Steadman Family

To say that we’re excited for this Christmas is an understatement. We feel blessed to have such a wonderful family, an amazing group of friends and an entire community supporting us. Melinda and the Grandma’s have decorated the inside our home with their artistic magic and I’ll string the outside lights once I’m finally off of the computer (should happen around June at this rate). The kids are singing Christmas songs, dancing with excitement and dreaming of presents.

And our eyes have been opened to the ravages of cancer. 1.3 million people in the US alone have been diagnosed with cancer this year and Ben is one of the 3,000 children who have been diagnosed with brain cancer. I guarantee you that many of these children don’t have the amazing support that Ben has.

We’ve seen our support network perform miracles this year. The dinners, presents, financial assistance, loving cards and comments on this site have done more to help us than you can ever imagine. We’re getting questions on what people can do for us for Christmas and the truth is that we’re buried in new toys and the generousity of our support network. Instead of gifts, we are asking for one more miracle from all of you. We have selected two charities to support this holiday season and ask that each of you make a donation in Ben’s honor.

Child’s Play was started three years ago by the creators of an online comic strip and has given over $1 million to children’s hospitals across the country. They give 100% of the money raised directly to the hospitals - not many charities perform this amazing act. You can donate money directly via PayPal or select a hospital and buy items from their Amazon.com wish list if you want that shopping experience for yourself. Items range from Playstation’s ($150) to books ($3) and do wonders for the kids in the hospitals.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation has helped over 144,000 children with life-threatening medical conditions realize their one wish over the last 25 years. Their gifts have had a great impact on Ben - from the confidence and joy he had Christmas shopping to the excitement that he has for his trip to San Diego. They have several donation options available at their website.

Share your gift with Ben!

We want a way for Ben to share in your generosity and see how many people care about kids just like him. Melinda (the clever half of our partnership) came up with the idea of creating a paper train car representing each gift. Our goal is fill an entire wall with train cars. We’ll be posting images of the trains progress throughout the holidays. You can either:

The challenge of fighting cancer may seem insurmountable, but families live on hope and take small steps everyday. Your gift, no matter how large or small, adds to our hope. Please share the love and support that you have shown Ben to other families.

Thank you and may your holiday be as miraculous as ours.

We spent the whole day at Children’s Hospital yesterday. They were running about an hour behind on the MRI appointments. They told us before hand that any emergency MRI’s could bump us into a later time slot and we weren’t too surprised to have to wait. Ben was in really good spirits and cooperated nicely with the nurses and the anesthesiologist. He was slightly groggy once it was complete and was happy to get to ride in one of the hospitals red wagons. We missed Ben’s appointment with his oncologist since we were running an hour late and were asked to come back in a few hours.

The folks from Make-A-Wish set up a Christmas store inside the hospital every year for the Wish-Kids to get presents for their family. Ben was excited to get a chance to go shopping and we used the time between our appointments to take him in. The folks at Make-A-Wish never cease to amaze me. They had crafts, puppets, punch & cookies, Christmas carol singers, a character artist and a huge line of Wish-Kids waiting to get into the store. Each Wish-Kid was given seven “Wish-Dollars” to spend on their family and was allowed one gift for themselves. Ben was still feeling a little groggy when we got to store entrance, but insisted on walking in with his shopping helper. Melinda and I took advantage of his shopping time to meet some of the other Wish-Families. We found several new resources for information and made contact with some amazing people.

Melinda and I were shocked as Ben came out of the store riding in a wheelchair, wearing a new stocking cap and snuggling with a new blanket. His shopping helpers told us that started getting tired and cold about half way through so they gave him a few extra things to keep him going. He had a huge smile on his face and was clutching a picture of himself sitting on Santa’s lap - a feat he refused to do earlier in the week at the mall. He gains strength and confidence from each little step of independence he takes.

Melinda and I were nervous as we went back down to see the oncologist to review the MRI. We’ve spent the entire week preparing ourselves for three different types of news - miraculously wonderful, dreadfully awful or a huge question mark. The answer, of course, was the question mark.

The radiation treatment has resulted in a 25% reduction in the tumor size. The three areas of necrosis in Ben’s tumor have gone down slightly and there are no new necrotic areas. Overall, the doctors seem fairly pleased with these results and were ecstatic to see Ben running and jumping in the hallway. Then we got to the new development.

He has developed a small lesion in the front, right side of his brain. Our doctors aren’t sure what it is, but have confirmed that it’s not a new cancerous tumor. They believe that it might be a viral or fungal infection and sent us down for a chest x-ray to look for other infections (leave it to a brain surgeon to look at your chest to confirm a brain infection). His chest x-rays looked just fine and they’re scheduling an echocardiogram for next week to make sure that it’s not growing on his heart. They’ve already told us that they don’t expect to find anything from the heart, but they need to rule out as much as possible. They’ve seen similar lesions a few times before, but still have no idea what they are. They’ve ruled out doing a biopsy unless Ben develops any new serious symptoms. In all likelihood, this new lesion will have very little impact on him and may just go away at some point. They’ve scheduled us for another MRI in four weeks to monitor it.

So what does all this mean?

His tumor is smaller, he has no new necrotic areas and he’s developed this mysterious lesion in his brain. We know that his tumor is aggressive and that it can grow rapidly once it reestablishes itself. His condition has improved greatly thanks to the treatments. He has more motor control today then he did the week he was diagnosed. He’s in great spirits and is acting like a kid again.

I’ll wrap this up by saying that Ben is just like the rest of us. We all know that someday we will die, but none of us knows when. Our challenge is to live and love today.