Category: Thankfulness

Round 2, Day 1

Jon took Geli into BC Children’s this morning.

They left before I had even crawled outta bed. They had an 8am appointment and so they left here at 6:40am. I was awake when they came in to kiss me good bye, but was still a little groggy. I had both Judah and Josiah in bed with me at that point. Our morning sleep in was cut short when Siah rolled over and slammed his head into the corner of Jon’s bedside table…..what a morning wake up call. Man!

I do know that Geli was the first appointment, and that she had the Lumbar Puncture, and then received her two chemo meds, had a big long visit with a physiotherapist, who seemed determined to figure out what’s up with her leg (it’s still bothering her 3 weeks later) and that they left to come home around 4pm. Aside from that, I don’t know much as I wasn’t there. Jon says that everything went well and that Geli felt pretty positive all day. She ate when she got home and then headed immediately up to bed.

We do have to wake her to give her another chemo med, her antibiotics and some gravol, but she should go right back to sleep again – at least I hope.

We have been told that this week should be a fairly good week for her, it’s next week that they are concerned about. Her counts could go quite low again….low as in decimated and we’d be once again on high alert for any possibility of infection, fever or any other indicator that something might be wrong.

We are praying with desperation that she stays as healthy as possible and that any brutal side effects would just avoid us……

Then, we have 2 weeks where we wait, hope and pray for her counts to come up again, and then we start the 4 week cycle all over again. 2 weeks on meds and 2 weeks off….Absolute best case scenario…this whole cycle is done in 8 weeks…..or it could take longer….which would obviously NOT be the best case…..

Today at home was….interesting.

Xani had a meltdown. Jeremy wanted to play on the computer ALL DAY and sulked and pouted when I kicked him off, Siah wanted to be anywhere and everywhere and to get into everything, and the baby cried when i put him down.

My biggest accomplishment today was that the kids were mostly sort of fed, and I didn’t “lose it” and end up a crying, bawling mess.

From that stand point, I consider today fairly successfull…..from any other standpoint, today was a colosssal failure.

Knowing how much I’m typically capable of and able to do…..makes my glaring lack of accomplishment today so much greater.

I don’t know how anyone does this.

I don’t know how we are going to get through the next month….let alone the next year of treatment….and yet we must!

Have you ever felt like you needed to take a big deep breath and you just couldn’t? The only thing you could do was to keep sucking in these little tiny sips of air….and you wonder just how much time each tiny breath is going to buy you?

This is a long, tough road and I know we will get through it. I’m just not sure how and the unknowns weigh heavy on me. The future weighs heavy on me. I’m feeling pretty weighed down right now.

I’ll be okay.

I do want to say thank you to everyone who has given a meal(s) or a gift card(s) or a card or sent an e-mail or even a comment…..

I keep trying to compile a list of people to send thank you’s too and I feel like my brain is a HUGE sieve. We are so grateful for everything. Every bit of love, care and support is truly felt….Everytime we eat a meal given, or buy some groceries or feel the love sent through some caring, thoughtful words – we are so touched and blessed. You have been such a blessing to us.

I, never in my wildest dreams, ever fathomed that we’d be on this journey. I never ever knew what other family’s who are dealing with cancer went/go through. This is a whole world of pain and hurt and physical, mental and emotional energy spent, that I could never have fathomed before now.

Thank you for everything. We are truly thankful!

Hospital Time

We’ve learned through several encounters with the medical system that projected dates and times are not to be taken all that seriously. It’s not that there is anything wrong with the medical system, it’s just that each person’s reaction to medication, treatment, environment, etc is all different. Add to that the unpredictable nature of how many emergency cases come in during a day that supersede something that you were expecting and we have what we know as “Hospital time”. (for instance, being taken off of your IV line at 2:00pm, might mean 1:30 or 5:00pm and you just have to work around that.)

We understand all the things that go into making the reality the way that it is, but on the 16th of June, we started a journey that has turned our family upside down, and then on the 24th of June, we added to that family a new precious little boy. Both of these events in and of themselves requires a certain amount of readjusting, but put them together and then throw in “Hospital Time”… “Expect to be here 7 days… Make that 10 days”… “we’ll keep you one more night to observe”… “you got a fever, you’re going to have to stay 3 more days so we can check it”… “Its an infection and you will have to be here for a total of 10 to 14 days”… “we have to keep you the full 14 days and your counting is 1 day ahead”… and that brings us to today. (Oh and throw in a 15th wedding anniversary, xandra’s birthday, and fathers day that never really got celebrated)

In 24 days we have not been together through things that we would normally really lean on each other for. Patti and I are a great team and we have learned to be the right kind of support to each other, and we have been forced to do this separated for the whole ordeal so far. If they had told us at the beginning that we might be here for a month, that would have been hard to hear, but we would have been able to plan around that. This process has really been taxing on us.

PLEASE PRAY:
Gelica finishes her 14 days of antibiotics tomorrow am, and if everything else was ok, should could come home. BUT… It seems that she has developed an fissure in her colon (an expected complication of intense chemotherapy), and it could get infected. Also her white blood cell count is microscopically low.

Please pray that the small fissure will be completely healed and that her white blood cell count will rise. If they don’t then we wait day-to-day until she can come.

Pray that Patti and I and our family would be all brought together right now. We really really really miss being together and it is very emotionally challenging.

Thanks for being such a wonderful community and for all of your support, meals, kind comments… thanks to the ladies that came and disinfected almost every surface of our house. Most of all, we know that we are not alone.

Jon

Updates…..

So we talked with Angelica’s Dr yesterday afternoon and he shared with us the reports from Geli’s bone marrow biopsy on Friday.

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Apparently, her bone marrow initially was up closer to 97% leukemia cells and has now dropped to 17%. There are some cases where they see the leukemia cells gone within two weeks, but Geli hasn’t responded quite as quickly as that. They are hoping that by day 28 that there will be no more leukemia cells…..

This is our next big prayer request….that Geli’s body would be completely rid of the leukemia cells when they do the next bone marrow biopsy on Friday July 16th.

Because they know that there were still 17% of the cells still there…..they are not going to do a biopsy this Friday but will wait until the last treatment day of this 28 day Induction period.

We have also found out what’s happening regarding the infection that managed to foil our plans for a swift get away from the hospital….

There is no more infection that they can find in Geli’s body BUT……..because they have started a 14 day regimen of antibiotics…they must finish the treatment. So, at this point we are scheduled to leave this upcoming Sunday afternoon……

We are in the countdown….YEEEEEHHHHAAAAWWW!

Angelica is doing well, and aside from the antibiotics – there is no reason for her to stay here. This is GREAT news, but at the same time sucks because we are stuck here until Sunday, and home just sounds so so SO nice.

Its wonderful to see that as the leukemia cells are being killed off, that her body is trying desperately hard to build itself back up. Her blood counts are all still quite low, but her body is trying so hard to rebuild and restore. We are designed and created so amazingly.

Another thing to be praying for…..that Geli doesn’t pick any other bug up from the hospital and that we stay on track to be able to come home on Sunday.

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Big Thanks for the package from New Zealand

Thanks again for all your support, love and prayers.

We are in awe of you all!

It’s my Party and I’ll Cry if I want to

I’m sitting in my room over in BC Women’s Hospital on the labour & delivery ward.

Judah and me are hanging out over here, while Geli and Jon are down the hall at Children’s, in the Oncology Ward.

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We’ve been over with Geli for a good bit of today and then resting while she was gone for her Bone Marrow biopsy and Spinal Fluid Tap and right now we’re just hanging low over here for a moment.

Today has been an “icky” day for Gelica and a “crying” day for me.

Between the excitement of the past few days, chemo treatment, tests, and wacked out sugar levels, Angelica had a barfy, yucky, nasty day……..she’s had no fever though and right now, her blood levels are within normal range – so for that we are so SO thankful.

I’m hitting the end of Judah’s second day of life and facing the lovely hormonal changes that brings. Add on top of that – very little sleep, a leukemia diagnosis, a week of stress and the looming unknown and you have a sure fire recipe for tears.

I’ve cried off and on today and feel some of the built up pressure has released, but I still feel like I could use a really good cry. Just to release all the pressure that’s built up since my last good cry about a week ago.

I hate this. This is nothing that I ever imagined for my daughter, for our immediate family, for our extended family…….it was unfathomable, until now………

I hurt for her. I hurt for Jon. I hurt for my other kids. I hurt!

I look back at some of the little life lessons that I learned over the last year and see how I can use those lessons in my life now.

Probably the biggest one with the HUGEST impact on me………..I learned through this past year in my exercise class!

Stay in the present!

You can handle just about anything that’s in front of you right now. It’s when you race beyond into the future that you can be overwhelmed. I can handle today. Tomorrow I will have the strength that I need to get through that day. If I try to imagine or figure out or plan for the next week or so, or month or 6 months from now…..its too much! The unknown is too great and overwhelming.

So today, I cry and I process and I hope and I cry some more.

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In the middle of my tears, I am aware of some blessings. I am off my feet, even if they have swollen up to elephant size again. I have some amazing quiet, one on one time with my newborn. I’m still with my “baby” even if I’m sleeping down the hall from her. We are being cared for and supported in so many amazing ways by so many amazing people. In the middle of all this chaos, I am blessed and I know it. That doesn’t mean I’m grateful that we’re walking this road, just that I can see some pretty rocks on the path in spite of the dark clouds and rain.

I’ll get through today and when tomorrow comes, I know I’ll be able to get through it as well.

Looking Forward

Angelica was allowed to go to her Grade 7 Farewell/Graduation Party yesterday.

Even in light of Judah’s birth, she was still quite excited about her party that night.

hairOur story seems to go before us everywhere we go and the labor and delivery ward at Women’s Hospital doesn’t seem to be any different. There was a woman who heard about us and she offered to do Angelica’s hair. We were so touched and blessed by her thoughtfulness. Yen had just delivered a baby the day before and yet still came into my room and did a fabulous job of Angelica’s hair.

It was pretty and yet funky and not over the top. Angelica looked so beautiful.

To say Thank You to this woman seems so insignificant and yet we truly are so SO overwhelmed with gratitude and we’re not sure how to adequately express our thankfulness. Just know that we are touched and blessed beyond words. Thank you!

Angelica looked beautiful and although I didn’t go with them….Geli and her dad headed out and made it to the school around 7pm. She got to see her friends. She got her certificate and she got to dance with her friends a little. It was a great night and one that will be a fabulous memory for Gelica. We are thankful to everyone who made this night possible….from dress making, to shoe shopping, to care of the siblings, to school staff, to ones who made dinner, to the Dr’s and nurses and hospital staff……. We are thankful that every detail was taken care of and that everything ran smoothly and that it all worked out for Geli to go.

geliI have more pictures that I’d like to post, but this post is more a request for prayer than it is an update…..

Angelica is taking a few medications and one of the side effects of two of them is that it can affect her blood sugars…..Unfortunately on Wednesday night, her blood sugar levels spiked and they didn’t come down as fast as we’d like. We are now waiting for her sugar levels to level out. If you could pray that everything would work the way it should and that we’d be able to go home tomorrow, we’d really appreciate that.

There was talk of Geli going home today, but it’s not going to happen and obviously, if she’s not in a good position to go home, then we want her to stay where it’s best for her but optimally, we’d love for her to be in a good place health wise to be able to come home.

We are making steps towards a home coming tomorrow, but something else that could throw a monkey wrench into that plan would be if Geli spiked a fever between now and then…..so we are looking for

1) Blood Sugar Stabilization
2) No infections, fevers, or any other illness

Also, please pray that she’ll continue to respond amazingly to the treatment plan that they have her on and that the chemo that she’s receiving today would do it’s job of killing the cancer cells and that the side effects would not bother her.

I feel like I have TON of things to update or post about and yet…..I’m tired.

My HUGE boy wants to eat and eat and eat and eat and I got almost no sleep last night. I’m exhausted! On top of a week of very little sleep….lets just say that “exhausted” is putting it mildly.

We will make it through this season. I am confident of this and yet that doesn’t make any of this easier, does it?

It all seems so surreal and yet entirely WAY TOO REAL!

I don’t even know where to go from here and so I’m stopping for now. I’ll try to post again a bit later.

A Few Steps Behind

So, I am sick, AGAIN!

And I’m so frustrated about it already.

First we had that stupid flu for a week…..then I felt better for almost a week and then managed to pick up some stupid cough/congestion thingy. It sucks! Actually to say it sucks is putting it mildly.

And now Geli has the flu…..she’s been out since Saturday….it’s awesome. She’s normally a bit of a grouchy person and right now she is 100 times grouchier than normal….which makes for some AWESOME, AMAZING times at our house.

With me feeling like my head is full of 1,000 pounds of glue and that the glue is slowly oozing down into my lungs and suffocating me and no amount of coughing is helping to clear it away not feeling well, I’m not as “on top of it” as I normally am.

The house is a bit messier and I still have not come up with a meal plan for the week. We had a pork roast last night and I do have a lasagna in the freezer (Crap! I gotta go and pull that sucker out to defrost……be right back…………DONE!) and if we continue along with our “normal Wednesday meal of Soup, then I guess I have up to tomorrow planned. Although before right this moment, all I knew that I was thinking about doing the lasagna tonight as it required no effort on my part….

I still have to come up with something for the rest of the week, AND we desperately need to go shopping, but that’s the LAST THING that I feel like doing……..maybe Jon’ll go when he comes home from work tonight? We need stuff for the kids to take for lunches…..GLURG!

I hate feeling like this.

I hate seeing my house untidy.

I hate feeling like I’m behind on things.

I hate feeling just slightly out of control.

I hate feeling so stinking tired (and like an elephant is sitting on my head.)

I can’t wait to start to feel normal again.

Alright, so now that I’ve complained so much – I’m reminded of the whole “attitude of gratitude” thing and I’m determined to find something to be thankful for…….gimmee a minute…..

……..or two………

……..or three………

……..or four………….

Alrighty….well, that took longer than I’d have liked, and I really struggled to find something to be thankful for in the middle of these circumstances, but right now….

I’m thankful to be sitting here in my beautiful house (albeit a tiny bit messy) with the GLORIOUS SUN FLOODING IN MY BIG WINDOWS. The atmosphere in my house feels so alive and yet peaceful at the same time. I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to enjoy the sun shining into my house and on me today.

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I could be working. It could be raining. It could be a lot worse than it is right now….but for now……I’m thankful.

Alright, I’m off to figure out the rest of the week’s food and to consider what else I am thankful for.

What are you thankful for today?