Busy little bee

My day started at 5 a.m. this morning. That is usually not a big deal but seeing how I didn’t get to sleep until 3 a.m…. I am surprised I am still awake right now. 2 hours of sleep is hard to get by on. Ronan had an eye check-up at 7:30 a.m. which meant we had to leave the house at 6:45 to allow enough time to get to Dr. Cassidy’s office. He is far away from us and I wanted to be a little early so we could sneak into the office without any other patients there. Mission accomplished. Ronan was not happy about getting up so early, but I talked him into it. We met with Dr. Cassidy and he did Ronan’s eye exam to see how his  eye was recovering after his surgery on his left orbit. He was afraid that it might be weaker than his right eye and he had talked about patching his right eye to give his left eye the strength it needed to catch up. After his exam he decided that he was very pleased with what he was seeing, and so far thinks that Ronan has no damage to his eye! That is great news for our little guy! One less thing to have to deal with! We left the eye appointment, headed to pick up my mom, and then went off to the clinic for our Monday exam. They did his blood work and all of his counts looked really good. His ANC counts(his immune system levels) were in the 6,000’s so we get to take a little break from his Neupogen shots. Woody was so happy about that. Giving Ronan those shots has not gotten any easier on us or him. He HATES them and we hate giving him them. Our plan is to start his stem cell harvest on Monday, assuming his counts are still climbing. We will pray that his immune system keeps going though the roof! After we left the clinic we came home and had lunch.

My friend Jen came over to help me work on a few things for the tee shirts and for Ronan’s Foundation. I am so excited about all the things that we have in store for The Ronan Thompson Foundation. This is a way for us to give back to something greater than Ronan. My hopes are to raise so much money that we can donate it to Neuroblastoma research for a cure, add a wing to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and hopefully help many family’s who are going through something like this, but may not have the support system or strength that we do. I want to give to people in times of need, a glimmer of hope and strength. When Ronan beats this ugly disease, our fundraisers will continue for the rest of our lives. I was just telling my mom tonight that I can’t wait for the day that Ronan is better, and we have organized a run in his honor. Every year, we do the Pat Tillman run here. It is a tradition of ours and I can’t wait for the day that we have the “Ronan’s Run.” His Foundation is something that I will work on for the rest of my life. It is now a full time job and I am so passionate about all of it. As I said before, this is my calling in life and it is what I was meant to do. And I do everything 110% so I know it is going to make huge difference in the world.

I talked to Charisma today for quite a while. It was so moving to hear her voice and listen to her talk about her experience with the Rally for a Cure. She had the most beautiful things to say about the kids who were there, about how it made her feel, how Ronan is going to be fine, and how she is going to work to make a difference. She said she always had it in the back of her mind to use her celebrity status for charity purposes…. but she never really had something she was super passionate about; until now. There was a reason that she didn’t just pick a charity… it is because Ronan was going to need her all along. I was going to need her all along. I think that is very telling of the kind of person she is. Any celebrity can put their  name on something… it makes them look good. Charisma is the kind of person who does good things when nobody is looking.

Having my mom here has allowed me to get caught up on a bunch of things today. I have not stopped until I sat down to write this blog tonight. Woody and I were supposed to go on a date…but we are both so tired we just decided to stay in. We have plans to go to dinner tomorrow night with some friends we haven’t seen in a very long time. I am really looking forward to that. Goodnight, sweet dreams, and blessings to you all!

I also wanted to say a special thank you to everyone who came out in my hometown to support Ronan. I wish I could give you all a big hug for believing in my child. Next year I know my little guy is going to be the one handing out the trophy to someone else! A very special thanks to Kim Walters for working so hard on everything and making Ronan the poster child for hope! I am so lucky to have been raised in such a loving community<3