We are still here!

Sorry everyone for the huge delay, This has been the far most busiest year we have ever encountered!!! doctor after doctor visits, treatment after treatments, its been truly "nuts"!!
Anyway, since last blog, we had JessesRide2010, it wasn't as big as the last few years rides but we did get about $1200. we still got plenty of BBQ and bottle water!!LOL!!.. but it was a great ride with no one getting hurt. almost everyone got a door prize! and we got to meet a lot of friends we haven't seen in awhile.
Aside from the doctor visits and such, Jesse has been doing a lot of camping and such with boyscouts. that has been a great thing this summer, before he had summer baseball, but he seemed to always not feel good and stayed exhausted with it. so this year we talked him into boyscouts, and it has been a great choice. he has really enjoyed it.
We also want to give a shout out to our friend ViviAnne. she is finished with chemo!!! we are so glad to see that she is done with it. Happy NewLife Day ViviAnne!!!! but we will miss you at clinic!!! http://www.viviannegrace.blogspot.com/ (Kristen, you have one year to let us know how its going to be on the "other side"!!LOL)
Jesse has one more year with treatments. 10/10/2011 will be his last, and we are looking forward to it. We wont know what to do when it comes to his chemo visits, the pains he gets, the crying,screaming, all the doctor visits, meds, hand sanitizer and oh yea, the pharmacy!! we cant forget that, I bet they go bankrupt after we tell them Jesse wont be back!! who would of thought that those pills could be such a huge daily hassle!??!! each day with a different doses,mlg's at different times, and you have to remember to refrigerate the liquid??!! we cant say enough on how much this is life altering. every day is a challenge with schedules and meds. "everyday"!!
and on top of all that, we have to juggle last minute decisions either he can go to his grandparents house for the weekend,camping,boyscout meetings, school all due to his current state of health and or if some one else is sick that he might come in contact with. its never ending, every day and minute consumes us whether he is home or somewhere else. "BUT" in the end we know that the hell we have been in the last 4 years will be well worth it! knowing that we don't have to worry about (hopefully) never again. knock on wood, with the end of chemo. end of chemo only comes if blood work approves of it! but we can only hope for the best.
The end of chemo will be a start of a fresh, new life!!
Again, Sorry for the delay on the posting. and Thank you for visiting.
Chris, Amy.

Quick Update.

Jesse had a great time at the Ride For A Cure Saturday, he is excited about his upcoming ride event this coming Saturday 25th. we are almost prepared for it, we are still needing bottled water and soft drinks. Jesse going on the ride last weekend did come with some consequences. he started hurting that night and it didn't stop until Sunday night. it was bad enough where he had to take oxy's for the pain. he didnt get out of bed all day Sunday, he stayed wrapped up in heating pads and watched movies in his room all day. but he is over it now, Thank God!!
Also he is going today to see a endo, doctor about seeing if he can get growth hormone shots. this was ask of us by his doctors at Kosairs. he is little anyway, but the chemo has held him back for years now. so he is way smaller than he should be. we will be back with more info on him and the ride later. Thanks for visiting..

Chemo Visit..

Just wanted everyone to know that chemo went as well as expected Monday. his numbers are looking good, but h did have a seizure the next day at school. the doctors said that if it happens again to let them know and they will up his seizure meds. he is due a chemo treatment next month with both access port and spinal tap(lumbar puncture).. and it will be a giving that he will be missing some school.
We are almost ready for this years JessesRide. we still need donations and bottled water,sodas, and a few more door prizes.. and if anyone has a food donation such as covered dish, desert,etc, please let us know and will will pick it up at your convenience, or you can drop it off at the American Legion post234 in Scottsburg by 4:30pm on the 25th(Saturday after this).. we don't expect it to be as hot this year, Thank God! but we are praying for "NO" rain that day!!
Thank you for visiting...

Quick Update.

Jesse is doing well. He had chemo on the 16th, and did have some leg/back pains from it, but not as bad as usual. the doctors didn't like a few things about his blood work and had him come back in on the 23rd to get a partial blood transfusion. he has been unstoppable since!! we have been busy getting the ride event organized for this year. we are still needing door prizes, we only have a few. other than that it looks to be a good time. I also have a facebook now for JessesRide. that's about it for now, we are going to go out and enjoy this weather!! Thanks for visiting!

Jesse's Birthday

Just wanted to let everyone know that Jesse is doing well. after chemo last month we kept him indoors and settled him down for a few days and it worked great. he only had a few bad days,(Sat,Sun).. but rebounded quickly. we are getting ready for another visit to the chemo clinic on the 16th of this month. again we will keep him settled down a few days before chemo and about a week after to keep his pain down to a minimum.. He just had his 13th B-Day yesterday, Aug 3. we will be having his party this weekend with one on Friday evening at our friends Jeff and Shasta Coomes, which is having Jesse and a few of his friends over for a "pool party" and we will be having his party on Saturday evening at around 5:00pm. we will be grilling hot dogs and some burgers, and having cake and ice cream. as always, everyone is welcome! I am also putting a link to our photobucket site where most of Jesse's make a wish vacation pictures are, hope you enjoy them. Thanks for visiting, stay cool!

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR PHOTOBUCKET http://s980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/ChrisAmyJesse/?start=all

Day 6,7 Make A Wish Vacation

Day 6 was one of Jesse's most exciting day. We were due at the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield at 11:00am to take a tour of the entire store. this store being the headquarters of BPS is much larger than the rest, with many aquariums,gun range,archery range and exhibits. Jesse's tour began with seeing a few of the aquariums,one with a 8' alligator, and getting to shot a compound bow at the archery range and then getting to shot at the gun range. after all that we went to a VIP room where Hemingways Restaurant(in BPS) had made Jesse his favorite meal, Pizza. we were told that the restaurant had never made pizza before and they wasn't for sure how it would turn out, but it was amazing. they made it just for him, along with the worlds largest ice cream sunday! we shared our meal with the a few members of the Wonders of Wildlife. http://www.wondersofwildlife.org/ Leader Misty, and volunteers Lauran,Hannah,Maya. while we were finishing up our meal and trying to make a dent in the giant sunday we got to watch a diver feed the fish in one of the aquariums in that room. while he was feeding them we got to listen to him tell us about all the fish he feed. it was very interesting to watch, Jesse has a few stories to share with you about it too. after our meal and show we went on to tour the rest of the store and Jesse got to due a little shopping at BPS expense. we really want to Thank Lauren Thiel, the special events coordinator at BPS for giving us the tour and making a very special day for Jesse. after Jesse done some shopping we made our way back to Branson. Day 7 (friday) We went to the "Ride The Ducks" tour of Branson. the ducks are WWII amphibious vehicles used to transport troops, they were changed a little bit to give tours. our tour began with going through some of Bransons history and visiting the Table Rock Lake dam and a tour in the lake. Jesse had a great time there as well, he even got to drive the duck while we were in the water. after the tour we visited many places thru out Branson, including Cooters garage where we got pics with him and the general lee car. the next day we packed it up and headed home. we drove straight thru back to Scottsburg with only stopping to eat and gas up. it wasn't as bad as we expected it would be, 8.5 hr trip. we all had a great time, we couldn't of never took a vacation of this magnitude. we truly thank everyone that had a part in organizing this trip for Jesse, it will be with him for ever. Thanks again for visiting.

Day 4 Make A Wish Vacation.

Jesse is doing well today, he is not showing any side effects yet from yesterdays chemo. just wanted to share the vacation day 4-5 with you.

On day 4 we got up and went to Silver Dollar City. it is an amazing theme park, with some of the smoothest rides we have ever been on. we mainly stayed in the park, not able to go to the water park nor the cave there. but still had a great time, Jesse brought home many souvenirs from there. after leaving the park that evening we did not have much energy left to much of anything else but eat. after dinner we went back to our cabin. On day 5 Jesse and I used a boat from the marina and went out on our own to catch some fish on Table Rock Lake. we tried casting some and jigging,etc, but went to trolling and that is how we boated the most fish. I think I have a few pics to share from that adventure. after the fishing trip, we went and picked mom up from the cabin and went to the Dixie Stampede. we were early enough to make the pre show, and Jesse loved it. we all had a great time that day!

Chemo went as expected.

All went well today, first off Jesse had an appointment to get chemo thru his access port at Nortons, the straight over to Kosairs for a lumbar puncture/chemo and then went down stairs to get a brain MRI. it was slower than usual at Nortons, we didn't get over to Kosairs until 11:00am. everything with the chemo went good. we were able to stay on the 7th floor OMO until the LL/MRI staff was ready for us, meaning Jesse got to stay in bed until they were ready for him, then we went to the lower level to get his MRI, after that we stopped at Arby's on the way home and got it to go. Jesse is resting in bed now. he will remain there for most of the week and possibly the weekend. as noted before, the less he does, the better off he is for the pain.

Now, Day 2 of his Make A Wish Vacation.

It started off with us getting an early start from the motel,(after eating breakfast) driving straight thru to Branson. when we went to check in, they told us the room wasn't ready yet for us to look around and go have lunch. after returning we went to our cabin. after unpacking, we lounged around for awhile, then Jesse and I went fishing down at the boat docks. didn't have much luck that day, but it did change for the good the third day...

Day 3 Make A Wish Vacation.

It got off to a great start early, we were at Dogwood canyon at 8:30am ready to do a 4hour guided trout tour. we meet Keith Oxby, trout guide. he said he wanted to do something special for Jesse, so he gave us a tour of the whole park. we got to see,elk,bison,deer,turkey,etc. and he showed us the cabin the Johnny Morris stays in when he visits.(owner,founder bass pro) after a drive thru the park in his jeep, we stopped at an area that was posted "No Fishing".. Keith said the area was called glory hole. it was a area of the stream that was real wide and had a waterfall. Keith also told us that there was only 1 person to ever fish there, former president George Bush!! then he ask Jesse if he wanted to fish there, and of coarse he did so!! Jesse is pretty excited about that fact, so please ask him about it sometime.. After fishing the glory hole we went on to fishing up and down the stream catching many trout.. and when the tour was about to end, Keith wanted to teach Jesse how to fly fish.. that was very interesting!!LOL!!! but he got the hang of it and was able to land a huge trout. after the fishing tour we went on back to the cabin for some rest and lunch.

After getting our bellies full and resting a bit, we were scheduled a trip to see the Titanic Museum. when we checked in there we were told that we was going to get the VIP treatment with a guide. our guide knew everything about the Titanic, including peoples names, where they were from and why they were on the boat, it was an amazing trip. I would like to tell about it all but I will leave it up to Jesse for your all's next conversation.. after our visit there we went on to eat dinner at Montana Mike,s steak house and then we drove around checking huge city of Branson out. Thanks for visiting..

We Are Home!

Since we done soooo much while we were gone on Jesse's trip, we are going to post each days visit each day here. starting with Day 1.

We got early Saturday morning(July10) got breakfast and then picked up a rental van from Elliotts rentals in scottsburg, we packed it up and hit the road. we first stopped at a Micky D's just outside St.Louis because there is "NOTHING" between Indiana and St.Louis! LOL! we got it to go, and went to St.Louis Zoo. we had a great time, getting to visit most of the day. I will attach a few picks from there. after visiting the zoo, we had dinner at Applebees and went on in the direction of Missouri. after about a few hours we stopped at a Comfort Inn and got a good nights rest.

The ride to the zoo wasn't near as bad as we expected, it only took about four hours. parking was easy and getting into the zoo was free!! that's St.Louis tax dollars at work! but Jesse really had a great time, we looked at all the animals,reptiles,etc and took a train trip around the zoo.

The van we got from Elliotts was in great shape, and very clean. I wasn't a mini van enthusiast in any way until I drove the Grand Caravan, its a pretty nice ride for long trips like this one.

We also want to Thank everyone at Make A Wish Foundation for doing this for Jesse. it wasn't a typical make a wish trip and a little extra had to be put into it, so Thanks!

I think that about sums it up for today, we will be back tomorrow for the second days trip information. also with an update on how chemo went.(chemo via port, and lumbar puncture, and a brain MRI) Thanks for visiting.

Chris,Amy....

Happy 4th !

Well, Jesse has one camp down and just left for the second one. He had a time of his life at Camp Quality this past week. he was there for 5 days/nights. one thing that made this camp unique is he had a companion all to his self, his name is Justin. Jesse has talked none stop about him the last few days, he really enjoyed the time with Justin and at camp. I will fill in a few more details about what they did much later in the month. from the time Jesse got home Friday night , he slept about 75% of the time until he got loaded up in the Boyscout truck today!

He has been doing really well since chemo, mainly to the low dose. its going to suck when he gets the next treatment because they are going to get him caught up on what they didn't give him. he should be in good shape this week at camp. I know they will be doing some fishing, hiking, boating, and a lot of cooking out!

We did get everything finalized for his Make A Wish trip this coming weekend to Branson. we received the itinerary, and they have us booked something huge every day we are there. the first day will be a lot of driving, we are going to layover in St Louis and try to go to the zoo there and then shot on over to Branson the next morning. then we will be checking into the Big Cedar Lodge and they have us set up for a great dinner and a movie. next day Jesse and I will be doing some fishing with a guide. then all of us are taking a trip to the Titanic Museum, Silver Dollar City, Dixie Stampede, boat rental, Ride the Ducks, check out the Bass Pro Shop,etc,etc. lots of things to do! we will be sure to take lots of pics to share with you.

The two lady's pictured above with Jesse is the Make a Wish organizers, (left)Ashley, (right) Kim. They made it all happen for his vacation next week. and above them is Justin, he was Jesse's companion at Camp Quality. and a pic with him and mom as he is leaving to go to Boyscout camp in Bardstown Ky. Be back soon and thanks for visiting!!!

And for the new followers, this site is new to us and if you want to check out our history with Jesse's journey since the beginning check us out at the old site, and dont forget to check the pics out! http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jessekallembach

Thanks.

Chemo Day Went Well.

Jesse had chemo today, and we was able to talk the doctors into giving him a low dose this round!! YEA! we are just hoping that he is in good enough shape by Sunday to go to Camp Quality, and if not we are sure he will get to go on Monday.. his counts were good, and everything else went well. we also visited the neurologist today after his chemo visit. they just wanted to check him out and give us refills on his seizure meds. we are due back there July 19 for a MRI with and without contrast just to see if the abnormality has changed any. and we are due back at Kosairs that same day for the dreadful L.P. (spinal tap)
He went camping at Blue river with the Boyscouts over the weekend. he enjoyed fishing and taking a 14 mile trip in a conoe. (I think the best part of his camping trips is the food)! we have a meeting tonight with boyscouts to talk about the upcoming week stay at Crooked Creek boyscout camp in Kentucky. (NOT tunnel mill as last posted)
He has been in GREAT spirits and has had a very positive attitude the last few weeks, we hope that he can keep it up for awhile. thats about it for now, Thank you for visiting!!

Happy Dads day!

Well, everythings been going good. Jesse passed with better than expected grades!! now its summer time, and we are in for a busy one! he just got back today from a conoe trip at Blue River with the Boyscouts, he said he had a great time. he has been feeling pretty good for a few weeks, but tomorrow he is due chemo again. we planned it a week ahead of his Camp Quality trip that he goes on this coming Friday so hopefully he will be over most his pains by then. we are asking the doctors to maybe give him a lower dosage if possible too. but once he makes it through the week, he will be at the Country Lake Retreat Center in Henryville(camp quality) for a full week of hiking,fishing,etc. http://ky.campqualityusa.com/ ...
We will be back soon with his chemo updates.
Lift Jesse in your prayers this week. Thank You.

Getting Better!

We have had a good weekend so far, Jesse hasn't been doing much. (we wont let him!) but his pains are in the past, and he should be able to go a few weeks without any more issues. we are hoping for a full week of school out of him this week, giving its the last one! he is excited to get the summer started, his Camp Quality is coming up in a few weeks, it is a week long camping trip to Christian Retreat Lake in Henryville with other children with life/non-life threatening issues. then the same day he returns from there he is off again to another week camping trip with the Boy scouts. they will be staying at TunnelMill in Charlestown In. and believe it or not, the week he returns from that adventure, we will be leaving out for his "Make A Wish" vacation in Missouri.
We are starting to work on getting organized for this years "Jesse's Ride". we are planning to do a little differant ride route, due to the overwhelming amount of request. but we will still continue to start and end from American Legion in Scottsburg. we are hoping to have the same menu as last year, and we are redoing the way raffle tickets and door prizes are handled. its been a mess the last few times, and we are going to get a dry erase board and draw tickets when everyone is on the ride, that way when everyone returns, they can go by the board and check there ticket to see if they won anything. for any suggestion you can call, e-mail, or post here at the site. Thanks for visiting!

CCombs00@verizon.net
812-889-3054

Bad Week

Jesse had his chemo on 6/25 via access port. (no LP) but the vincristine and steroid done a number on him this week. after chemo, Jesse went to his grandparents for the 3 day weekend because they were camping, and we believe that was where he may of over done it. we normally keep him on the D.L. the weekend after chemo, but we chanced it because Jesse doesnt get to camp much. he hasnt been to school but just for a few hours all week, and we are hoping that we can get him back into shape before Monday. Please lift him in your prayers, Thanks for visiting!

5/21/2010 Update

Looks easy, we will give it a try!!

Anyway, Jesse has had a series of seizures this week, 4 total over a five days. we have a appointment to talk to his doctors on Monday over the phone. they want to try adjusting his meds to see if that will help with things. so for the month, he has only went to school for about 5 full days or so. this week was the worst, coming home on all of them. The bad part of all of this is he has chemo scheduled for next Friday!
Please give us feedback with this blog vs the caringbridge site.

Test Run

We are trying a new way of getting Jesse's info out with out all the hassle I get with his other site.