Merry Christmas

Christmas was wonderful, the children had the best time. The first picture is before they went crazy. Next you see Dorothy with the afgan my mom made for her, each of the girls got one. Next you see Joshua with his Wii fit and then Rachel in the middle of it all, and we finish with the end of the day, Rachel fell asleep at the table, how cute is that! I hope your day was as wonderful.

Home For Christmas

Well we are home again. Joshua had a very tough time this round but it is over and we are resting while we watch Auther on the couch. Poor Joshua, it hit him very fast this time. He was sick right away. It was a very bad night but morning finally came. Luckily because they lowered his dose this time he recovered just as fast. He is still weak but was able to come home in time to make it to church. He only stayed for sacrament meeting but was glad to be there. It is so hard to see him suffer and humbling to then be so faithful. I am grateful for all the people who have helped to make this a great christmas for Josh and the kids. I wish I could give him what he really wants for christmas....to be cured. My heart breaks that I can't but I know that we will have fun on christmas morning. There are lots of presents under the tree and if we can get some guys from the elders quorum to come over there will be a tramoline in the yard.
For all the people who are complaining about not being able to enlarge the new kids picture, Gordon and I sent out christmas cards and included copies of the picture in them. They will be a little late but hopefully you will forgive us when you see the picture. We did not have enough copies of the picture to send them to everybody but the card itself is a cute picture of the family so hopefully everybody will be happy. Merry Christmas to you and may the choicest blessings come to your families. We appreciate all that everyone does for us and could not live without the prayers.

Just A Quick Note and Farm Update

I just wanted to let everyone know that Joshua is going into the hospital for his last inpatient chemo this year. I wish it was his last chemo ever but it makes me feel good to say the last of this year. We had his hearing test today and it was good news. No further hearing loss but that was expected because he did not have the cicplatin this last round. We will be having that this time but they are lowering the dose because the hearing loss he has already sustained is significant. So while the test is good news we still get to hold our breath for the next test in 6 weeks. I am hoping that the lowered dose will mean that he does not get so sick this time. Again, we have to wait and see.
On another note he is feeling ok right now but still can't seem to get a break. He was bitten by a donkey he was petting yesterday. He was wearing dark green thermals and a light green t-shirt and it was a very nice and friendly donkey I just think his arm looked like food and the donkey did a taste test. It hurt and he was frightened but mostly he was embarrassed afterward. The donkey left some bruising but did not break the skin so he is fine. Please do not ask him about it. I only mention it to point out that this sweet child can not seem to get a break in life. Please include him in your prayers and we are hoping he will have a merry Christmas. In the meantime we are keeping him away from livestock and other hazardous animals. Yes, that means he will not be any live nativities this year, we do not trust sheep. hahaha
May you all have a great weekend and I will post when we are home from the hospital and doing well. As always thanks for everything.

Car Metaphors

Sunday came and Josh woke up with a terrible croupy cough. He was weazing and miserable so off we went to the emergency room. Of course he is just like a tempermental car and he refused to make the noise for the doctor. They thought I was overprotective of him. I did request his bloodwork be done as I knew we would need it today and I thought it would speed things up today. They drew the blood and told me to go home, they would call if there was anything wrong. Well last night at 10:15 they called and said that his hemoglobin was low. It should be at least 10 but anything below 8 is serious. Joshua was at 7.3. They told me that we should come in first thing in the morning and they would be ready to give blood then. Unfortunately, they did not type and cross his blood type and we got there at 9:30 and they were not ready. We had an appointment for a hearing test but we missed it because they would not let us leave the unit during the infusion of blood. We were there from 9:30 to 6pm.
The good news is that even though his hemoglobin was so low, his other counts are moving up. So now that we have topped off his tank, so to speak, we are hoping he will feel a little better. He has been so tired and just not feeling well. He is still tired tonight but that may just be the long day we had today. We got him to bed and I hope he wakes up doing well tomorrow. Unfortunately, this means that we have to come back to the hospital for counts on Friday and because the hearing test was missed we are waiting to hear (no pun intended) when that will be. This is supposed to be our week off of treatment for him to relax and feel good so it is a bummer.
All in all things are ok, the doctors think he is doing great. I guess my definition of great is different than theirs. I want him to smile more and worry less. I want him to have energy and confidence. One thing I want for him he has, his testimony is stronger all the time. He seems so grounded in his faith. He doesn't worry about missing anything as much as he worries about missing church. He is always waiting for Sunday and if he can't go he is so down. I am so lucky to have a special spirit in Josh. He truly has a greater understanding and I just pray I can learn from him. Meanwhile he is ok and we will take tomorrow as it comes. Thanks for your prayers and keep them coming we need them. Lets park our cars and remember to slow down and walk through life, we don't want to miss it.

Test Results

Well the test results are in! Josh's 3 month MRI is good! He is stable and shows no new tumor. I can not tell you how much those words mean to me. We worry every time he takes these tests. We are concerned right now because he has no white blood cells. Monday his white blood cell count was .2. That is not even high enough to count his ANC (ability to fight infection) We went back today and he is at .6. Still not registering but higher. We will go back on Monday and see if it is still moving up. They expect that it will but we have to be very careful till then. He missed scouts and will miss primary on Sunday. We will let him go to sacrament with a mask.

It is so hard all these ups and downs. Right now Josh is very down, and it is getting harder and harder for him to come back up. He knows that his MRI was good but he just feels bad and tired and a little nausea so it makes him down. He is having a hard time because each cycle is getting harder and he does not see the end. Some people think we are close to the end and he should be getting excited but this when it gets rough. His body is just beat up and he is discouraged. We have an apointment with a phycologist (did I spell that wrong?) on Monday so we will work on stategies to get him through the next couple of months.

We are grateful for all your support. We hope to have more good news everyday and most of it comes from you. Please do not think we are not grateful for the good news we have. It is another 3 months we have been given and I will take all I can get. It is just hard to be happy when he is not. I keep thinking of the miracles of the Savior when he was on the earth. We are given little miracles each day and I have to look for them and makes sure he sees them too. Keep praying, we need it and I know our blessings are because of it. Thank you.

Thanksgiving with Grandma and Grandpa

We had so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa! We made a gingerbread house and went on bear hunts every night! Hope this brings you a smile today. I will post again later in the week with Joshua's MRI results. Love and prayers to all.

PS. Go to the bottom and pause the music before playing the video so you can hear it!