Sunny Days

Last night Mason and I got to hang out and have fun. He had a pretty boring day and was tired due to a lack of platelets. He got them before I arrived, however, and when I got there, I saw a completely different Mason than the one who had been texting me all day. The day began to look a little brighter.

Earlier this week, Mason told me that he figured out how to take “selfies” in the dark. If you invert the colors of your screen on your iPhone, the black you once saw becomes white, enabling you to see your face when the picture is taken then the screen re-inverted. When my dad went to get dinner for us, Mason and I turned all of the lights off. We started to take pictures and see whose selfie could be the most ugly. I swear the entire hall could hear us laughing; we were so loud. At one point Mason’s cough, which had been stopped when the doctors gave him an allergy medication, came back pretty badly due to so much laughter. It got to the point where Mason told me to stop taking pictures because they were making him laugh so hard, which only made him cough harder. I don’t know if any of you can comprehend how I felt last night, but I couldn’t tell you the last time I was that happy, seeing him smile and genuinely laugh. It was the brightest day I had all week.

Mason should be able to video chat into his classes now. I think today was going to be his first day doing so. He’s going to keep up with his school work and finish freshman year, regardless of where he finishes it! I’m sure he’s going to miss gaming all day every day, but of course he will still have days for Xbox every now and then.

He’s actually been really happy recently, which is awesome to see. What else is awesome is that Team Orange has surpassed our goal! All of the supporters, whether donators or otherwise, are incredible. The six founders of Team Orange all thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Each day we are more and more astounded and humbled by all of the support we have gotten from our family, friends, and surrounding communities. There will never be enough words to thank you for all you have done on Mason’s journey down this orange brick road. We couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to have around us. You are all the sun on the days that seem a little darker; you're the people who make it brighter.

No matter how hard Mason coughs, I’ll keep trying to make him laugh. No matter how many bad days there are, we will always make sure there are three times as many good days. No matter what, we know that Mason is so strong, and everything is going to turn out alright. Sunny days are in his (and our) future. 

Hero

Slumber party part two! Last night I slept here by myself with Mason, and tonight I get him to myself again!

Last night his cough was worse than ever, and his hair has also been falling out a lot. What he actually does now is pull it out by himself since it’s already pretty short. He doesn’t seem too upset about it though. As long as he has his eyebrows, he says he’ll be okay. Last night we decided that it’s not a lack of hair that will make a person look weird or different; it’s the eyebrows. With this in mind, he pulled hair out threw it at me. When I yelled at him for using it like confetti, he simply responded, “It is confetti!” Party for two at CHOP? I think yes.

Since I don’t have work tomorrow we’re having a scary movie marathon throughout the night while I make some bracelets and write thank you cards to all of the donors helping to reach our $3,000 goal for Team Orange! For those of you wondering, I did start a team on Salesianum’s THON donation site. The link to our team is https://www.beposfdn.org/Sallies2013/SelectATeam.aspx?TeamSelected=NBI70478590. While we already have 80% of our goal, we definitely don’t want to stop once we reach it. These donations go to childhood cancer research and the families of those affected by childhood cancer that are in need of financial assistance. B+ is an amazing foundation that does incredible things, and we want to support it in any way possible.

Just like the B+ foundation, Mason spreads the message of his blood type as well: be positive. My mom says that he’s been eating too much junk, and my dad thinks he’s getting lazy, but he’s happy. I’m definitely to blame for the excessive candy eating. I always bring his favorite candy for him when I come visit. Tonight my mom told him he couldn’t have any of the new candy I bought him unless he got a salad or ate something healthy with dinner. He ate the salad then told my dad that his hemoglobin is so low that he doesn’t have any choice but to be lazy. Evidently he’s kept his sense of humor and wit.

As said by Nicholas Colleluori, “Make use of the time you have and don’t stress the little things. Have a smile and enjoy what you can get out of life.” With that, I’m off to make use of the amazing time I’m about to have with an amazing kid. I know how lucky I am to have such a great inspiration in my life, a hero. You never truly appreciate the heroes you have in your life until you realize that they are there. Whether that hero is inside of you or it is found someone else, I hope that you can notice whoever it may be and recognize and value him or her for who and what they are.

More Beautiful Than Diamonds

            Hello Everyone! It’s Mason. I’m doing fine, thanks for asking! Today I learned some pretty sad news, don’t worry too much, though. I’m starting to lose my hair. So I was brushing my teeth and my head started itching. I scratched it and slowly, hair began to fall slowly into the sink. As I saw the hair slowly fall into the sink, I realized that it reminded me of something. My blood levels. This awful disease has a good side. Wow, no one saw that coming. My blood and hair are significant for the future. Things may fall, like my hair and blood levels, but they will rise again. My hair will grow back, eventually. My blood levels are gonna rise, eventually. So right now, I consider time as one of my best friends.

            As I mentioned time as being one of my best friends, I thought of something that one of my (if not my) best friends said a while ago. He said “Wow, your hair is thin, you’re going to be bald at a young age.” Wow. I guess he was right! Obviously I know he didn’t mean it like this, but God has a funny way of telling you things.

            Last week I came to know that my dad likes to sing the song Diamonds by Rihanna. That’s a pretty necessary song for this situation. Even though us cancer patients don’t have hair, we’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky! He may not know all the words but it’s really funny when he sings it.

            Tomorrow, some people may know, Malvern has its baseball tryouts. I’d really do anything to be there and to be able to tryout just to represent my school playing baseball. Malvern is the best school I could be at in this situation. I must thank Mr. Talbot, Father Flynn, and all of the Malvern faculty for starting to develop a more 21^st-century education. Starting next week (hopefully) my classes are going to start to be streamed directly to me, or something along those lines. This will make everything I do here at CHOP much easier. It will take all the weight off of my back of being scared to miss too much school.

            I’m getting a little sleepy, so I think I’m going to go to bed. Goodnight to everyone reading this, and I wish the best to all of you. And to all trying out for Malvern baseball tomorrow, good luck and stay strong for #21.

            In the wise words of St. Augustine, “Patience is the companion of Wisdom.” All we can do is wait now, and that is the wise thing to do!

Ordinary Day

Just an ordinary day! Nothing too exciting going on. Mason wanted to tell me to let you all know that he’s doing just fine. You’re in for a treat tomorrow because the guest writer of honor is writing for me again! Mason likes to personally tell you how he feels, but he makes sure that I read it over first, just in case.

Hope all is well with all of you. You’re in my prayers and my family’s as well. Be positive and remember: no one fights alone. 

Be Positive

As I heard the smoke detector beep upstairs, signaling a low battery, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad. Mason would always help my dad change the batteries in our smoke detectors whenever their batteries were low. Even sitting here writing, I can hear the far too frequent beep of the thing, and I keep wishing that Mason was home to change it.

I spent basically all of today with him, scratching his back and his chest. After stopping chemo, a couple of his lymph nodes became a little swollen. The doctors thought this might be due to an infection, so they wanted to see if an antibiotic would help that swelling. Turns out this antibiotic caused a bit of a reaction giving Mason yet another itchy rash all over, which led to my daylong scratching. The doctors, however, think that it's an after effect of the chemo. My mom and I think this rash is a totally new and different one due to an allergic reaction, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Today we also tried dyeing his Mohawk orange. We shaved his head, as you know, but my dad gave him a short little Mohawk. As it turns out, his scalp absorbed more orange than his really short hair did, but I still think it looks good.

In other news, some people have been raising money in support of Mason and leukemia. They have come to me, Mason’s liaison, and asked where that money should go. On discovering Mason’s blood type was B+, I told him that the perfect place to donate the money to would be The B+ Foundation. This foundation is in honor of the 14-year old boy, Andrew McDonough, with B+ blood as well, who bravely battled leukemia and sepsis until July of 2007 when he passed away. This foundation spreads the message to “be positive,” while also raising money for childhood cancer research and money for families that need financial assistance during their battles with childhood cancer. The McDonough family story has truly been an inspiration to me, and the foundation is truly remarkable.

Later today, I got a text from a grade school friend of mine, AJ. He told me that for the first time ever, the Salesianum School (plus their sister schools) are having a THON. For those of you who don’t know, THON is an all night dance party that raises money for childhood cancer, and it was started by students at Penn State. Since then, many schools have mimicked the motion and done “mini THONS.” On March 16, 2013, Salesianum will be one of those schools. When AJ texted me and told me this, he mentioned that all of the money raised would be donated to The B+ Foundation. Can you guess who went to Salesianum? Andrew McDonough.

The coincidences are insane! For the first year ever, Salesianum decided to have a THON and to donate the money to the foundation for childhood cancer. This same year, my brother was diagnosed with one of those childhood cancers. This same year, my brother decided that after having the same blood type as Andrew, he would donate to the foundation started in honor of him. Freaky.

So AJ told me that their goal is to raise $46,000 in honor of the 46 kids diagnosed with cancer each day. Since my baby brother was one of those 46 on February 1, 2013, AJ felt the need to tell me about it. He told me their goals and mentioned that he had been in contact with Joe McDonough, the father of Andrew and founder of B+, without knowing that I had also been in contact with him. They have a website being run by the B+ Foundation that has a thermometer on it tracking their progress in donations. As you are allowed to make teams to donate money in honor of, I will be making one for Mason at some point soon. I want Team Orange to be a part of the $46,000 that I know AJ and all of the THON participants this year will raise for the B+ Foundation. Their website is https://www.beposfdn.org/Sallies2013/EventLandingPage.aspx.

All of the donations in Mason’s name are yet another example of the support and love that has been shown for Mason and our family. I don’t have words for how appreciative my family and I feel. There are no words to describe how thankful we are to have all of you in our lives, and the positive energy boosts Mason’s spirits in the most amazing way. Thank you for everything that each one of you has done for Mason and our family. He’s always positive, and we owe a lot of that to all of you.