Carter May

Welcome to our CaringBridge site. We've created it to keep friends and family updated with our son Carter's condition. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement during this time when it matters most.  You have all been so thoughtful with prayers and other caring support, and words cannot begin to express what that means to us.  Even though we are now well over half-way through Carter's treatments (Yes!!!), we felt that CaringBridge was the best way to keep everyone posted with his condition.  Just to fill everyone in, Carter's diagnosis came on January 13th when the results of a biopsy from his neck came back positive for Hodgkin's Disease, a type of lymphoma which his mother also battled and beat four years ago.  Carter's type of Hodgkin's Lymphoma was the slower-growing type which sometimes can be treated through surgery, but when we found that Carter had more than the one lump on his neck we realized that surgery was not going to be a good option.  We agreed with the doctors at Cincinnati Children's Hospital when they suggested chemotherapy would be a better option than the risk factors involved with surgically excising the deeper cancerous lymph node down in his throat.  We were able to start chemotherapy shortly after this realization, and thankfully we are now to the point that Carter only has one more overnight chemotherapy session and one more "day-visit" chemotherapy for a medicine called Vincristine.  Carter has been having a hard time with the overnight sessions, but the Vincristine sessions have been going well for him.  There are also some weeks we go to Cincy only for the dressing change of his picc-line and also to do bloodwork.  He has a picc-line in his arm so that they do not need to stick him on each visit as they had to in the beginning with all the testing.  (He hated that part since he has VERY difficult veins!)  The tricky part now is keeping him healthy during "low-count" periods when his immune system is weak and also keeping that picc-line safe since it is basically a direct line to his heart.  For these reasons, Carter has been staying home from school and will return hopefully in April when treatment is complete and his counts are back up for immunity.  Carter is a typical 10-year-old boy who never really loved going to school, but it only took him about four days of doing schoolwork at home for him to realize how much he missed doing his work and playing with friends at school.  He has really been handling all of this quite well even though he doesn't always feel well.  We are so proud of Carter for the attitude he has had in dealing with this situation.  The doctors have assured him that this treatment is 90% successful and that side effects in the future should be minimal.  We all know that God will not give us more than we can handle, and with a support team like all of you out there, we know that this battle will be won as it was for Carter's mom.  Once again, we appreciate the thoughts and prayers which are getting us through each day.  They are definitely working!  We know that this is going to mold Carter's character in some way down the road and make him a better and stronger person.  We are past asking why and are willing to just trust that everything will work out according to God's plan.  Many, many thanks for all that you have been doing for us!  We live in an amazing community!!!    Matt and Kathy