us through these weeks.

We have been a little distracted this week meeting some new friends. 

 

This is Seth Allen-David's newest BFF on the Hokie Basketball Team. He and David just connected at that camp last weekend and he has reached out to us and called David on the phone and even attempted to facetime David!!  Here is a selfie that Seth and David took on his phone at the camp. 

This picture is totally out of order and random, but it makes me belly laugh that David was way too cool to sit with us at church on Sunday.  We sang several David Crowder songs which are David's favorites and he wanted to sit near the band and sing his tone-deaf guts out! 

 

Anyway, another amazing thing that has happened this week is that this little Mom blog has seen lots and lots and lots of activity from Hokie hoops fans reading about the Buzz Bunch fans this past week.  To the Hokie fans that are new on here, welcome and just know that the pictures from Saturday do not even come close to expressing how very cool that event was.  Coach  Buzz, his staff, and players made my child's entire year.  Only God could have orchestrated this new friendship between David and Seth on a week that is stressful in this house.  This little Mom blog was shared on twitter and other social media this week after the Buzz's Bunch event.  Hokie fans-if this team plays with as much class as they showed on Saturday with a room full of special needs kids, then buy your season tickets now.  They are the real deal. 

 

For a fun diversion from the reality of a UVA trip we hit Claytor Lake today for some boating and tubing fun.  Check out my boys on the tube and sweet girl had a little snooze on the boat:)

 

While at the lake today, I found out that Buzz's Bunch was discussed on a Hokie website and the link is below.  My boys flipped out because in the comments section someone took a picture of David dunking and compared it to a previous Hokie player whom they loved.  Very cool stuff!  Check it out below!

http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2014/august/5/buzzs-bunch

Thank you dear friends for praying for David this Friday.  Childhood cancer sucks, but our little cancer warrior, hoops-loving dude is getting by with some help from his VT basketball friends.