Month: October 2019

It’s been about 2 weeks since we last posted and things have been going great for Brax! She’s feeling really good, getting back into some of the home bound schooling, and getting back to the gym. It’s great seeing her feeling this well. We had a couple treatments last week which she handled very well and we had this whole week off – NO TREATMENT, which is a TREAT!

As the title of the post suggests, after 9 months Brax’s medical bills are approaching $1.1M. Again, we are very blessed with awesome insurance, but I can’t imagine the families that have to worry about the cost of treatment in addition to worrying about their kids health. That is part of the reason we wanted to get TB1Fund up and going to help with some of the smaller things. And THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed. We are off to great start and have some fun things planned. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do at some point. www.TB1Fund.org Also, when there, please sign up for the updates to keep informed of upcoming events.

On Sunday the 13th we had a big group of people who came out to support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night Walk. The weather that night was not great, so Brax decided she didn’t want to risk it. Bry was in charge of carrying her white survivor light. Red for supporters, White for survivors. It was a great event and all the money raised for this event goes to help support the efforts of LLS. They are an amazing organization!

This past weekend the girls had fun just hanging out. The simple things! The things we always take for granted are much more appreciated these days.

Thursday Brax had a truly ELITE day hanging out with Coach Fleck at practice. Heather stopped by to say Hi and she got some pics with her favorite Casey O’Brien, Big Daniel, and the team. She also got a personalized game ball from Coach which is very special. He even had them put a gymnast on it….ha!

Thanks again to Coach Fleck, Heather, Casey, Daniel and all of the Gopher Football Team for an incredible afternoon. See you all Saturday!! Good Luck!

Also, a quick reminder our next TB1Fund event will be the Flippin’ 5K hosted by TCT to help support TB1F. The race/walk/relay will be November 16th and we are hoping for a great turnout. For more info or to register, click on the image below. If you can’t participate, but would still like to contribute, please consider making a donation on the TB1Fund Site.

And lastly, we’d like to ask everyone who reads this page to also keep Brax’s good friends Bella & Megan in their prayers. Bella is good family friend and neighbor who was diagnosed about a year ago with AML and has relapsed and is now being treated in Houston due the complexity of her case – please pray for her and her family as they continue their fight. We met Megan and her family on Floor 5 and became instant friends. Megan had osteosarcoma and finished treatment this summer. She is cancer free, however, she is experiencing heart failure due to the the chemo she was on. We are all hopeful they will get it corrected ASAP, but she will most likely need a heart transplant at some point, but they won’t even look at that until she is cancer free for 1-2 years. So, again, we can’t thank everyone enough for all the continued prayers and support for Brax and we kindly ask you to please add Bella & Megan to your prayer list as well. Thank you!

So, as of the last post on Sept 25th, Brax was still in the hospital waiting on count recovery. By Friday, Sept. 27th they finally came in and told us to go home. The Fellow said this was the most ridiculous hospital stay he has ever seen, but in a good way. The whole team agreed that it would be best to send us home and we weren’t complaining. They said they “checked” all the boxes and everything was trending in our favor to go home, even with the low counts. Needless to say, we packed up as fast as we could and took off!

Since leaving, Brax is feeling great and doing awesome. We are so happy to finally be through the hardest cycles of treatment and moving on to the less intense cycles. Interim Maintenance II is our next round and we actually started today. It was scheduled to start last Tuesday the 1st, but counts were still a bit low. Brax was actually very excited to NOT start last week, as she was enjoying her “chemo break” and we were busy after being away from home for 3 weeks.

Saturday the 28th, the day after being discharged, ESPN released the video of our good friend Casey O’Brien on College Game. Casey has beaten cancer 4 times and is a truly amazing person. He’s been a great inspiration not only to Brax, but to our whole family. He a big part of our team and a great person. We posted his video on our Fun Stuff page – check it out – you wont be disappointed.

On Monday, we had Chad Greenway’s Lead the Way annual fundraiser and Brax was the featured patient during the “Fund A Need” portion. The video that was shown can be seen on the Fun Stuff page. It turned out really nice and we were able to help raise a lot of money that evening for Chad’s Foundation. This is always one of the most fun events of the year.

On Thursday, we had more exciting news relating to the TB1 Fund site….the store is now OPEN! Thanks to UNRL for partnering with us on this project and for helping to support our cause. A percentage of every item sold in the store is going back to TB1F. Check it out when you have a minute www.TB1Fund.org/merch

Friday we were back at UNRL working on some upcoming things. It was a fun afternoon and Brax walked out with the new Crossover Hoodie II. The team at UNRL has been great to work with and great with Brax!

This past Saturday, the whole family was planning to do the Homecoming football game, but the weather didn’t cooperate so the girls stayed home with G’ma & G’pa B. The weather wasn’t great, but the game was. The Gophers are off to a great 5-0 start and a Top 25 ranking. Coach Fleck and the Football team have been great with Brax from very early on and Coach Fleck and Brax have a special little bond…needless to say we are big fans!

They aired a small part of the ESPN video on the big screen during the game – pics below.

As we have said many times and will continue to say until this is over and presumably much longer, thank you to everyone for their continued support and prayers. We are very blessed to be surrounded by our army of family and friends.

Also, thank you to everyone for supporting Brax and TB1F in our mission to help other kids going through the same situation as us. We have had overwhelming support already and we hope this is only the start of much bigger things.

Please continue to keep Brax in your thoughts and prayers! They are working! Thanks again!