11 days down....

11 days into the hospital stay.....11 days closer to him coming home! When I posted last week, his counts were still high enough that they said he could go outside for a walk. I thought it would be so nice for him to get outside and feel the sun.....not so much. He has to wear a plastic gown, a thick mask over his nose and mouth and latex gloves when he leaves his room. He was so hot and sweaty in all his gear. It was a pretty hot day, so we didn't stay out there for long. Wednesday night he got pretty sick, so they were giving him nausea medicine left and right trying to make him feel better and comfortable. He was pretty out of it Thrusday to Sunday due to chemo meds and nausea meds on a contiuious basis until Saturday. Sunday was his day of rest only getting fulids to keep him hydrated. Monday they put his stem cells back into him. It was quite the set up. There was a guy from the red cross that manned the container that the stem cells were froze in and the warming tray that he unthawed the cells in, there was a nurse at the iv pole maintaing the speed they were going into Josh to avoid him having a reaction and there was a nurse taking his vitals every 15 mintutes and making sure everything was being recorded into the computer. Josh was smelling and sucking on lemons and I chewed thru a package of gum and ate a couple of strawberry ring pops because the preseratives from the stem cells have a bad taste/smell. I have been told they smell like raw fish (mainly salmon), galic and cream corn. I don't think that it smells any thing like garlic and I apparently don't know what the other two smell like because I could say 'oh ya, thats what it smells like'. I can't exactly say that it smells like anything, it is just a very different, gross smell. Luckily it didn't stay around long. After the stem cell process it had just been maintaince fluids going into him to keep him hydrated since he hasn't been drinkng much. Along with the not drinking he hasn't been eating either. The said the most calories he has ate in 7 days is 800....not good. So they put him on tpn, which is a milky looking iv bag that gives him the vitamins, nutritional suppliments and calories that his body needs to make it though the recovery porcess. It may make his blood sugar level go through the roof so they are keeping a close eye on it and he will get insulin shots if need be. His blood counts are super low, which is the idea behind this whole process, but he is now needing infusions because theya re dipping under the low mark. Yesterday he had to get a bag of platelets, they will check him again later this afternoon to see if he will need some more. So far, so good....I guess. Other than the horrible nausea and not drinking or eating, no major complications and it has gone pretty much like they told us it would. When he's awake, Josh spends his days in his room watching tv and playing on his phone or the ipad. We get out and walk at least once a day. That's about the extent of our fun, pretty boring :/ Once again, thanks so much from the bottom of our hearts to you all for the continuious thoughts and prayers, for the dinners and all the help with our kids. From such a horrile thing comes such greatness and for that we are so blessed!

Overdue Update

Sorry for the delayed update, we've had a lot going on since the last time I posted something! So, on Friday April 28th Josh finished the stem cell collection. His final collection number was 11.5, with 10-15 being the range they wanted him in to have enough for both collections. They had him get a PET scan on May 1st to see how things were going since it had been two months since treatment. Based on those results would depend on when they would admit him into LDS for treatment/stem cell transplant. They found that there was only a little growth in his tumors and nothing more to be concerned about so his admission date was set for the 7th. On May 3rd we had a final meeting with everyone under the sun who worked on the floor he's on. We meet with a social worker, nurse coordinater, doctor, physician's assistant, dietitan and pulmanologist (I feel i'm missing others). All the information and rules they were giving us was so, so, so overwhelming! I quit taking notes in the middle of our second meeting :/ May 7th rolled around and here we are 3 days into the process. On Monday he got 4 hours of fluid before they started his first chemo med. It is so super hard on the kidneys so they wanted him overly hydrated to keep them working. When the kids and I skyped him Monday night he said he was feeling surprisingly well.....until Tuesday morning. He was sick and throwing up but the piled on the nausea meds and he did really well the rest of the day. After his last med yesterday they unhooked all his tubes from his lines. Now it's up to him to keep himself hydrated until Friday when they will hooked they fluids back up. I could tell by the look on his face that he was so happy not to have to drag that stuip iv pole around with him for a couple of days! One of the things he has to do is get out of his room and walk around the halls at least 3 times a day. Once he gets going he just trucks right along. Last night we walked up and down the hallway for a good 20 minutes :) He got sick again early this morning, but felt well enough a little later to order some french toast for breakfast. Since all oh his counts are still pretty normal they said that he can go outside. He still has to wear his mask, gown and gloves (standard procedure whenever he leaves his room) but im sure it wll feel so good to feel the warm sun! So far, so good though! 3 meds down....5 to go in the next 3 days, and day of rest then they will do the stem cell transplant Sunday. ^ days later they will give him a shot that will help his white blood cells grow faster than normal. After that we just wait for him to recover enough to get to go home. He can have visitors, not tons at a time, but there are no visiting hours. It's just up to Josh and how he feels. He's always open to text messages and emails (joshjonesy@me.com) to keep in touch with the world. He may not respond right away, but will when he feels up to it. I don't want to post all his info on here, so let one of us know if you want to visit and we can make it happen :) Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the thoughts, prayers and support for our family. We are so blessed!!

Stem Cell Collection- Day Two & Three

Day Two On Wednesday we went back up to LDS bright and early for more collecting. They did the routine bloodwork, then gave him his shot. His platelet count was pretty low at 59 and his white blood count was still under the 100 mark. His collection number was 3.07, putting his total to 5.67! Half way there..... Day Three Today was another early morning at LDS for more collecting, except today Josh didn't feel so well. I could tell when he got up that his stomach was bothering him. He does this weird breathing thing when he feels like throwing up that, I guess, helps it stay down. More routine bloodwork and a shot when we got there and still low counts across the board. They gave him some nausea medicine before they hooked him up to the machine. It helped calm his stomach a bit and he was able to take a little nap. The nausea medicine must have wore off while he was sleeping because he threw up when he woke up :( We had to stick around for about 20 minutes to see how much the collection depleted his platelets. It was a really long 20 minutes...all Josh wanted to do was go home. We barley made it out of the hospital before he threw up again. When we finally made it home he got into bed and didn't move....until we had to make another trip back up to the hospital for his last shot. Today his collection number was 3.12, for a total 8.79.....SO CLOSE!! Hopefully we have a good day of collecting tomorrow so we can be done with this step and move onto the next. Thanks for all the prayers for Josh! Keep them up, they seem to be working :) Loves to you all!

Stem Cell Collection- Day One

Today was day one of the stem cell collection process. It wasn't anything like I expecting. We went in at 7:00 this morning so he could get another shot and some blood work done to check his platelets. In one day they had went up from 63 to 70, but his white blood count wasn't has high as they were hoping. The shots he has been getting since Friday were suppose to boost the growth of his white blood cells. It did, just not as much as it was suppose to. They got him all hooked up to the fancy machine and away it went pulling blood and spinning it and separating it. The nurse showed me how it all worked and what each tube and bag was for. Oh my gosh, it was so amazing! They told us that when they do the collecting that it would deplete his platelets and since they were pretty low to start with they checked them after we were done. We had to wait about 20 minutes and the told us they had only dropped to 53, anything below 15 would meant the he would need a transfusion. His collection number today was 2.6 and they are wanting the number to be somewhere in the 10-15 range when we are finished. They said given all his numbers, it was a pretty good start. If he keeps getting numbers like this we will be going in everyday until Friday. Keep your fingers crossed his numbers stay right around there....or higher.

Let the fun begin

We went back to LDS last Friday to check in with the doctors. They had Josh get blood work done to see where his platelets were at. They had went from 51 to 57 in our week wait. The eight doctors all meet before we got there and had decided that they couldn't, and shouldn't, wait any longer to get started with the stem cell transplant, since it has been 2 months since his last treatment. They know that his cancer is responsive to treatment and the point of getting the 2 treatments before this was to shrink as much  of the disease as they could. They are worried about the tumors growing in the time since his last treatment. They went ahead and started the shot that boosts his white blood cells. Today when we went in, his platelets were up to 63....they're moving in the right direction, just very slowly. Josh had his central line placed in his chest  this afternoon and we went back tonight to get a different shot that pulls his blood from his bones out into his blood stream. We go in bright an early tomorrow morning to start the collection process. He will be hooked up to the machine for 5 hours. The lab will count the cells sometime in the afternoon and then they'll let us know if they have enough or if we need to go back. We were told that it usually takes up to 3 days to collect enough cells. I worry because 1) he has a very low platelet count and 2) they have to collect enough cells for two transplants. If they don't collect enough cells by Saturday, they will freeze what they have, Josh will have to take a two week break and we will start this process over. When they collect the cells it drops the platelet count (this is why they want the number over 100) so Josh may have to have a transfusion if they drop to low.

Stay tuned, I'll let ya know when we're all done with this step and what they say the plan is moving forward. Thanks again for the bottom of our hearts for the thoughts and prayers!!!!

Quick Update

We just got back from our appointment up at LDS, so I thought I'd hurry and send out a quick update since our plans have now changed a bit.

Josh did some blood work and we meet with one of the transplant doctors, before we were going to move on to starting the shots for the collection process. When were about to leave the room and the doctor said that she wanted us to wait until she looked at his blood results before giving him the shot.....good thing she knows what she's doing!

We found out that Josh's platelets are REALLY low, so we aren't able to move forward until they figure out why they're low and how to fix it. On March 29th his count was at 99 and today they are at 51. I'm no doctor, but I've been going through this long enough to know that his counts are only suppose to go down after he has a round of chemotherapy (which its been almost two months now).....other than that they are either suppose to be on the rise or stay the same. His count at 99 was still on the low end but they were confident that they could work with it. They told us that the results from his heart test showed there was some fluid around his heart, but the EKG looked good and his pulmonary test was not all that great due to his asthma, his lungs (at one time) being filled with cancer and all the treatment he's been through, so when we do start the process, he will be working closely with a pulmonologist to make sure that there's no complication with his lungs. When they did the bone marrow test they collected an extra tube of blood that they are going to send off to test the chromosomes and do one other test. I'm really sorry, but for my life, I can not remember why they are testing the chromosomes and what the other test is that is being ran. It is really bothering me, so I am going to email our coordinator and hopefully she can tell me.

They won't move forward for several reasons, but the main two being that 1) With a number that low, they know that they won't be able to collect enough cells for both treatments 2) They don't want to collect bad cells, because if they were to put them back in him it would turn into Leukemia.

On Wednesday, all 8 of the transplant doctors will meet and make a plan of what to do with Josh next. They may treat him with another round of the ICE chemotherapy (the meds he got when he was hospitalized at IMC), thinking that maybe if they wipe out his platelets and give him the nuelasta shot (that makes his cells grow faster) they can catch his cells at a high point and start collecting then. They might have him do another PET scan (since it's been tow months since treatment) to see if things have shrunk, stayed the same or grown any. Even though the results came back normal, they may repeat his bone marrow test.....just to cover all there bases before making a plan and send us down that road.

We now go back for more blood work (to see where his platelets sit 1 week later) and to meet with the doctors to see what answers they have for us on the 20th. Until then.....we again thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the love and support!!!!

Over Due Update

Holy cow, we have had one crazy month! If it's not one thing.....it's another! But finally, an over due update on Josh.

Josh went back into the hospital for his second round of treatment on Tuesday, February 28th. I didn't send out any emails to family, so let's see how my memory is one month later.

We thought we knew what to expect for this treatment because we already had a treatment under our belts, but this one didn't go anything like that. We had a really, really bad start to our week and Josh's stomach was already so sick that his not eating started really early. The last thing I remember him eating was a sandwich from Quizno's Tuesday afternoon before we went to the hospital.

Tuesday, Feb. 28th- We went to Dr. Legant's office to get the blood work results and she could examine him before we headed to the hospital. His blood results were good.....and a bit odd. She told us that his platelet counts were higher than when he started treatment, meaning that there could be cancer in his marrow and it is now responding to treatment. I'm not sure what that means or if it effects what happens next......so I guess we'll just wait and see. We got to the hospital around noon and for some reason they were extra slow getting everything mixed that day. They didn't start giving him his meds until after 5:00 PM. At that point we knew we wouldn't be out of there Thursday night. I usually stay the night at the hospital with Josh, but was needed at home. Josh keeps telling me that he's a big boy and doesn't need a babysitter all of the time, but he humors me and let's me arrange people to be with him at the hospital when I can't be. I let him stay the night there by himself, much to my anxiety, and he did just fine :)

Wednesday. Feb. 29th- I wanted to be back up to the hospital by 7:30 AM so that I would be there when Dr. Legant came in to check on him. Josh doesn't always relay the whole message to me, so I like to hear it for myself so I know what is going on. Luckily, Josh was still laying in his bed were I left him I when I got there. He said that his doctor said everything was going good. He got all 3 meds today. They didn't start them until later in the afternoon pushing our leave time on Friday to late afternoon/early evening.

Thursday, Mar. 1st- When Dr. Legant came to check on him she said that everything was still going good. Last time on Thursday night is when Josh's heart rate started slowing down, due to one of the medicines. She hooked him up to a monitor first thing in the morning so they could keep a close eye on him. She was concerned that he still wasn't eating or drinking, so she said if he wasn't feeling better she wouldn't mind keeping him until Saturday. He told her that would make him feel worse. Since they started his chemo meds so late on Tuesday and his 24 hour medicine wouldn't be done until around 7:00 pm, she was worried about how he was going to get his neaulasta shot. He is suppose to wait 20-24 hours after his last medicine to get the shot, but if that was the case our IV therapy nurse at Jordan Valley wouldn't be there to do it. Dr. Legant went and talked to the pharmacist and they decided that it would be ok to start his last medicine earlier than usual so the we could go home Friday around 4:00.

Friday, Mar. 2nd- Dr. Legant made her usual visit this morning, she told us his heart rate never slowed down like last time and he was doing good.....well other than he hadn't ate or drank anything since Tuesday afternoon. She let home go home at noon, instead of 4:00, since he did good all night. That perked him up a bit.....not enough to eat, but he got up and showered and walked around for a couple minutes.

He said that he seemed to bounce faster this go round than last. He started asking for food and was venturing outside our bedroom by Sunday. He was eating, but not as much as he usually does. We went in for a check up on March 9th and things were about what we expected. His blood counts were very low but due tot he neaulasta shot they bounced right back up to normal. On the 2oth we went up to the Huntsman so Josh could get a PET scan. These results would determine what happens next. The next day we went back to Dr Legant for the results. I have to say I was prepared for the worst and hoping for the best. The results were somewhere in the middle. All the cancer from the scan in December is still there but has shrunk, there is no new growth and his spleen is still rather large. His doctor talked to the bone marrow doctors before we came in that morning and they both agreed that with these results we should move onto the stem cell process right away. You may want to sit down for this part.....

On the 29th we will go to LDS hospital for Josh to get blood work and a bone marrow test done. I was told to make sure that he is VERY well hydrated before he comes in, because we will be shocked at the amount of tubes they will be filling. Oh boy.....

We will then go back on April 2nd for a heart and pulmonary test. They want to make sure that his organs are healthy and functioning properly. They were nice enough to postpone the next step for a week so that we can take one last family trip to Las Vegas over Easter weekend to watch Peyton play in a basketball tournament.

Luckily I'm not overly superstitious, because on Friday the 13th, they will start the mobilization process. We will be going up to LDS Fri, Sat, Sun and Monday morning so that Josh can get a shot that will speed up the growth of his white blood cells. Also on Monday morning, they will remove his picc line and place a central line in his neck that they use to draw his blood from and will give him his treatments. On Monday night we will go back up and they will give Josh a shot that will "open the flood gates", as I was told. This shot will make the stem cells from his bone marrow go out into his blood stream.

On Tuesday the 17th we will make yet another trip up to LDS to start the collection process. We will be there from 7:30 AM- noon while Josh is hooked up to a machine that draws his blood, separates the stem cells and circulates the blood back into him. Then the lab will count the stem cells to see how many they got from that day. I was told that it could take up to 5 days of going and being hooked up to the machine to collect enough cells for the rescues. If after the 5 days they don't have enough, we will take a 2 week brake and then start the process over. When they get the right amount of stem cells, it will take the lab 1 week to 10 days to process they cells. At that time, Josh will be admitted for the treatments to begin.

He will be hospitalized for 3-4 weeks for the high dose chemo treatment followed by the stem cell rescue. After they feel that he has recovered enough, he will get to come home for 45-90 days to finish the recovery process. While he is at home he will need care 24/7 in case he breaks a fever or he has some sort of reaction we will be able to get him back to the hospital ASAP!! When they feel that he has recovered enough, he will go back into the hospital one more time for another round of high dose treatment and a final stem cell rescue. We've been told that there is a higher success rate for those who haven't been in full remission to have two treatment rounds and two stem cells rescues.

I was told that the cancer didn't respond to the treatments like they had hoped, but all the doctor's involved are saying that, other than the cancer, Josh is otherwise very healthy and they all seem to be very optimistic.

Well, that seems to be our month, and life moving forward, in a nutshell.

Again, I want to say thanks a hundred million times to my Mom and Step Dad for coming to stay with our kids and holding down the fort. Big, huge thank yous to Grandpa and Grandma Jones, Justin, Jered, Sharee, Cayden, Jason and Amanda for coming and staying with Josh at the hospital so that I could make to Peyton and Kasen's basketball games. Tons of thank yous to those of you who picked up and brought home our kids from games and practices and to those of you who just simply check in on us and keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We are truly blessed and so very grateful for each and every one of you!!

Two week update

I can't believe that two weeks have already gone by! For 3 days after treatment, Josh was pretty miserable. Ok, we were both pretty miserable! Josh really wanted something to eat but didn't know what he wanted, leaving me making and throwing food away faster than he could ask for it. On Tuesday morning, at about 5:30 am, he woke me up to tell me that he thinks he was finally over the hump. I could tell by the sound of his voice and was super happy for him.....us! Each day he got a little better and ate a little more.
On the 17th we went to see Dr. Legant to see if Josh's blood levels were good enough to start another round the following Tuesday. On the way to the appointment Josh kept telling me that he didn't fell well enough to go back just yet. Well, he was right. His blood levels were almost nonexistent. His white blood count was 0.8, (I think) meaning 800. The low end of normal is 4.0 or 4,000. His platelets were 47. The low end of normal is 150. Needless to say, the chemo medicine was doing its job.....very well. With his blood counts being so low, he defiantly wasn't ready to go for more treatment. In fact, he wasn't to be going anywhere. Because of the super low white count, she advised him to not go anywhere where there is lots of germs and big crowds. It was fine for him to be outside in the open air, but he needed to stay close to home in case he started to feel weak. He felt really good until she told him about his blood level counts. When we got in the car he told me that because she said he really shouldn't be feeling all that well that maybe he did feel so good after all. Luckily, he fought through the mind games and had a pretty good weekend. As far as staying out of big crowds, well that's another story. Peyton had a 4 game basketball tournament over the weekend that Josh was not going to miss. He did really good about sitting by himself away from the other people and leaving as soon as it was over. He said that he could miss it since he was feeling so well. Peyts was so glad he made it to all his games. I don't think he plays as hard when Josh isn't there.
We went back to Dr. Legant yesterday (the 22nd) to make sure his neaulasta shot was working to bring his white count up faster than usual. She said that he has young marrow that bounces back quickly. In 6 days, his white count was above normal at 9.1 or 9,100. He still feels a little low on energy, but looks and feels really, really well. After a quick visit to his doctor Tuesday morning, we will go back into the hospital for the second round of meds. She is going to order more nausea medicine this go round, hoping that he won't be so miserable following the treatment. After this round, we will wait two weeks before we go up to the Huntsman for another PET scan and then another week to get the results. These results will determine if he has to have another round of chemo or if we can move on to the transplant procedure.
I will update again next week to let you all know how treatment week went. Until then.....thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you for the dinners, text messages, thoughts and prayers!! We are so, so grateful to have such amazing people in our lives!!!!

One round down, one round to go

Here is the week in review through the email updates I sent to Josh's family each day he was in the hospital:

Tuesday, Feb 7th- We made it here to IMC, we've been here since about 10:00 AM. It's about 1:00 and no chemo meds yet, just getting lots of fluids right now. This first med is hard on his bladder, so they want him to keep it working as much as possible. They finally got his one chemo medicine started about 3:30 and he handled it really well. When I went home this evening, the boys got to facetime Josh from my phone to see and talk to him before Peyton left for baseball practice. I stayed home long enough so that Kylie could have a turn when she got home from dance. Thank you Apple products!

Wednesday, Feb 8th- Josh is doing really good this morning. We made a little trip around the halls this afternoon, to keep his legs working. He threw up once last night, so they gave him a stronger nausea medicine and he slept good most of the night. His doctor came in this morning to check on him. She said his blood work and vitals all look beautiful. Today he'll start treatment about 1:00. He gets all three meds today, so it may be a bit rougher than yesterday, but they are going to double up on the nausea meds.....hopefully it helps. My mom brought Kasen and Kylie up to see Josh this morning.....he loved seeing them. Peyton came back to the hospital with me after his game to watch the North Carolina/Duke game with Josh. Those two always watch that game together, so I was glad Peyton wanted to go and hangout at the hospital.

Thursday, Feb 9th- Josh did pretty dang good yesterday. He ate and drank really well and stayed up all day. He got around to showering last night and that made him feel good and relaxed. He got sick about 4:00 this morning and threw up a bit. They gave him a strong dose of nausea medicine and he's been sleeping since. His doc came in to see him this morning and she said she wants to keep him one more night. She wants to make sure he stays well hydrated.....worrying about renal failure and she said his platelets are a little low so she wants to keep and on that too. His 24 hour med will be done sometime around 4:00 PM and then he'll get his last dose for this round and that takes about an hour to go in.

Friday, Feb 10th- YAY, our last update from the hospital.....this week. Josh sleep ALL day yesterday. Between the chemo meds and all the nausea medicine, he was knocked out. When I got back from Peyton's basketball game about 7:30 he was just coming out of it. Needless to say he wasn't so tired when bedtime rolled around. He was up to getting out of bed, so we took another lap around the hallway. He didn't eat or drink anything at all today. I got him a chocolate shake when I got back last night but he didn't even eat half of it. You know Josh really isn't felling well if he won't even eat ice cream! It turned out to be an interesting night. About 8:30ish they came in to get the routine vitals and noticed that he had a slow heartbeat. The last couple of days his pulse has been in the 60-70 range and last night it was in the mid 40-low 50 range. They called his doctor and she asked that he be put on a monitor and to notify her if it dips below 45. Well, that didn't take long. She was notified and an EKG was ordered. When they were doing the test his pulse sat at 44-45. All night the monitor keep beeping when his pulse dropped to 45 or lower. Josh keep yelling "geez, stupid thing." I'm not sure if it was at the machine or his heart. It made us both a bit nervous but they didn't rush in his room when it went off and his doctor never came in so by about 3:00 am we decided we were tired to get some sleep. His doctor came in about 8:00 this morning and said that he is totally fine. His EKG was normal, just slow and his oxygen intake his good. The slow heartbeat his a reaction to the "I" medicine. She said that he handled this round beautifully.

We finally made it home about 4:00 this afternoon. We were ready to go at noon, but had to stick around longer so Josh could get his nuelasta shot at 3:00. Josh goes in on Thursday to get some blood work done. His doctor wants to make sure his blood counts are normal. If they are low he will need a transfusion right away. We then go into the doctors office Friday. If all is well she will go ahead with the second round of treatments on the 20th. If his blood levels aren't where they should be he will have to wait another week and start on the 27th.

A really, really big huge thanks to my amazing mom who has been here since Saturday helping us out with our kids. She has played mom to them all week and has been taking care of the household duties. Tons and tons of thank yous go out to Josh's Grandpa and Grandma, his brother Justin and his other brother Jason and his wife Amanda for coming to hanging out with Josh at different times so I could make it home to shower, take a little nap and see our kids for a bit and I was able to make it to both of Peyton's basketball games. More big thank yous to all of you who picked up and brought home our kids from all there activities this week. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who are checking on us daily and keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. I honestly could not have made it through this week without all of the help. We are truly blessed!!

Bone Marrow Meeting

On the 3rd, Josh and I meet with the Bone Marrow team up at LDS Hospital. It was about a 4 hour appointment where Josh filled out some paperwork, meet with the doctor's physician's assistant for an exam and then we meet with the doctor and a case worker. There was A LOT of information! The short story of the process is that after his second round of chemo we will go back up to LDS and they will do an evaluation of Josh's heart, lungs and other things to make sure he his healthy enough to undergo the transplant. Once they get those results back and if everything looks good they will start the procedure of collecting his stem cells. They hook him up to a machine that will draw his blood. When his blood is being drawn the machine will separate the good cells that they can use. They will then begin the high dose chemo treatment, which will go in over 4 days. After the treatment is complete, they will unfreeze the stem cells and put them back in him. He will be hospitalized for 3 weeks while they complete the transplant and make sure that there are no complications. When he comes home I will need to be with him all day, everyday for 3 weeks just in case he breaks a fever or has a reaction he will be able to get back to LDS immediately. He will have to wear masks that cover his nose and mouth when he is out and about and he will need to be very careful of where he goes and who he's around for the first 3 months. It will take nine months to a year before he feels like he is almost normal and will be able to go back to work. It's going to be a long road to recovery, but he's pretty healthy this time around so I think he'll do pretty well.

Treatment Plan

We meet with Dr. Legant today to finalize Josh's treatment plan. Said because he's "a healthy guy" he may only need 2 treatments instead of 3 or 4. He will be given a cocktail called I.C.E. (but I can't remember what the letters stand for). He will also take some pills to help with his kidneys, because one of these has some side effects that damage the kidneys. Also, with one of the other meds, he will get an extra medicine that will help off set the side effects that can damage his bladder. He will also be getting a ton of fluid to help keep everything working. This is what Chemo week will look like:

Monday: Blood work and Picc line care at Jordan Valley, then we'll meet with Dr. Legant later in the afternoon to get the blood results and make sure he's good for another round of chemo.

Tuesday: Check into IMC hospital and begin treatment. The first round of the 'E' medicine will be given.

Wednesday: All 3 meds (I.C. & E.) will be given. The 'I' medicine will go in over a course of 24 hours.

Thursday: The last round of 'E' will be given. If all goes well and he's feeling good, he can go home after every last drop of medicine has been put in him. If Dr. Legant isn't so sure he's well enough, he'll get to stay another night.

Friday: 24 hours after the end of his last medicine on Thursday, we'll go back to Jordan Valley and he'll get a Neulasta shot. This helps his blood cells grow faster than usual, reducing his chance of getting an infection.

Treatment week will be once every two or three weeks, depending on how well he does. Dr. Legant does rounds at IMC every morning between 7:30 and 8:00, so she will be checking in on him everyday he's there.

Tomorrow afternoon we meet with the Bone Marrow team at LDS to get more information on how that process will work, so until then.....

The cancer is still there and wants another fight

So as you can tell, I'm not so good at keeping this thing updated.....but I am hoping to use my blog to help keep everyone in the loop as to what's happening with Josh. I may not be posting all the time, but if it's newsworthy I will make myself take (and find) the time to put it on here.

Here is the back story as to where we are today:

In August of 2009, we took a trip to California for baseball and while we were there Josh got pretty sick.....and was never able to get back to 100% . That was the turning point that would forever change our lives. For the next year and a half Josh was in and out of the doctor's office trying to get help. He was originally told that all his symptoms were from his allergies and asthma. In November of 2009 they took a chest x-ray and found some spots on his lungs. They told him he had pneumonia, gave him some antibiotics and told him to take the week off of work.....which is what he did, but that really didn't make much of a difference. From then on it was an everyday struggle for Josh to get out of bed, make it through the work day and then come home and make it through the night running our kids from one end of the valley to the other. He went to the doctor almost every month with the same symptoms, that just seemed to be getting worse. They started to give him prednisone, which made a world of difference to him, so he kept going back to get more. I remember the last time he went in, in July of 2010, the doctor he saw was really hesitant to just let him go home. He was there forever! In the end, he gave Josh a prescription for prednisone and sent him home. That was the last time he went into see a doctor. At Thanksgiving, my family couldn't believe how bad he looked. He weighed almost nothing, his cheeks were all sunk in, he was really pale and totally exhausted. I then knew he needed major help!

I made him a doctor appointment at a new facility, with a new doctor and made sure that I went

with him. On December 9th, we went to see the new doctor and I told him all of Josh's symptoms. I also told him that none of the other doctors had ever done any blood tests.....and he seemed as if it that was out of the ordinary. He ordered a list full of blood tests and told us he would have the results in a week. On the 15th, the doctor's office called and said that they got his results back and wanted us to come back in. They scheduled him an appointment for that night at 7:30. We went in hoping that they had any answers as to what was going on with Josh.....and that they did. We were told that his white blood count was very abnormally high and that it was cancer. We were referred to an oncologist/hematologist to help determine exactly what type of blood cancer it was. After more blood tests, a biopsy, a bone marrow test and a PET scan, he was officially diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. From his PET scan, we found out that there was a lot of the ugly "C" word inside him......his lungs, spleen, lymph nodes from the waist up, there was fluid around his heart and there was a huge mass in his chest that was crushing his airway. Well, no wonder he looked like death was knocking at the door!

His 1st chemo treatment, out of 12, was on January 20th, 2011 and his last treatment was June 23rd. Thank goodness the treatments fell during the busiest part of basketball, during dance competitions and baseball season so that, to me, made the months fly by. We waited 3 weeks after his last treatment and then made a trip up to Huntsman for another PET scan. The results came back and things looked pretty good. There were some small things that his doctor was going to watch, but she seemed pleased with the results. Because of the things being watched he would need another scan 3 months later, but this time the results would show that the the tumors were growing and some new stuff was being seen. A little over two and a half months later we made another trip to the Huntsman for another PET scan. This scan would show that everything had gotten bigger. His doctor wanted to do another biopsy, just to make sure everything was all the same. We scheduled the biopsy for January 12 and on the 20th we went back to the doctor to get the results, which turned into something we didn't expect. His doctor told us the biopsy results showed that there was no signs of cancer in the lymph node samples they removed. We were scratching our heads a bit. She wanted to take his medical case to a cancer conference that was took place on the 24th. We made an appointment for the day after to see what new information she had for us. when she came in the exam room, she told us that she got her answer without even going to conference. On the 23rd, she had meet with the top radiologist at the Huntsman and went over his biopsy report. They focused more on the stuff going on in his chest and abdomen, than the lymph nodes in his armpit. So with that news, here we are today. We meet with his doctor tomorrow afternoon to get a finalized treatment plan. I will let you know what she says.....