Great News!!!

Just talked to Wes... he wanted to get this out! Dr. Bowers just talked to Wes... he, along with other doctors evaluated the MRI and feel that 95-98% of the cancer is gone!!! Praise the Lord! Nate will still have a year of chemo, rehab and other treatments, but this is tremendous news for the Oxfords; they are understandably ecstatic! Please continue to pray!

Prayer Request

Wes just called and requested our prayers for Nate today as he is currently going through testing. One test is an MRI to evaluate areas where cancer was seen in the past. The other test is a Lumbar puncture to determine if cancer has spread. Please be praying for positive, cancer free results for Nate, Wes & Jackie as they go through this and wait for the test results to come back.

Nate is making progress!

Wes just provided this update and wanted to send it out to everyone.

"First we wanted to thank everyone who took part in the Joe Willy's night. We know many prayers and hands came together to make that a success. I am speechless over the turnout and amount of support we have been given. Thank you doesn't seem like enough. We pray God blesses each of you in a mighty way. Nate is still making progress everyday. His trunk (core) strength is coming back and he is sitting on his own. (sometimes loses balance) All the same he can do it! He got a new wheelchair today. It is one that he can roll the wheels himself.(he is out of control :) He has also been up in a walker. The therapists are so excited because he gets stronger everyday. He has continued to recieve chemo injections here and that seems to be going well. We will go back to Children's in about a week to begin month 3 and see how he is responding to the chemo. We expect great news as he seems to be doing so well. Thank you for your contiuned prayer. We love you all!!!"

What a turnout!

Last night's Benefit for Nate at Joe Willy's had a great turnout! It was so fun to see so many people come out to help this precious family! I was amazed at the long line, I would guess that at least 300 people showed up, if anyone has an official count let me know! I hope to get pictures up soon so that you all can see the smiling faces that came out to support Nate and the Oxford's!

To Wes, Jackie, Jake, Luke, and Nate: We love you guys and are praying for you earnestly. We hope that last night will help ease some of the stresses your family is facing during this time. Nate's story has definitely touched the hearts of the DFW metroplex, and we are all waiting to see how he will continue to impact the lives of those that hear his story and see what the Lord has done for you all.

A special thanks to Wendy and her hard work to get everything organized and it ran so smoothly! You did such a great job, and it was a joy getting to work with you! Also, a big thank you to all the volunteers! What a blessing you guys were!

Nate's Having a Big Day

From Wes - Today will be a big day for Nate, this is the day that he will officially begin his dual hospital treatments. He should be transferred to Our Children's House at Baylor to begin his inpatient physical, occupational, and speech therapies by noon today. This will be an intense program that will help him take every advantage of the window of opportunity to get back to where he was. It is supposed to be one of the best rehabs in the nation. When he is not there, he will be back at Children's getting his chemo. It will be a while before Nate will be released to go home, but we would rather have him get the best opportunity to completely heal while we have it. Also, from my understanding, there is going to be a big celebration for Nate tonight at Joe Willy's in Rockwall. So many people have worked so hard on this. My family wants to personally thank all of you for the time and effort so many of you have put into this. Wendy has done an awesome job organizing it, Lana Moore has gotten the tshirts together for it, Annette McKinney and Scott Brazell and Rich Lewis have been getting the word out, the owner of Joe Willy's has opened his doors to it, and many others have worked very hard on it. All we truly want is for Nate to be completely healed by God, we never intended all of this attention, and yet so many people have been there praying, giving, and working hard for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you. What more can I say. I personally am humbled by your graciousness. Please join with me in thanking all of the people who volunteered their time, effort, and money into making this what it is tonight. We truly are a family who has been embraced and loved by a community and across the world. We will never forget this and will always have a debt to society that we will work toward to help make it a better place also. Thanks again. I will send more updates when we get over to OCH Baylor. God Bless.

Cute Nate in the News - Video Link

Good Mornining! Here is a link to the story that aired on the news last night for those of you that may have missed it or are not in the DFW area. It was a touching story, and Nate was too cute playing his instruments!

Don't forget about the Benefit tonight. As a reminder, if there is a crowd (and I hope there is) and you can't wait through it, you can purchase gift certificates and they will benefit the family just as much as if you were to eat there tonight. I know that I had been getting emails about people that were sad they couldn't be there, so if you can't stay and eat but want to participate, this may be a way to do that!

REMEMBER, eat at Joe Willy's tonight!

http://www.the33tv.com/pages/content_landing_page/?Music-Therapy-a-Big-Hit-With-Kids=1&blockID=215158&feedID=460

Oxford Benefit is Tonorrow Night

We wanted remind everyone about the Benefit for Nate tomorrow night (Tuesday the 17th) at Joe Willy's in Rockwall. We also wanted to let everyone know that "Rain Check" gift certificates will be available to purchase at the event. If you are unable to stay and eat, please consider buying a gift certificate. A percentage of that sale will still go to the Oxfords. There will also be a donation box for those that would like to make an anonymous donation.

We hope to see everyone there!

Nate's on the News TONIGHT!

For those of you in the DFW area, Nate and his precious story are going to be on the local Channel 33 news tonight (2/16) at 9pm. Be sure and check him out if you can!

Happy Birthday Nate!

From Wes - Happy Birthday Nate, today Nate turns three and is having a party in a room we reserved here at Children's on the 10th floor today at 4pm. Jackie did not know how Nate would handle tons of people so it is mainly some relatives and a few others at the party. As much as we want Nate to see everyone, he has to stay healthy so that ultimately he can come home with all of this conquered and we can have a huge party with everyone of you. Yesterday Nate had the biggest time going down the hall in a wheelchair handing out Valentines to all the nurses and other chemo patients. His little personable personality is definitely back. He is such a flirt and a ham. Thanks again to all of you, a family and a little boy could not be more loved.

In honor of sweet Nate's birthday we got the blog redone. Check out the cute new design and check out Pink Armchair Designs. Praise the Lord for Nate's progress!

Nate is in the News Again!!!

Here is a link to another story in the Dallas Morning News Neighbor Section today 02/13/2009 about Nate. Jackie, Jake , and Rockwall ISD.


http://neighborsgo.com/stories/29646

Nate's talking

Nate said about 20 different words with the speech therapist today, the names of his family members, animals, objects in the room, etc. This is so awesome, and we praise God for it. He has been very nauseous over the last 18 hours due to the chemo. He is now eating some by mouth and the rest by tube (which is now in his stomach and not the intestines) so he is experiencing more nausea now. It is the trade off of actually eating, but progress and getting back to where he was is important. He will not be getting any more chemo between now and Sunday (his birthday), so he will be fine that day to eat something at his party and be able to hold it down. I look forward to seeing many of you this coming Tuesday at Joe Willy’s…many have asked if one of us will be there and the answer is “yes” one of us will be there with the other two boys to see all of the wonderful people who have been so supportive of Nate and the rest of our family. Thanks again.

Spongebob it is!

Nate continues to make improvements every day. Yesterday he started sitting up on his own off and on throughout the day. In fact last night, he dragged himself over to the rail on the bed and pushed himself up and sat there without support. They are also talking about later today or in the morning switching his feeding tube from a continous feed to what is called a bolis feed, which means he will get a lot of fude through the tube at breakfast, lunch, and dinner to cause hunger in between to want to eat food by mouth and get used to eating on a schedule by mouth again. This is part of the weaning process off of the feeding tube. On Monday we are off to Our Children's House at Baylor for inpatient rehab. He has finished several chemo drugs in the last few days and has done great. He has one more today at 5pm and then none again until next Wednesday which we can hop a hospital bus and come back over here to do and go right back. Certain chemos we will stay here to do and others are hop a bus come do it here and go back--all depending on what they are and how long it takes. He is doing great and will be able to have some ice cream cake and juice by soon for his birthday party this Sunday--he will be three and he is so proud. We are going to have a shindig, Spongebob is the theme, that is what he told us he wanted, so Spongebob it is. God bless you all, HE is watching over us all each day.

Praise God!

Just received this from Wes: Praise God! Nate just went for a swallow study and just proved that he can swallow thicker liquids and solid food. They are reevaluating his nutrition plan now and deciding how to start working in thicker liquids (milkshake, etc) and some softer solid foods (breakfast bars, pudding, etc) into his diet. What this shows is that Nate can protect his airway while swallowing. This is something he could not do for a long time. He will still have the tube through his nose into his intestines, but now we will be in the weaning stage. In other words, another big step forward. Someone from Baylor Medical Center came yesterday and spoke with Jackie about the details of Our Children's House at Baylor and the inpatient rehab he will be receiving. It will be pretty intense rehab, which is good with us. We want him to have every available shot at getting back to where he was while the window is open. He will do chemo here at Children's and all his therapies over there. As we find out more about the rules over there as far as visitation, we will let you know. We know that God has been with Nate the whole time and appreciate all of your prayers. We have gotten several emails, phone calls, letters, and cards from complete strangers due to the news articles. I really believe that Nate has touched so many people and caused thousands to reflect upon there own families and spiritual situations and allowed them to become closer to God. We read and hear stories everyday about how this is happening. God is good, and we need to keep praising HIS name. Thanks again.

Nate is in the news!

Sweet Nate and his family were featured in the Metro section of the Saturday news. Here is a link to the article. Wes, Nate's dad, wanted to provide everyone with the following update:
"Thanks everyone for the comments about the article and the video both done by The Dallas Morning News. I think it would be great if you could to go to the link for the story again and make a positive comment at the top using the Comments link above the words Rockwall boy in the header or by scrolling down to the end of the story to the comments section. You might have to do a quick less than a minute registration. I really believe they were very positive and edited the story in a way that left the faith in God aspect in it for the world to see. With all of the negative things that are said or done by the media nowadays, it is nice to see how well this was handled by them and I think they deserve to hear it. Let us encourage them when they do good with our comments. Wouldn't it be great to flood them with great comments, this would only reflect the goodness of God to the world and especially those reporting the news and the doctors and others at Children's. Here is the link again, thanks for doing this. God bless."
Just in case the links aren't working, here is the actual link address.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/020709dnmetsicktoddler.39496b7.html

Update

As of about 11:00 last night, Nate completed his second round of Methatrexate. He is now in the 3 day period to flush it out of his system. It was about this time last month that many of the complications came up and Nate was moved to ICU. Dr's and Nurses are paying very close attention to him and so far his levels look good. Please continue to pray as Nate goes through this round of Chemo. Please also pray for Nate as he begins therapy at "Our Children's house" hopefully on the 16th. Also, we were told that the Dallas Morning News will have an article about Nate and the Oxfords, tomorrow 2/7, in the Metro section. There is also a video and some pictures of Nate and the family at the Dallas Morning News website - www.dallasnews.com. Let us all continue our prayers knowing that God is faithful.

More Improvements! Praise the Lord!

Wes just provided this most recent update.

"Nate had a great day yesterday. He went down to the gym at Children's for the first time. There he was put onto a swing that extended from the ceiling where he had to lay flat on his stomach. On the swing (a falt square hanging from ropes) he had to use his arms to walk the swing forward far enough to knock over foam towers. This worked great to strenghthen his neck and upper body muscles. He also was strapped into a device called a LiteGate that is put around the waist and buckled into straps extending from bars above your ahead. This piece of equipment allows you to go through the motions of walking again without having to worry about your body weight. It looks loke a big bouncy seat that you stand up in. He did very well with both of them. He worked out for about two hours straight in addition to going to the playroom again and putting together more crafts and playing with the toys. He is getting stronger every day and is very eager to get back to where he was. He also said mama again and is being very cooperative with speech therapy and everything they have him doing. It looks like we will stay at Children's at least another week, because they are going ahead and pressing forward ahead of time with more chemo since he is doing good and does not need recovery time. In fact, today he is starting the chemo cycle over again. The first drug he took was Methatrexate. He will get that this evening. It runs for 24 hours through an IV. Then there are three days of flush. As you will remember, the flush is what sent us to ICU last time. Please pray for his body to flush the drug out like it is suppose to this time and for his levels to stay where they need to be (last time his sodium dropped to coma level). he has made so much progress and we do not want to see any setbacks. Thanks again for everything you all are doing. We appreciate you all."