Resolution has renewed meaning in 2008

A hero's Christmas isn't much different than any other boy or girls Christmas, he played with his brother and his cousins - lots of Lego's, video games, movies, etc.. Needless to say the only place bristling with more activity was Santa's workshop. Although it was great having all the kids playing at Joe's house, it did expose some challenges that we'll need to be addressed as he continues to get better. Mainly, as Mom put it, JoJo has gotten 'a little emotionally spoiled.' He has pretty much had his run of things (and rightfully so) so when things didn't go his way he let it be known. Team Taylor has to give extra special thanks to Paul and all of Joe's cousins who are trying very hard to understand why the rules are a little bit different for Joseph at the moment.

If you all remember, our Hero was scheduled to kick off another round of treatment on New Year's Day. Well, although his Hematocrit was up to 35.4 (that means his body is producing red blood cells,) his platelets are up to 347 (and clotting on his own at safe levels) and his WBC is at an acceptable 2.8 his ANC fell to 436 which if you remember makes it tougher for JoJo to fight off the germs. Because of that, the treatment had to be pushed back to January 8th (if his ANC comes back up.) The nurses tell Team Taylor that this is par for the course. As his body starts doing it's own work again, levels will rise and fall and it requires a bit of patience and flexibility. Just a bit frustrating, as everyone would like to get this phase over as quickly as possible.

Joe continues to struggle a bit with nausea since his last treatment. A bit of vomiting and a pretty limited appetite has resulted in a loss of eight pounds. Even though he's looking a lot more like the Joe everyone is familiar with and he doesn't get too scared or upset about his stomach getting... well... upset... everyone would like to see the weight loss and the nausea stop.

Christmas morning Team Taylor also noticed that, according to his pillow, it's not just weight JoJo is losing, his hair is going too and by all accounts should be all gone by the end of January. Mom says it's thinning out evenly and looks like it just wants to come out. But unlike Dad's, our Hero's hair will be back. :)

Thanks to everyone for keeping Joe and Team Taylor in your thoughts and prayers, please keep it up! Here's to hoping the numbers are back up and JoJo is ready to start crossing off treatments on the calendar again. Stay tuned...