We're ALL-EN!

We have received so many awesome pictures of people with their ALL-EN bracelets on! Thank you! Here are some of the latest ones:

The Razorbacks are ALL-EN! Woo Pig Sooie!

Baby (Brookelyn's doll and best friend since she was one) is ALL-EN! 

Washington DC is ALL-EN!

The Honey Island Swamp Monster (in NOLA) is ALL-EN! 

Mr. Buddy, Brookelyn's AMAZING counselor at school, is ALL-EN!

Aunt "B" and Abby are ALL-EN!

We are so blessed to have the most amazing friends and family supporting us! Tomorrow marks Allen's fourth chemo treatment.  We are hoping for good blood count numbers in the morning and easy access to the port for a smooth treatment.  The fourth of twelve treatments will mark 33% of the way through the chemo part of Allen's path to CURE! It also signals that his all important scan will be soon! We aren't sure when The Cancer Ninja will schedule his scan, but we know it will be sometime in the next two weeks.  Any thoughts and prayers for a completely STERILE, CANcer FREE scan are greatly appreciated! We will keep you all updated as we know more!  If you want to email Allen a quick note, you can send it to: 4teamallenbates@gmail.com.

SO Thankful...

We have SO much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! We are thankful to the doctors and nurses--ALL of them: The Cancer Ninja and his staff, the ER doctor who preliminarily diagnosed Allen, Dr. Serious and everyone at MD Anderson, Nurse Bigelow with Livestrong, and all the wonderful, kind nurses who have conducted Allen's many scans, blood draws, chemo treatments, and were smiling faces to cheer him on! Each one has touched our lives and continues to do so as Allen fights this battle.
At the same time--and just as important--we cannot express our gratitude to all of our family and friends and friends of friends and Walmart/Sam's Club Associates who have helped us over the last almost eight weeks. The countless meals, donations, juggling kids, kind words and emails, ordering and wearing your ALL-EN bracelets, and ears to listen have meant more than we can truly ever express. CANcer sucks but all of you make it beatable.
And of course, we are thankful for our two smart, funny, and michevious little hooligans and the new little Bates that we will welcome in early May. Wow--we are certainly the luckiest Mommy and Daddy around!
If these last two months have taught us one thing, it is to be thankful, and today we are more so than we have ever been! CANcer has certainly put our priorities in order and shown us we are stronger, braver, and more loved than we ever knew!

Three Down, Nine to Go!

Yesterday marked the third treatment, which means Allen is now 1/4 of the way finished with chemotherapy! Before treatment, he had a great appointment with The Cancer Ninja.  Allen's white counts are still very low, but they had improved from the last blood draw.  That shows that while his body is being hit very hard by the chemo drugs (which we want because we obviously want them to get rid of all the CANcer cells), it is still able to bounce back and start recovering before the next round of chemo is administered.  The Cancer Ninja was really pleased with how well Allen is able to endure the drugs with very little side effects, and was also happy with how much his mass has shrunk in his chest! Of course he is only looking at the surface (no scans yet), but the change really is remarkable! The biggest test will come after Allen's next chemo treatment; he will have a PET scan to look inside his body to see how the CANcer is responding to the drugs.  As we have mentioned before, we want this scan to show NO ACTIVE CANcer AT ALL--aka for all areas to be STERILE!
After our awesome meeting with The Ninja, we headed over for chemo.  Of course Allen's port gave us trouble again.  Poor Allen, it is stressful enough to have to go through all of this, it would be nice if his port would just work as it is supposed to! But, after a group effort from several of the amazing nurses and some gymnastics on Allen's part to get in the absolutely perfect position, the port did its job. Four hours later we headed home to de-germ and let Allen get some rest.  He felt great last night--no nausea or side effects.
This morning Allen hopped on the treadmill (of course)

Three treatments down! Someone asked him if he thinks the chemo is making him stronger?! 

and had a great run--something tells me after he is cured he might just leave me in the dust at our next race! 

To end this post, we wanted to share a quote that we found early on in Allen's diagnosis that has really stuck with us both:

Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think!     -Christopher Robin to Pooh

Team ALL-EN Photo Challenge!

Allen's awesome co-worker took some amazing photos of her ALL-EN bracelet in unusual places while on a trip to Europe.  Check these out:

Can you spot the bracelet in this photo?

On a statue in Germany!

And look, Margaret Thatcher is ALL-EN!

So, we thought it would be cool to challenge all of Allen's supporters out there to take pictures of their ALL-EN bracelets in neat or unusual places! You can email your pictures to leahbates1212@yahoo.com, and we will post them on the blog and the Facebook page!

We can't wait to see what you all come up with!!  Thanks for continuing to support Allen!

Team ALL-EN Pride! We LOVE it!

Thank you for all the awesome pictures showing everyone's support for Allen!

Allen's co-worker spotted The Pope supporting Team ALL-EN! 

Michelle and Clara are ALL-EN! 

Joni is ALL-EN! 

Poppy Larsen is ALL-EN!

James is ALL-EN!

Send us pictures of you wearing your ALL-EN bracelets! We love seeing them and posting them on the blog! 

Allen is continuing to do well day five post chemo treatment number two.  In fact, he is eating us out of house and home; his appetite is unquenchable and his cravings are hilarious! Our main concern (that seems to consume us) right now is germs.  Everything humanly possible is being disinfected on a daily basis around the house, but we are still very anxious.  We don't want anything to delay his treatments--we want to kick this CANcer to the curb as fast and as thoroughly as possible! He will have a VERY important scan after his fourth treatment and we are already beginning to think about that as well.  We are focused on having that scan come back CANcer FREE! So, direct your energy, thoughts, prayers, karma, chi, etc. on Allen having a CANcer FREE scan coming up in a little less than a month!

Cocktail Hour (Really Four Hours)

Written yesterday when I couldn't get it to post from the Oncology Center:
Allen is sitting here injesting a myriad of "cocktails" well before happy hour.  Chemo round two has officially started, and his port functioned just fine this morning. He had great blood return right away, which made his nurse very happy! Before cocktail time, we met with The Cancer Ninja, and Allen got a great report. His white count is critically low, (as to be expected) so we do have to be VERY vigilant about germs and sickness. Anyone who is feeling the least bit under the weather needs to stay AWAY from Allen. We are meticulously watching Brookekyn and Braedyn for any signs of sickness, and they have already become accustomed to no shoes in the house, endless hand washing, and baths as soon as they get home from school. We don't want anything delaying Allen's treatments!

As I have mentioned before, we have been BLOWN AWAY by everyone's incredible support!  Here are some more pictures of our amazing Team ALL-EN supporters:

Woody and Jessie (aka Emily and Uncle David) are ALL-EN!

Allen's co-workers at Sam's Club are ALL-EN!

Jim and Becky Boyd Newberry are ALL-EN!

Gene Simmons (aka Sashi dressed up for Halloween) is ALL-EN!

Keep the wonderful pictures wearing your ALL-EN bracelets coming! We love to see them and post them here!

Ok, and now an update from today:
Allen woke up feeling GREAT this morning! He is probably SICK of hearing me ask if he feels ok, but I can't help asking just to make sure.  Of course he hopped right on the treadmill and started running.  He ran at a faster pace than he had been training at pre-diagnosis and logged several miles in no time.  It is wonderful to see him feeling so strong, having a great appetite, and being so positive!

On another positive note, Allen's results are becoming more physically visible.  When feeling his left lower pectoral area pre-treatment, several lumps and bumps could be felt (including the one that freaked us out initially).  Well, this morning when we felt they were GONE! It feels like normal chest tissue now! He also had a very large mass toward the center of his pectoral area, and while that one isn't gone it certainly sticks out noticebly less and feels as if it might be breaking up more! These results are so uplifting and promising to us!  Allen's great attitude and commitment to cure is paying off,  The Cancer Ninja and his staff's hard work is paying off, and everyone's thoughts and prayers are working! Our goal for this week is to keep Allen healthy and away from crowds and germs.  We are also hoping that he is able to rest after work (oh yes, of course he is working--can't keep him away from the office) so he can keep his strength and appetite up.  Also, this week Allen is starting infrared massage therapy; we are excited to see him reap the benefits of this amazing service!

Thank you again to everyone who has brought us meals, helped out with the kids, contributed to the maid service, prayed for us, thought of us, cleaned Allen's desk at work, sent Allen notes, and a million other things I can't even begin to name here.  All of you are helping us through this one step at a time!