Birthday, chemo, and a dog

Ray was in the hospital on his birthday a few weeks ago. Bummer I know....But the nurses started the day off right by coming into his room with these silly hats to sing Happy Birthday. These nurses are seriously amazing people.

Here is Ray with his hat and the surprise birthday brownie that the cafeteria sent up to him for breakfast.


Our nurse went to a lot of trouble to make sure the conference room got unlocked so that Ray could sit out there with his cousins and open presents and eat his "How to Train Your Dragon" cake. He got a lot of legos, bionicles, and the creepy remote control helicopter! (This picture is hilarious to me because everyone is either not smiling or has a silly look on their face, and then I'm like Vanna White in the back trying to sell you that chair. We are an odd bunch:)
The next week Ray was back in the hospital for 7 days of chemo! His friend and fellow cancer patient Spencer came to visit, bringing silly alien hats from the play room. Other than pink eye (one night his eyes were swollen shut) he suffered no major side effects to the chemo this week. Yay.

With the birthday over and chemo overwith Ray has had a great week home. But the real surprise came today in the form of a dog!!

This morning while Ray and I were back in the hospital for a blood transfusion, our new friend Katie was out shopping for a dog for Ray. She has friends in our neighborhood and met Ray and knew he really really REALLY wanted a dog. So she and her kids went out today, bought a dog and a whole basket of food and toys and brought it over tonight! Katie's daughter-in-law in the white shirt had Lymphoma when she was a teenager so the whole situation was very close to their hearts....and ours too. Lots of parent tears shed over this dog, lots of little boy smiles.

The dog is a beautiful cocker spaniel with a freckled face and has the sweetest disposition. Ray named her Emily which I think is totally cute. Katie made sure Emily was house broken and was mild mannered. Sure enough she didn't jump or bite or even bark all night!!

I wish I'd had a camera to capture the look on Ray's face when he saw Emily. He is in literal puppy love! He could hardly eat tonight because he had to be down following and petting her. Those of you who know me know that I am sighing a huge I-already-have-enough-on-my-plate-and-I-don't-even-really-like-dogs sigh right now. But oh well....one more mess maker to clean up after is worth the happiness of this sweet little boy gettin' his dog!