Busy, busy week

It has been a very fun but busy week for the Barker's....Chelsea had cheer tryouts for WX High School and she MADE IT AGAIN!!! We are so proud of her and know she enjoys it so much, we tell her often to enjoy her high school days instead of always stressing for her 4.0 and what colleges she will go to. She just filled out her paperwork to start her CNA , she will be busy for sure with her CNA classes and also working at her job but it will all payoff. Chelsea has wanted to be a doctor ever since I can remember and seeing her Dad go through what he has went through has made her more motivated to accomplish that dream. She is not sure yet what type of doctor but she thinks she might want to go into Pediatric Oncology- she has always had a special place in her heart for kids and with her Dad's cancer she really wants to do some good for children suffering with cancer. We tell her what ever she does she will be good at, she is a very smart, hardworking and accomplished young lady who has a heart of gold and wants the best for everyone! She was awarded the "National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine Award"based on in their words " Your Exemplary Academic record, leadership potential" and was invited to attend the Forum on Medicine out of State this Summer. What an honor but unfortunately the costs are so much over $4,000 to attend that she will not be able to go but as we told her what a great honor to be nominated. She is going to Senior Prom this Saturday ( I will post pics later) so we have been getting ready for that as well.....I can not believe Chelsea will be a Junior in Fall in High School and 17 years old, she only has 2 more years of High School left. Time goes by so fast :(

Austin started baseball and he is loving it! He is my true boy- loving ALL SPORTS! He is getting excited for the NFL Football Drafts coming up..if you can believe this kid will sit for hours and hours and watch all of it. He is such a knowledge for professional and college sports- he can tell you the athletes name, what college he is from, his stats, date of birth, position he plays and background. We often joke that if he doesn't play a sport when he is older a sports commentator would be his next dream job- although he wants to be a dentist like his Dad wanted to be when he was young. He has been enjoying spending time again with his Dad. With Eric feeling better these days he has been able to not play the sports again with Austin like he used to be at least he has been able to enjoy watching Austin play - that has been so nice! He as well achieved a 4.0 again and loves competition, he has an unbelievable knack for math his favorite subject. We have been told since he was in 1st grade that he is a natural at math- where he gets that from I have no idea!!

Eric has been doing good. He was so excited last week he was able to go visit all his law enforcements work buddies and co-workers. He meant to just go in for a quick Hi and lunch with a few of them and ended up being there over 4 hours!! He over did it and was extremely tired but he loved being back around all his fellow law enforcements buddies, getting lots of hugs. He came home telling me how much he misses it and how he can't wait to get back to work and be around all of them again! It does my heart good to see him so happy from seeing them and doing good... I have to admit though I am very worried about him over doing it and rushing so soon to get back to work. The doctors tell him that bone marrow transplant patients usually don't go back to work until about 2-3 years after their transplants but Eric has always been a hard and dedicated worker who is determined to make it back alot sooner by the year mark! He already is trying to plant ideas in his doctors heads about returning to work and that he would be fine but as the doctors told him " It's all a fine line and balance, your body has been through so much and we need to let it recover back to normal the safest way possible and right now that is germ free and on the anti-rejection drugs and immune suppressed drugs". Eric blood counts/ CBC are good this week although he did dip lower in most of them then we had hoped but the doctor tells us to not worry and we will just watch and see what they are this week. His white cells went down to 3.0 and his red cells 3.19 with his hemoglobin at 11.5 and his platelets dropped to 91- dang it! We were hoping he would for the first time in years hit over 100 on his platelets but we will shoot for next week I guess. All in all we are doing pretty good and are so grateful to the Lord for our continued blessings. Not a second of the day goes by that we do thank the Lord for Eric's donor and all our blessings. We can't wait to meet him and thank him in person as the letters we write to him are not enough!

If you can believe it or not we already are preparing to fly back in June on the 1st to Texas to meet with Eric's bone marrow transplant doctors at MD Anderson Cancer Center and all his follow up tests and appt's.....we just booked our flights,hotel,etc. I was telling Eric how nice it will be when we don't have to spend the money and time to fly out every three months for a few days of hospital and doctor appt's and we can actually book trips as a family instead for fun! Although we are grateful to his doctors in Texas and realize what a blessing it is to be on this side of things now. Our journey is still continuing but a few less bumpy rides right now so we are enjoying the slow down. We are so grateful and recognize it as the gift it is meant to be!!