Yesterday, it would seem, is indicative of what the next three years will be like for us. I must admit, I don’t like what I see.

The day ended well enough. The Centennial Authority (the body which runs the RBC Center in Raleigh) hosted patients and families from the UNC Children’s Hospital in their suite at a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game last night. It was funny to see all these bald-headed kids running around, eating buffalo wings (Harrison had like twenty), and enjoying themselves. My dad, Lachlan, and I went with Harrison. In the third period a visitor showed up in the suite: American Idol Scotty McCreery.

Earlier in the day Harrison received a visit from Elliot Avent, the head baseball coach at N.C. State University.  With Harrison’s love for baseball, that was a huge treat.  He talked to Harrison about faith and perseverance.  Coach Avent was a wonderful encouragement to Harrison, and to the rest of us. He brought some signed gifts from the football, baseball, basketball, soccer, and swimming teams.  I couldn’t believe the work he had done over the last several days traveling around collecting things for Harrison.  That man won our hearts.

No full-ride for baseball, though.  Yet

Before hearing from Coach Avent, I received a package in the mail from Wipf & Stock publishers.  As an author I regularly receive books, etc., from publishers, so this was not out of the ordinary.  I didn’t even look at the contents initially.  But when I did, I was shocked to find a letter from Matthew Stock.  Through the wonder of social media he had heard about Harrison and begun praying for him.  He included three music CDs for us to enjoy.  What a gift that letter was.  Just when my head was spinning from a set-back, a message of encouragement and hope arrived.  I never cease to be amazed at God’s timing.  I’m certain he smiled when he saw the tears of joy I shed upon reading it.

We needed last night for several reasons.  Harrison had really not gotten out of the house since his release from the hospital, except to go back to the hospital.  He really wanted some “normal” living.

But even more, the doctor called yesterday concerned that the treatment was not working as quickly as he would have liked.  In a nutshell, he wanted the bone marrow biopsy from Tuesday (Day 8 of the treatment) to show less than 5% of leukemia cells.  Unfortunately, though there has been some improvement, it is not enough.  All that means for right now is that Harrison has to have another biopsy Tuesday (rather than just chemo) to test again.  If the cells (known as blasts) are not at less that 5% this time, Harrison will become categorized as a “Slow Early Responder” rather than a “Rapid Early Responder.”  This will mean four hospital admissions of four days each in a few months, right in the middle of school and baseball season.  If the blasts are less than 5% of the marrow, then the next treatment will all be outpatient.  Of course, we are praying for outpatient chemotherapy rather than hospitalizations.

I wept tears of sorrow when the doctor called.  When I got the letter from Matthew Stock, again when Coach Avent was in our home, and again when Harrison so enjoyed the hockey game I cried tears of joy.  In one day I went out in sorrow but returned in joy.  Our Triune God is indeed both great and good.

If you could join us in praying earnestly that Harrison’s leukemia will respond more quickly to the treatment, we’d be eternally grateful.  More than for convenience, we want to see remission sooner rather than later.  The later the remission, the more likelihood of a relapse later.  Your thoughts, prayers, letters, emails, and facebook updates continue to encourage all of us.  Thank you for them.

You can continue to follow Harrison’s story at www.facebook.com/pray4harrison and www.caringbridge.org/visit/harrisonmckinion/

 

Yesterday we went to the cancer clinic at UNC Hospital for Harrison’s first chemo treatment since his release from the hospital.  We had to be there at 7:00 so it was an early start.  Because he was to be sedated for a spinal tap and bone marrow biopsy he couldn’t eat or drink after midnight, so he was starving on the way over.

My heart sank as we drove into the circular driveway at UNC.  I felt like I was going to lose the small amount of coffee I had that morning (no breakfast in solidarity, but I couldn’t operate without the coffee).  But I held it together.

Until I dropped off Ginger and Harrison at the front door.

As I saw his newly bald head bounding off under the “Cancer Hospital” sign, I lost it.  All of the emotion from the first day, upon hearing his diagnosis, came rushing back.  As I drove off to go park I could hardly see where I was going.  I laughed when I thought, “If I hit someone, at least we’re at the hospital.”

I pulled it back together by the time I walked across the bridge from the parking garage.  There were several other little kids in the waiting room, with parents feeling the same way I was feeling.  Suddenly it struck me that these are fellow-travelers on this hellish highway.  I felt for them.  And I looked at my little boy and felt for him as well.  He’d done nothing to deserve this.  Neither had they.

When they called us to the back I was tense, nervous, and on the verge of tears.  Harrison was strong and brave.  They took his vitals and walked us back to meet the next person who would try to make things better: Jess.  She’s what they call a recreation expert.  Apparently her job is to distract patients.  Gabby was the rec expert in the hospital.  They are both great at what they do.

Jess took the “chemo duck” and stuck a needle in his chest, just like they would do to Harrison in a few moments.  He seemed to be settled by the display.  Me, not so much.  When she stabbed the duck, Dr. Weston (who is great), said, “Aflac.”  That was a nice touch.  Even I laughed.  In God’ kind providence we drew Dr. Weston as our primary physician.

Jess asked Harrison if he knew why he was getting the chemo.  He answered, “Because I have leukemia.”  Ginger wept.  I bit my lip.  Harrison was matter-of-fact.  It was the first time he’d said it that way.  I wished at that moment he’d never been forced to utter those words.

From there he went to wait.  He played some crazy computer game for a few minutes until the nurse came to install the needle and line in his chest (called “accessing his port”).  He was scared, but brave.  We prayed together, asking God for safety and a good report.  We prayed for Dr. Weston and the other medical professionals.

All the tears shed yesterday were those of adults.

We then went back to the procedure room; like an operating room with bright lights and monitors everywhere.  The anesthesiologist connected a syringe with white liquid to his port.  Harrison blinked twice and dropped off to sleep.

We kissed his head and left to wait on him.

After 15 or 20 minutes they rolled him out, still sleeping.  No problems, the doctor told us.  We offered gratitude to the Lord.

We were in a large room with several beds and about ten comfortable looking chairs.  All too small for adults.  Every one of the them filled with a child getting treatment.  I think I knew one little boy and his parents.  We’ll  get to know a lot of them before this treatment is over.

The nurses then administered the chemo.  This time didn’t take too long.  He was asleep the entire time.  On future visits he’ll not be sedated so will need a way to pass the time.  Most kids were playing video games or iPads.

When he finally finished the treatment we went to the waiting room until he was free to go.  A mom introduced herself to us.  I’d noticed her sweet daughter in the bed next to Harrison’s.  I overhead them trying to wake up her with promises of a “Christmas party.”  Nicole, the mom, remarked that we looked, “new.”  She could see the “sense of shock” on our faces, she said.  In August of 2010 she was right where we are today.  It was remarkable how kind and caring she was.

Her daughter is Ashley.  She’s been in treatments for nearly 18 months, with several hospital stays.  Nicole and her husband encouraged us greatly.  We’ll perhaps see them every Tuesday.  We’d probably never met otherwise.  Now, we share a common bond.  We prayed for Ashley and her parents.

Dr. Weston gave us some good news before we left.  Harrison’s blood counts were very good.  We were elated.  God continues to amaze us.

As if we’d not been encouraged enough yesterday, we came home to a number of cards for Harrison from friends and teammates.  One card read, “Get well quickly, we can’t go undefeated again without you.”  Harrison smile.  Me too.
Then, out of the blue, the head baseball coach at N.C. State University called for Harrison.  Harrison couldn’t believe it.  He was so encouraged.

Our first day of chemo had a rough start.  But by the end, we are again celebrating the goodness of our God.  Harrison’s been so blessed by the cards, calls, letters, and visits.  His parents as well.

As Harrison enjoyed another night visiting with his grandparents, we recalled again that those who went out with sorrow returned with laughter and joy.  The Lord is our refuge and strength, and we’re daily amazed at the ways he is choosing to be present with us.

Continue to pray for that the treatment will induce remission.  Permanent remission.

Also pray that we’ll not miss the Gospel in all of this.  God has come near to us in Christ.  We want to enjoy his presence.  Thanks for all you have done.

After a good weekend, Harrison is feeling a bit weak this morning, and is a little nauseous. That’s to be expected, I guess. He despises the medicine he takes several times daily.

The highlight of his weekend was shaving his dad’s head. Knowing that Harrison’s hair would all fall out, he went ahead and just shaved it off. So he wouldn’t be alone in being bald, I joined him. He manned the clippers and laughed the whole time. His mom cried. Not because we were going bald, but because shaving our heads was the result of this terrible illness.

Ginger and I have one great fear: that the cancer will not go into remission.

Harrison has another fear weighing on him even more: no more sports.

If there is anything Harrison enjoys, it is playing sports. He is an exceptional quarterback in football and an even better shortstop in baseball. In fact, after watching him play one time last summer, a friend remarked, “Harrison is to his team what Derek Jeter is to the Yankees.”

I’ve played and coached baseball almost my entire life, and seen A LOT of very good kids play. But I must admit I don’t think I’ve seen a kid with as much baseball IQ as Harrison. One example will suffice.

When Harrison was seven his team was in a tight battle. They were up by two runs in the bottom of the last inning, with the other team batting. The bases were loaded with no outs. The other team’s best hitter was at the plate. Clearly, the game was about to be lost.

Harrison was playing shortstop and the hitter drove a line drive up the middle. Fortunately, Harrison had squeezed the middle because the kid had gone up the middle every other time he batted. Harrison ranged to his left and snagged the line drive. But knowing just what to do, Harrison stepped on second base and threw to first for an unassisted triple play to end the threat and win the game. Not many seven year olds would be able to make that play, much less to have the game awareness to attempt it. In fact, I wouldn’t think to!

Ironically, one of the first indications Harrison was sick was his performance in a baseball tournament earlier in the fall. He had been lethargic all weekend. He struck out three times in one game (and that would NEVER happen). Each time he just watched strike three. When I asked him what was happening, he said he just couldn’t swing the bat. He didn’t even want to go play the second day. He slept in the car driving there and back. All of that was strange.

Most striking was one play when he was on second base and attempted to steal third. He took him FOREVER to get there. In fact, two bleach-blonde moms in the stands were making fun of him for being so slow. And that is strange because he is normally one of the quickest baserunners. I was a little miffed at their making fun of my son, but I was most concerned that he was running so slow. NEVER would it have crossed my mind that he had cancer.

When the doctor told him he could not play football for three years, he was heart-broken. He loves the sport, and is taking solace in fact that he’ll be back in time to play quarterback for Coach Cook on the NRCA JV team one day.

But his biggest fear was that he couldn’t play baseball.

I hurt for him when he cried about not playing. He loves to play baseball, and I love to watch him play. He plays with intensity and enthusiasm. He encourages other players, regardless of their ability. He lifts his teammates both with his words and his actions.

He played for a team in a tournament one weekend and was stuck in right field (since he was just an add-on). When the team blew a 5-run lead and lost the game because of three errors by the shortstop, he was disappointed (he loves to win). After the game, rather than putting the kid down, he remarked on the way home, “I wouldn’t have made those errors, but it wasn’t his fault we lost the game. He should have scored more runs.” What a mature way to look at the situation.

For that kid to not play baseball would be a travesty.

I wish you could have seen the look on Harrison’s face when the doctor said, “As long as he feels up to it, he is free to play baseball this spring.” Tears came to my eyes, not because he could play, but because Harrison was so encouraged. After days of thinking he’d not get to play, his sorrow was turned to joy. I remembered Psalm 126 and rejoiced again: “the Lord has done great things for us.”

Harrison got a message from a stranger this week. He had also had leukemia when he was nine. He also loved baseball. He went on to be a successful college baseball player. He is also the father to a sweet little girl in Harrison’s class. Amazing.

Harrison returns to the hospital tomorrow for another chemo treatment. He’ll have a spinal tap to test for cancer cells in the spinal column and brain. He’ll be given three medicines. As you pray for him, would you pray for three things:

* That his blood count will be high enough that he’ll not need to be admitted or have a blood transfusion

* That the chemo will accomplish its intended purpose

* That he’ll not have nausea.

There is a facebook page at www.facebook.com/pray4harrison.

We’ll be at UNC tomorrow for the chemo. Maybe we’ll swing by the baseball stadium on the way home.

Thank you so much for your prayer and support.

One week ago tonight Ginger and I were told our son had leukemia.  We are still in shock.  The doctor said our lives would never be the same, and we believe him.  As hard as it was hearing the diagnosis, nothing was as hard as passing along that terrible news to him.  He was devastated.

In the last week our little man has been told he has cancer, has had surgery to implant a catheter in his chest, has had two blood transfusions, three chemotherapy treatments, and a dozen doses of steroids.  His emotions have been haywire.

But Harrison’s first encounter with cancer didn’t happen last Friday.

Several years ago his little cousin, Eli Aaron, was diagnosed with T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  It was the first time I’d personally been touched by childhood leukemia, although a high school classmate of mine died from the disease as an older teenager.

Harrison, and our family, has prayed regularly and often for Eli and for his parents (my cousin Maureen McKinion Aaron and her husband).  We’ve wept over his struggle with the disease.  But never did we think we’d walk the path he has trod since May 19, 2009.

Since then we’ve not only prayed for Eli, but we have donated to the St. Baldrick’s Foundation in his honor, helping Bill and John Cook raise money to fight childhood cancers.  Little did we know that perhaps this spring it will be his bald head shown on the big screen.

We were watching the Senior Bowl on television in January and were shocked to see Eli show up on TV.  The players were visiting the South Alabama Children’s Hospital and went into Eli’s room.  My kids yelled with delighted when they saw him.  Harrison was especially fond of praying for “little Eli,” as he called him.

A year ago we saw Eli.  He looked great.  He told us about his duck call: “I blow this and ducks come to me.”  Dozens of times my children have said that when we were preparing to pray for him. They love that little guy.

Last night I knelt beside my son’s bed for the first time since his cancer diagnosis.  As I prayed for him I also prayed with him for Eli’s continued recovery.  After a week of every prayer being for Harrison, Blakely, Lachlan, and Ginger, it was strangely refreshing to pray for someone else.  Maybe it was easier because Eli is family.  Maybe being in a familiar place–on my knees beside my son’s bed–meant I could fall into the habit of praying for Eli again.

But I like to think that our ability to honestly pray for the well-being of another child with cancer was a step in the healing of our own hearts.  God has indeed done great things for us, for our family, and I trust that as he heals our hearts he will give us the grace to do for other as we would have them do for us.  Ginger and I want both to know the mercy of God and to show the mercy of God.  And it is only by his grace that can happen.  We want our children to enjoy the Gospel of Jesus in this way as well.

Just a so many people have been kind to us with their gifts, so too do we want to pass that kindness on to others.  We trust that God’s work in our family will enable us to be a conduit of his work in other families.

As you pray for Harrison, you can pray specifically for three things:

1) that he not develop any infection.

2) that the steroids and chemo will produce their intended result: remission

3) that in everything we might demonstrate the goodness of our Lord, so that others might say, “the Lord has done great things for them.”

We love and appreciate you, and do not take your generosity for granted.

 

 

This morning we “woke” up (if you can call turning on the lights after a sleepless night awakening) to the doctor telling us to pack and get ready for dismissal.  It was GREAT news!  Obviously, we have a LONG road ahead, but home is better than hospital any day.

After getting home Harrison ate for the first time since Friday morning.  He had eight, yes eight, pieces of toast and a chocolate milkshake.  It is so good to see him eating again.

I recalled as we left the hospital one of the last activities Harrison and I did together before his diagnosis.

A few weeks ago Pat Teague, former NC State and NFL linebacker and one of Lachlan’s football coaches, invited Lachlan and me to the FCA Banquet to hear Dave Dravecky.  Lachlan was excited.  We’ve been many times before and he loves hearing the speakers.

Harrison and Blakely really wanted to go as well, but we only had two tickets.  I decided to ask Pat if there were any additional tickets.  He said, “Bring them on.”  I am so thankful he gave us that opportunity.

Dave’s story is quite inspirational.  Dave was a major league baseball pitcher who contracted cancer.  After surgery and treatment he returned to the mound.  During a pitch his arm broke in half.  I still remember seeing him writhing in pain on the pitcher’s mound.  Doctors subsequently amputated his arm.

Dave’s talk that night was one of the best gospel-centered sports talks I’d ever heard.  Too many athletes talk about trying to do their best, about God giving them all these good things, and about being thankful for all the good things they have.

But Dave said something that night that still rings in my ears: “Was I going to trust God even when things were not going my way, and my baseball career was over?”  I thought that night as I sat at the table, “God, if I get cancer, no problem.  Just please don’t let one of my kids get it.”  I prayed that verbatim.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought something similar.  I’ve had serious medical issues in the past (and present) stemming from a motorcycle accident in 2003.  And I have prayed that if anyone is to get sick or injured, or die, that it be me.  I guess I am selfish that way: it kills me to see my wife or kids suffer.

But that was not to be.  For some reason it is my son with the cancer.  I admit it is harder to trust with him suffering than with me suffering.  I’d take the cancer from him in a second.

I never thought that I’d be living something similar to Dave Dravecky’s story through my son.  Many parents (including me) want to live Brian Roberts’ story, or Eli Manning’s story, or Sandy Kofax’s story.  Few would pick Dave Dravecky; I wouldn’t.

But I didn’t pick that story for my son; it picked him.  After ten years of health and happiness we’re now struggling to live a life of illness and joy.  Can we do it?  I doubt it.  But we believe, and trust, that with our Triune God as our joy and strength, and the family and friends he has given to us as a source of great comfort and courage, that we can in fact endure.

Just as the “beads of courage” have already proven to be an encouragement to Harrison, so too–and even more so–have the stories of courage we’ve heard from so many people we’ve never met have been to our family.  When I read the stories to Ginger or Lachlan or Blakely or Harrison we are each reminded of God’s faithfulness.  Please don’t cease to intercede for Harrison.  Besides his healing, there is the daily struggle of living with cancer.  He stills cries, “I don’t want to have cancer.”  I don’t want him to have it either.  We pray for healing, and thank you for joining us.