Live Strong Ride & The Day

We got up bright and early to head out to the Live Strong Ride. We met up with friend Christine and Frances' brother Chuck and nephew Cole who were going to join us. We had a bit of difficulty getting to the right location inside of the Nike campus and were running much later than we anticipated. There were two peditaxis to take the cancer kiddos (and their families) for rides and more kiddos than could fit on a single trip, so we waited for our turn.

Lance and his entourage headed out first along with the first group of kiddos on the peditaxis. We never got a chance to meet Lance and as I understand it, he wasn't going to be able to spend much time after the ride.

We eventually got our turn on the peditaxi and Rebekah, Mommy, Uncle Chuck and Cole were able to get a short ride around the area. We actually came back onto the Nike Campus the same way the riders would come in. There were two lanes, one for Cancer Survivors and one for everyone else. They were handing out yellow roses to the cancer survivors. In our case, they gave one to Rebekah, one to Cole and one to Mommy. It sounded like we were the first riders through the finish line, so there was a little bit of fanfare.

We took a stroll through the area to see what all was going on. Since it was still pretty early, there wasn't too much, yet. They were starting to set up food concessions and the music stage was getting ready. The Live Strong store was open, Lance's Chopper (motorcycle) was on display, there was a wheel to spin and win a prize, and "I'm a Survivor" and "In Honor of" and "In Memory of" badges, etc...

This afternoon and evening, we had another birthday party for Sarah with Frances' family and a few friends. Rebekah, Sarah, Cole and JJ all enjoyed playing outside on the play structure and JJ would take Rebekah for a ride in the wagon (sometimes with Sarah, too). Neighbor Lisa brought one of her puppies over for the kids to pet. Fun was had by all.

Because Rebekah was having so much trouble keeping her food down, we have been giving her Pedialyte instead. The biggest concern right now it to keep her hydrated. She is continuing to drool pretty heavily, so she's loosing fluids with that as well as the normal methods. With all the vomiting, she wasn't taking much in. So far, she has been keeping the pedialyte down. We'll need to switch her back to "formula", but we'll take it easy. Pray that we are able to make the transition back to formula without trouble.

We are still in the process of weaning Rebekah from the pain medications. So far there haven't been any "really" bad times. Please pray that she does ok with the continued taper down.