Surgery, Stress, and Shirts

Tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. a team of doctors and nurses will take him back to the O.R. here in Eugene for another surgery.  I say another because this will be his eighth one of his young life so far.  They will be putting in a G-tube that inserts through his abdominal wall and directly into his stomach.  This will help us transition back to using his stomach for nutrition.  We are nervous for the surgery even though they have told us it should be fairly quick.  We're a bit stressed to be out of the "comfort zone" that is Doernbecher where we know many of the doctors and nurses by first name; however, we are really thankful for a great surgeon who is doing the surgery tomorrow for Ari.  Luckily for us, it is the same surgeon who placed his central line last March.  So, tonight was full of running around packing a hospital bag, doing a last-minute dressing change for his central line, and giving him a really good bath in preparation for surgery.  Tomorrow, we'll wake, pack it all up, and head to the hospital here in Eugene.

We've been doing our best at trying to find a new normal these days.  It's not always easy, and there's not much "normal" about our days.  But, we are so thankful for these days and for Ari continuing to make progress.  The next couple of months will consist of a surgery (tomorrow), a slow transition to using his stomach, intensive feeding therapy for Ari to re-learn how to eat, physical therapy (both in clinic and at home), occupational therapy, trying to get his vomiting under control, and a neuro-opththalmology appointment to assess if his slightly uneven eyes need to be corrected.  All these appointments and therapies are a direct result of the nasty side effects of chemotherapy that just seemed to reek havoc on his little body.

Please continue to pray for our little man and for God to restore his body from all the treatment side effects.  Please also pray for the surgery to go well tomorrow and for us to be able to come home fairly soon after.  Please pray specifically for Ari to re-learn how to eat and for his stomach to work again to process and digest food.  Please pray that Ari learns how to sit, crawl, stand, and walk.  Thank you for walking alongside us up to this point!

Lastly, we wanted to let you all know about a little research fundraiser we are involved in.  The past year has been very rough for our little man, but he continues to teach us more about strength and joy everyday. Because of the rarity of his type of cancer, there is not a lot of funding that gets invested into research to find better treatment options. We’d like to raise money and awareness for research through the profits from selling T-shirts that were specifically designed for Ari. All profits will be donated to an organization, Cure ATRT Now, working closely with some of the leading AT/RT research centers in the U.S. You can visit their website at www.cureatrt.org. Ordering will only be open for a set amount of time, so please make sure to get your order in on time. Also, please feel free to share the link to the website on social media to spread the word! Thanks!


About the artist who designed the shirts.:One of our close friends, Bryan Putnam, designed the T-shirt artwork from a scattered idea we had given him. He continues to blow people away with his intricate work and epic storytelling through art. He has a passion to make really good art while allowing people to consider creation. Bryan was there the days after Ari was born in the hospital holding him in the rocking chair, and Bryan was there sitting with us while Ari was going through his first tumor resection on February 27, 2014. Before you order your shirt please go to www.iamrainier.com and check out some of his work. If you’d like to contact him directly you can email him at bryanp@uoregon.edu.

To order shirts, you can visit www.myshirtsize.com/lion .  Thanks for the support and help in funding more research!