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.....

Let's try this again :)

I'm back!! This year I am going to try really really hard to keep my blog up to date. It may only be once a month but I have been reading back on older posts and love it so I figure I best be getting to things. Before I start on January I need to finish the last 5 months of 2009.

In August we went to Disneyland after the baseball tournament in Fowler. The night we got there we hung out at downtown Disney walking around visiting the shops and we ate at the ESPN Zone. We only spent one day there cause Josh had to get back home to work. And because I know it will be a very long time we plan a vacation just to go to Disneyland, we piled everything in and spent about 14 hours there. Luckily some great friends from baseball had planned on being there also so we hung out with them. They go at least once a year so they know it all and were very very kind to be our great tour guides. It was tons of fun. The day after we got home, Peyton started football practice. This subject will have its own special post.

In September, Kasen played his first year of flag football and had a blast. It was so much fun watching him. It's so crazy to think that next year he will be playing real tackle football. I hope he gets his growth spurt by then :)

Kylie had her first performance mid October at the Scarecrow festival at Thanksgiving Point. She did a dance that she learned during a dance camp in July. It was so cute and fun. I am really excited for her competition season that is coming up in March.
For Halloween I was really lazy!! Peyton wore his football stuff and was a Bingham football player, Kasen wore his Chipper Jones jersey and his baseball stuff going as a baseball player and Kylie was a ballerina. I made her a sparkly bright pink tutu and she wore her other dance stuff that she has. So easy this year, i loved it!!

We usually switch families every other year for Thanksgiving, but since josh had to work late the day before and early the day after we weren't able to go to St. George with my family. Luckily we got to spend it with all of Josh's brothers and their families. It was such a fun filled weekend. we spent thanksgiving day with Josh's dad, grandpa and grandma. we ate and ate and ate the boys had a PS3 football tourney and then we ate some more. on Friday Janeil, ShaRee and I braved Black Friday. At one stop a news crew was there and the lady was nice enough to come over and interview ShaRee on live TV. And we all know what people look like on that morning when they roll outta bed at 4 am. It was so funny.....well I thought anyway :) We had dinner #2 that night with Josh's mom and it was as good as the day before. Then we had to break out rock band to work off both dinners. Saturday was the ever anticipated BYU-Utah game. We went to Justin and Janeil's to watch the big game and of course ate so more food. It turned out to be a great day since BYU won. Like I said it was a fun filled eat fest weekend!!

Basketball started the beginning of December for both boys. Peyton plays on a super league team with his games on Wednesday night and Saturday mornings. This was Kasens first year of basketball and played in the Jr jazz league. He had tons of fun and was pretty funny to watch. If any of you have watched a Jr jazz game you know that there is traveling double dribbling and fouls well not for Kasen. He wouldn't travel double dribble or foul. It was so frustrating for Josh and Peyton that he wouldn't just take the ball from some kid and run down the court and make a shot. Whenever they would yell at him or tell him to do that he would get so mad and say "I can't that's not how you play basketball." I think he was a bit confused because they are always trying to teach him the right way to do things in each sport and then they are yelling at him to break all the rules. I was a bit surprised and had to laugh cause Kasen is my one that doesn't follow rules very well. I loved it.
We always stay home for Christmas. we tried leaving home one year and it was so crazy with all the presents we had to take back and forth. when they all get over the Santa phase we will definitely travel and not buy present. I can't wait!! We squeeze both of Josh's parents into one long day on Christmas. we had lunch and presents with his mom and dinner and more presents with his dad grandpa and grandma. between Santa, grandpas, grandmas and cousins our kids are definitely spoiled at Christmas.

Well, that is my life in a nutshell for the last half of 2009. It was such a busy crazy fun year. I loved every single minute. I can't even imagine what I would do with all my time if I didn't have my kids keeping me extra busy. I can't wait to see what they accomplish in 2010!

Back to school

I can't believe that my kids are already back in school. I guess when you only have a three week summer vacation that is spent playing baseball every night it makes the time fly by. Peyton is in third grade this year. Since it's a new school for him I was a little sad that he was leaving his old friends behind that he know for the last 3 years, but then I found out that a friend from first grade is in his class. I think I was more excited than he was. This year Peyton get to learn how to write cursive. They can't start until everyone in the class can write the single letters right so he practices everyday. He can't wait to get started. Peyton has a really fun teacher this year that he likes. I can't wait to see all that he gets from 3rd grade. He is such a great student and there isn't a subject that he doesn't like.
Bare with me on this one. Kasen is in first grade this year :( This was quite the adjustment for me having him gone ALL DAY. I have never not had 2 of them at home with me for A LOT of years and now all the sudden the time has come when I'm down to only 1. Kasen loves school......once he gets there. He has a little trouble getting up and out the door but once hes there he has so much fun. He had become quite the little reader and he says that math is one of his favorite subjects, along with lunch and recess :) I am so so so glad that he likes school and seems to be doing really great!
Kylie is in her second year of preschool. She started back after a month and half vacation and jumped right back in as if she never left. She has so much fun at school. She is always singing the songs and reciting the poems that she learns at school. She will start a reading program this year and she can not wait. I on the other hand can. She just doesn't seem old enough to me to be learning how to read.

It is sort of nice to have a couple of hours to myself 3 afternoons a week, but I just can't believe that my kids are getting so old. When they were little this school stuff seemed so far away and now in just 2 short years I will be home all by myself. I am really glad though that they all love school and seem to be doing very well. So far so good :)