The winning ticket

Congradulations to Mr. Kipp for winning the raffle. I believe the winning ticket number was 0012 which was draw by an employee of Red Hoagland Pontiac in front of ~150 people.

Karis commented that "Mr. Kipp has always given to others through community support, friends and family. When he read the flyer about Heath he immediately bought (3) tickets and his daughter bought tickets as well. He didn't think that we would win the car, but considered the cause. He says that he has never won anything before. He is so excited that everywhere he goes he shows the flyer."

We would like to thank everyone for helping out with this fund raiser. We would like to give special thanks to:

• everyone that bought and sold tickets
• Manatee River Community Bank for there endless support
• Red Hoagland Pontiac
• Larry and Donnas Arrasmith
• Sean Murphy of Arrow Fence
• Silent partner who didn't want their name mentioned
• Melody and Ralph
• Spotlight Graphics
• The Kileva Band (see pictures below)
• Eric Von Hanmann and Todd Cook for playing music
• Checkers the Clown
• Pyrates of the Gulf Coast of Bradenton
• Beth Frappier for all of the cans she decorated
• Doug Walker and the Bullbash Rodeo
• Dr. Gina D'Amato for all of her support
• Kim Zink with the Manatee County Sheriff's Department
• First Baptist Church of Palmetto and Buck & Vera Jo's Sunday School Class

The Heath Sammons Cancer Fund Drawing is today, 9-9-06

Join us at Red Hoagland Pontiac in Bradenton for the drawing of the car. The drawing will be at 1PM.


We will have free food and entertainment:

• Heath's band will be there to play a couple of their favorite classic rock songs.
• Eric VonHahmann's band has donated their time and they will be playing country music.
• Pyrates of the Gulf Coast make a special appearance and they will be there passing out beads to kids.
• Checkers the Clown will be there making ballons for the kids.
• Free hotdogs will be supplied by Red Hoagland Pontiac.

There are still a few tickets available so call Melody at 941-518-4047 or show up early if you would like to purchase a ticket.

Back at Moffitt on 8-31-06

Heath is back in Moffitt for more chemo. They have changed his protocol again. Instead of getting the Ifosfamide by itself they are going to give him another type of chemo at the same time called Etoposide.

He will be getting 5 full days of chemo. They started him on fluids last night at about 9PM. They started him on the Etoposide around 10:30PM. They pump that through him in one hour. Immediately following that, they start him on the Ifosfamide and pump that through him in 23 hours. This process is repeated four more times. They also give him Mesna which is mixed in with the Ifosfamide. It is supposed to counter one of the side affects of the Ifosfamide which can cause damage to the bladder.

The trick as we have learned for treating this type of cancer as well as many others is to basically poison the body enough to kill the cancer but not enough to cause too much damage to the rest of the body. The fact is that it does cause some damage. Keep praying that the doctors find the perfect balance.

In my previous post I did not mention something that the doctors told us. They said not to worry too much about the protocol change. However, if some of his previous symptoms with the nerve pain in the leg or foot returned then he would be more concerned. Last Thursday night Heath told us that he started feeling numbness in his foot again. We told the doctors and they wanted him admitted on Friday for more tests. So after being out for one day, Heath had to spend two more nights at Moffitt. They did a complete MRI, with and without contrast, on his pelvic and spine region. We are still waiting for the Radiologist to give us a full report on the scans. The intermediate results did not give us too much cause for concern. Heath did tell us that the numbness has come and gone since the beginning so we don't know if it is related to the tumor growing or not.

Protocol Change

The doctors want to change Heath’s protocol. They scan his tumor after each complete cycle of chemo and then compare that scan to the past scans. Then they review it all at there weekly tumor review board meetings.

The most recent scan showed that the part of the tumor that is in the bone is stable but the part of the tumor that is in the soft tissue is changing. They said not to worry too much because this is common but that it did warrant a change in protocol.

It goes without saying that we are worried but we are fortunate that they have the technology to see the changes so they can change the protocol accordingly.

They want to put Heath on a different chemo called Ifosfamide which is geared more towards soft tissue sarcomas. He will get two rounds of the Ifosfamide with a 2 week break in between. They also want to move the Proton Beam Radiation treatment up approximately one month. That should put us in Boston in the second week in October.

Dr. Agresta at Moffitt also sent the scans to Harvard so they can review them at their weekly tumor review board meeting.

Please pray for Heath and pray that this new protocol will shrink the soft tissue part of the tumor to nothing. Also pray for the doctors so they can make the correct decisions on Heath's treatment as well as all the other patients that they are treating.

Article in the Bradenton Herald today about Heath

There is an article about Heath in the local section of today's Bradenton Herald, Sunday 8-20-06.

Donna Wright came to our house several weeks ago and interviewed Heath. She also made several phones calls and interviewed some of the doctors over the phone, one of which was Dr. Letson. The article is titled 'Network' helps with teen boy's cancer.

If you are unable to buy a copy, here is a direct link: http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/15315962.htm

I don't think the link above shows pictures. The article in the paper shows three pictures of Heath: one with Allen and Mike, one with his dad Gary and one with his mom Karis and myself. If I can find the pictures, I'll try and post them here.

Back at Moffitt on 8/20/2006

Heath is back at Moffitt for Methotrexate chemo until Wednesday. He will only have a couple days off before he has to come back next Sunday for another round of Methotrexate.

Update

Heath is back home resting now. He just got home yesterday, 8/2/06, from Moffitt. He went in on Saturday. Karis's birthday was Sunday, guess what she wished for.

This round was delayed by a week due to his throat being very sore from the previous round of Methotrexate. This round was the Adriamycin & Cisplatin chemo, which is the beginning of his 4th cycle, so he is still very tired and a little weak.

During his time off Karis and I took Heath, Karissa and some of their friends to Busch Gardens. Heath also went fishing with his dad a couple of times. I'm not sure what they caught but they had fun.

Karis is trying to make arrangements for us to fly up to Ohio to visit her family, especially her Dad. He has not been well and she hasn't been up there since last October and the kids have not been up for 2 years. She needs to time it around Heath's treatments and doctor appointments. We are concerned with exposing Heath to the germs from flying on a commercial airline so Karis did a little research and found this info about CAIRFlight. Their "goal is to eliminate distance as a barrier to accessing essential medical resources or reuniting families in critical times". I'll put the link on this blog in case anyone ever needs something like this or if anyone would like to give them a donation.

Please continue to pray for healing for Heath and for his grandpa Bill in Ohio.