Starting to relax ...

Having temporarily escaped the “cancer prison”, here we have found ourselves back in prison again... luckily, the bars are rubber and Goofy’s just around the corner.

It took a good 3 days before Ben started smiling. Now that he’s more relaxed, yet tired, he’s been joking around and laughing plenty. Ben has organized everything on our Disneyland trip. He’s planned when we go see what and which theme park is when. If we deviate even slightly from his plan, he’ll let us know. Actually, he’s planned it all

much better than we would have. Our days end around 3:30pm and then it’s off to the pool for a quick swim then back to the room for a while before we have supper. There are only 2 late nights; one for the fireworks and one for the Fantasmic show with lasers, fire breathing dragons and lots of special effects. The rest of the time we (ok, maybe

not me) are asleep by 8:30pm.

Tuesday, we’re off to Legoland. We’ve all never been there so we’re not sure what to expect but heard it’s supposed to be lots of fun, even if you’re not a Lego fan. Needless to say, Ben is a big Lego fan. I was actually tempted to buy the Lego Star Wars Death Star (over 10,000 pieces) but passed on that. Who knows what we’ll find tomorrow.

As far as health, Ben seems to be doing dne. He is receiving chemo everyday from the drugs we give to him daily. Yes, he’s tired but he’s always been a dghter and even though he trips over his own feet often (lots of scraped knees to prove it), he gets back up and goes on. By the end of each day his legs hurt but he knows when he’s had enough. He is just now starting to lose that extra weigh he gained while taking the Dexamethasone. I’m sure all the walking is helping. Don’t ask why I’m not losing mine!

We are lucky and Disney is amazing in accommodating cancer patients. We have a pass (thanks, Sheila for the letter), that allows Ben and the family, to enter rides through the exit. We even have priority over wheelchair access guests. We feel often guilty but then remember that Ben deserves this kind of special treatment. Most lineups we’ve seen have at least a 1 hour wait time. When the Disney staff see our pass, they scoot us past everyone and we get on the ride in less than 2 minutes. This is why we feel so guilty but who know when or if we’ll ever do this again? We were given VIP seating (front row, centre) for the Fantasmic show we’ll be seeing on Wednesday night. People start claiming their spot around 4:30pm for the 9pm show.

Ben reads his email daily and will be sending some emails to his classmates in the next couple of days.

Merci, Chantelle, Wilma and Kimmis