The Chair

Ok so this week has been so nice. As Diane says, "it's a good day, because no one is in the hospital and no one has been arrested!"

I am beginning to have a problem with remembering what happened on specific days anymore. It's all kind of a blur. Maybe I should be writing more down but honestly there are times that I feel lucky we made it through the day at all!
Ben slept a lot this week. The beginning of the week started with a doctors appointment where we learned that Ben would need to go in for another intrathecal (spinal treatment). That one kind of broad sided us because we didn't realize he would still be doing outpatient chemo during the time he was home. It's only those treatments but it was still one of those things we didn't know before so it caught us off guard. I spent Monday evening making arrangements for the girls on Tuesday so that we could go into the office to sit around and wait.
Tuesday we dropped the girls off at the Richard's house for them to play with Sydney (she's 15 and loads of fun!). Then we headed off to the doctors office to start work on everything. Ben's platelet count was really low (13) so he did a platelet transfusion before trying to do the intrathecal but it didn't cut it. The transfusion only brought his platelet count up to 30 and it has to be at least 60 before they will risk things like puncture wounds to the body. So because his count didn't come up we just got to hang out at the office for about 3.5 hours instead. Good thing I took Parker with us because he proved to be excellent entertainment for the nurses. As it turns out Parker is very cute... and a bit of an oddity in that kind of an office, they just don't see very many babies so when they do it's like all of their mommy instincts kick in and they gravitate to the smallest and cutest thing they can find, which is Parker of course! After all the blood draws, transfusions and then deciding not to do the treatment after all the nurses gave Ben a nulasta shot which basically reactivates the bone marrow and makes it start making blood again. That one makes your bones hurt pretty good but advil and tylenol help with that.
Eliza and Alayna had a blast all morning with Sydney! They got to play in the pool and play games then the Richard's took them to McDonalds to play in the playplace too! Eliza's funny... and she made sure to really show it to them. She told them she wanted a hamburger in her lunch... well as soon as she got it she promptly informed them that she didn't want the 'brown stuff' (aka the hamburger) so she ended up eating the whole thing, except the burger. What a goof! Thanks a million to Shryl who not only took them out to play but also made sure to throw their cloths in the dryer to kill anything that they might have picked up from a public play place! Talk about going above and beyond!Grandma picked up the girls from the Richard's house and took them for the afternoon on Tuesday as well which was great for me because it gave me time to get the house clean and all wiped down again!

Wednesday I loaded up the kids and we went to Loveland for the day. I had some errands there I needed to do anyway and it meant that Ben would have a whole day with a quiet house to sleep and do whatever he wanted without us! I had so much fun just hanging out with my family and playing with my kids! The girls played in the pool again minus the sunburns this time! I made a trip to Sams for some of those things that we have been running low on in the food storage. Other than that it was nice and mellow. No obligations just whatever. I even managed to get all my laundry done there thanks to mom's incredibly large washer and dryer!  Ben had a tough day. That shot from the day before made him good and sore all day long. He was smart and took the advice of the nurse who warned him not to let the tylenol wear off all the way but it was still pretty uncomfortable!

Thursday was good. Ben woke up sore. This time the pain moved to his hips... the nulasta shot makes your thighs, hips, and sternum hurt the most because that is where the most marrow production happens. Other than that discomfort Ben had a good day! We went to the doctor and met the nurse practioner for the first time she was great! We also found out that Ben's white cell count was back up to 50 which is what normal people are in so we were thrilled! I don't think anyone was as happy as Ben though because it meant NO MORE MASKS!!
The kids and I went shopping for some outfits for family pictures on Friday. I was really glad that I stopped at Once Upon a Child (second hand kids stuff) because they were clearing out their summer stuff so everything I bought was only a dollar a piece!! So all the kids got new outfits for pictures. I also found some cute orange matching skirts for the girls I couldn't resist! Then we went to the mall looking for accessories for me but had no luck in that department but I did find some really cute little shrugs on clearence at Dillards for the girls! Yay for good deals! In the end we were all beat tired Parker was sick of shopping and we finally quit and went home to crash for the afternoon! I made myself a new necklace for pictures that night... it's orange (leukimia pride!)

Friday was good. mellow. We ventured out to a Lazy Boy store for a little bit and looked at recliners. It was a good first outing for Ben after being holed up in the house for so many days! Then that evening we did family pictures. I am very very excited to see some of those later on! Thanks again to Brandi who took them for us. Ben tried very hard to hold onto his goatee for the pictures but by that morning it had too many bald patches to make it work so he shaved it off. Currently Ben is still shedding like a puppy and he eventually will be smooth as a baby's bum but until then I think I might need to invest in some drain-o to unclog the bathtub from all his chest hair!

Ben in his new chair! It's fantastic!!!

Saturday was awesome! Ben started the morning off with a bang! He got a special surprise from the guys he works with in Boulder... They bought him a new recliner!! YAY!! I am not going to lie, it just about killed me to not tell him about it when I first found out earlier in the week! It was darn near impossible to not explode with excitement for him! These are some of the most generous and kind guys around and I couldn't believe how much they really truely want to take care of Ben, it was awesome! I think he smiled all day long just over that chair! The kids just played and we didn't get a ton done that day. I did manage to get the house clean but it wasn't too bad so that's a relief! That evening we went to a going away party for the Kuntz family (someone I grew up with). It is sad to see them go but I am sure glad they will be closer to family now! Sadly we missed a good friend's wedding that morning but it was just more than Ben could really do in a day so sorry we missed it but we are very happy for you Robert and Ashley!

Sunday was good! Ben made it through 2 out of three hours of church! This was a big deal for  him he hasn't had that much energy in a long time! Plus he managed to sleep through the whole night which hasn't happened in months! The kids had a blast at church and I really loved the lesson in relief society, it was exactly what I needed to hear that day! After that we went to Loveland and had dinner with my family got to talk to Rachel and her family on skype and then headed home to put all of us to bed!!

It's been a good and mostly uneventful week I sometimes worry that it must be the calm before the storm and I'm not sure if that is just because of the last few weeks or if it is because that is really what it is!... let's hope it's just because of how crazy the last few weeks have been!

Alayna and her cake and hat... it's not a party without a pink hat right!?

Driving home from Loveland Sunday night... there were about 6 elk on the side of the road and crossing the road... here is one I caught a picture while we waited at a light!

Week 2 and Coming Home!

Well I know I just did a post... like two days ago. But I didn't talk about this week at all so I figured I better do another update and stay on top of things while I feel up to it!
Monday was interesting... It started with a follow up visit with my doctor for me about my medication for postpartum. As you can imagine that was a really interesting conversation with the doctor. I presented a very unique challenge in that we have no idea what the meds are or are not doing at this point due to the family situation that we are currently facing. Dr. Hughes (our family practice) was responsible for helping us find a diagnosis for Ben so quickly and he took time last week to go visit with Ben for a little bit and so he got advanced warning from Ben that I am a mess and would probably sit in his office and cry that day. I am proud to say that I only cried a little bit and the doc thinks I am handling things better than he expected. Anyway, Grandma Merritt watched the girls for my appointment and then she went over to visit Ben in the morning for a bit before I would head over after lunch. Much to my dismay when she got there we found out that none of the kids were allowed in the room with Ben anymore, including Parker. So all of my preplanning and everything else for the week were officially thrown out the window and I decided that I should really quit trying to plan anything in advanced because it always seems to fall apart! The girls went to the Jenkins house for the afternoon and Parker went to the Merritt's house to sleep for a few hours while I went to the hospital to be with Ben. Monday was nice because they mostly left Ben alone for the day and he was starting to feel a little more normal. That evening was a little nuts in our house. Bryan and Dave Hoskins came over to redo our bathtub for me so that it would be safe for Ben to come home to so when I got home my bathroom was all torn apart and prepped for some fun changes! Because the kids couldn't go in to see Ben anymore and they were really missing him we finally wised up and 'face-timed' with daddy (video call between phones). It sure helped the girls feel better and behave better too!

Tuesday involved a lot of time in the car. My mom came and took the girls to her house for the day and left me with Heather to take her to her pole vaulting camp that afternoon. Bryan and Dave finished tiling the bathroom so it now looks amazing! I drove Heather to Superior for her camp and then stopped by Ben's work to drop off some paperwork for short term disability for Ben. It was nice to talk to some of Ben's coworkers for a little while they are a great bunch of guys and they really do care about him a lot! After that I dropped Parker off at Grandma's so that I could spend some time with Ben. He had a spinal tap that morning in order to have a chemo treatment in his spine. It's the same thing as getting an epidural except that they took some of the spinal fluid out of his back for testing so he got a good headache from that. That evening I got the girls back from my mom and enjoyed some time with them before bed. Ben on the other hand had a fantastic evening with Kevin Summers and his dad. They had been planning that visit for weeks and did not have the intention of having it in the hospital room but they made it work. They even got special permission from the nurses to bring in ribs from the Rib House for Ben to have dinner with them. I heard that it caused quite the commotion for them to bring those upstairs because they smelled so darn good! Ben spent a good two days talking about how much he enjoyed that visit so thank you Kevin for taking the time to come see him!

Wednesday was an insane day. I mean honestly I don't remember the last time I worked that hard or that fast on anything. I took the girls to Grandma Merritt's house to play for the day. I was nice and took them swim suits so they could play in the sprinkler too (who knew it would be so much work for grandma sorry!). Then I visited with Ben for a short bit first thing in the morning before heading home to get some slave labor done. My mom came over and helped me get the basement clean and organized before Ben came home. This was a HUGE undertaking I don't think even she was ready for how bad it really was down there! A few hours into our work Yoshiko Egan (one of my favorite yw leaders) called an ask for my address because she informed us that she was coming over to help. Not asking, just informing us she was coming to help. Dang I love that women! So we spent the rest of the day cleaning the basement. It was hard hard work but now it looks great and is very usable space. My mom by some miracle got the hard water stains out of the toilet and Yoshiko cleaned the nastiest fridge I have ever seen I owe her big time for that! That evening after I got the girls I attempted to get them in bed and asleep before the 'Bleaching party' began but I was unsuccessful in that endeavor. Both girls couldn't sleep with all the commotion from 8 women trying to sanitize and clean every inch of my tiny house before Ben came home to it. I think everything on the main level got wiped down at least 3-4 times but we know it's really clean now!

Thursday Ben did his last chemo for his 'A' cycle!! Evan came over and shampooed the carpets and I took the kids to the Merritt's house to be out of the way and to just enjoy some down time while we waited for daddy to say he was ok to come home! 2:00pm that day I finally got to go pick Ben up from the hospital! I was thrilled to go get him and bring him home to be with us! We were all pretty dang excited to just come home and be together. There has been a high use of sanitizer and hand washing in this family now and we don't go out as much but I think all of us were totally ready for that after all the 'going' we have done in the last two weeks! The girls were thrilled to get their daddy back for a while!

Friday was spent at home for the most part. I took the kids to the park for a little bit of time to play in the water for a while and then we just hung out around the house doing little things here and there. Played with the toys the girls got from the young women who brought them a care package. We built puzzles and played with glow sticks and ate popsicles outside together! It was a great way to spend the day!

Saturday was a little harder. I think I need some help adjusting to this new life. I hope that the balance that I am not finding will come sooner than later because it is hard. It's weird to have Ben home more and I haven't figured out what our normal routine is going to be like yet... I imagine it will have to change some, he keeps trying to tell me that nothing has to change about my normal routine but let me tell you, everything has changes and I no longer have a normal routine! I didn't used to have to worry about every little thing the kids touched and be so cautious about keeping a sterile house... Normal doesn't exist for me anymore and I have to adjust what that will mean in the future as well. It will happen, it's just going to take some more time!

Sunday, it was a good day! Ben came to Sacrament meeting (the 1st hour of church). He wore a mask and didn't touch anyone so hopefully that was enough to keep him protected! Everyone was shocked to see him there and they were glad to see him out and about. He has spent most of the rest of the day resting. He isn't admitting it but I can tell he doesn't really feel very good today. I am not sure what is bothering him the most but I can tell something is off so I hope that the sleep helps him feel a little better. We have an appointment tomorrow morning with the oncologist and hopefully that will go well and we will get a plan as to what is next from there!

Thanks again for all the help everyone. It means a lot. I saw a quote it made me smile and I feel like I really relate to it these days:
"In this Family we DO HARD things!"
I think that it's true. In our family we DO the hard things because it's worth it!

Week 1 of Chemo

 This is what Parker does at the hospital all day with Mom and Dad... We made him a little bed out of a camping pad and a crib sheet! Thanks Grandma Merritt for bringing them for him to sleep on!

 Blind shooting

 She even closes one eye... wrong eye but still!

 Daddy and his girls!

 This one is probably the best one... we never all looked in the same place!

 This one is most like our family... a little silly and not so pulled together!

 'Liza and Grammy!

 Alayna was trying so hard to get Alan's attention... She wanted his toy!

 My lil Man on his blessing day! Thanks Abby for taking these for me!

Dear Life,
You have recently thrown some curve balls. They were a little too sharp of a curve and whacked us in the leg, so as we have been walking to our hypothetical first base I would like to say, HOW RUDE!
Thank you,
Sarah

This is a post for our first week of our new life. The curve ball that was thrown at us has officially reset our path for the next year and probably for the rest of our lives. Cancer sucks. It's really hard and there are moments in life when all you can do is get through the next couple of hours even if getting through them is by wading through the watery stream of tears running down your face.

Week one of chemo started out seeming pretty simple. Monday morning I went bright and early to the hospital to be with Ben for the day. They started the day by having a Hickman line placed (that is a port in his chest so they don't have to keep poking him for the chemo and blood draws). This was considered a minor procedure and they kept Ben awake for the whole thing. He said it was pretty uncomfortable to get it placed but now that it's in he's happy to not be poked anymore. They gave him some platelets beforehand so he wouldn't bleed out and it sure made his coloring look better! He was a little less grey! The rest of that day was spent resting and being a little uncomfortable. That line didn't feel so good so they gave him some vicaden and he slept! Diane came and sat with Ben and Parker while I was at my own doctors appointment. It made me feel a lot better to have her there than leaving Ben by himself on that first day! Other than my appointment I hung out in the hospital with Ben and Parker for the day and it was nice and quiet. Ben did his first chemo treatment that afternoon.
The girls spent the day in Loveland playing with Grandpa Waite. He helped them plant some new flower bulbs and they played all kinds of other fun things! That night they slept over for one last night at the Waite house and had tons of fun getting new cloths and things from Grandma!

Tuesday was just crazy! I went to the hospital first thing in the morning. Spent a few hours with Ben before leaving him in his Mom's care (thank goodness for family!) I went to Loveland to get the girls. While I was there my old boss Donna was kind enough to help me out of a tragic situation with my tongue! You see, due to the stress of everything in the past few weeks I can't stop clenching, grinding and chewing my tongue... so it was a peeling, black and blue mess! It was really gross to look at! So Donna made me a jig that makes it so I can't do that anymore! Thankfully after the second night my body took the hint and I quit taking it out in my sleep! Yay! The girls did more gardening and playing with grandpa Waite that day and then I took them over to the hospital to see daddy for the first time! We had a blast going over to play for a little bit because Abby have brought Ben some nerf guns to shoot at the windows so the girls had a blast sitting and playing with those as you can see from the pictures! haha! I love Alayna's blind shooting!

Wednesday was the 4th of July. It should have been a lot more fun but let's be honest... I just couldn't pull it all together! We did manage to make it to the annual ward breakfast that morning. I only had a minor panic attack (the ones I had all weekend were so bad I  couldn't function) and so we were only about 30 min behind when I wanted to be there! This was a big deal for me so be proud! After that I took the kids and we went and saw daddy for about an hour before I took the girls over to the Mott's house to have a sprinkler party for the rest of the day while I was at the hospital with Ben.
By this point Ben had had chemo every 12 hours. This drug takes 3 hrs to drip in and it was every 12 that they started a new one. We had wanted to watch the fireworks with daddy that night from his hospital bed but as it turns out Longmont canceled their fireworks this year due to the number of out of control fires we have had already this summer. So we went to bed instead! That night Diane came and sat with the kids after I got everyone in bed and asleep so I could spend some time with just me and Ben, it was like a date! Hot date at the hospital right!?

Thursday was spent at the hospital. My dad came and took the girls for the day. I took it easy and slow in the morning getting things ready to go and then sent them out the door with Grandpa to play for the day. They both came home that night totally exhausted so they must have had tons of fun doing whatever it was they did!
Ben did one last round of chemo #1 before starting chemo #2 which was a 24 hr drip. That one is called "Big Red" because it is bright red and very scary. The nurse just about killed me when she was telling us the kind of damage it does to your skin if it drips on you, all of course while she is hooking it up to my husband to drip it into his veins for the next 24 hours. Let me tell you how happy that made me! It took everything inside me to not jump up and punch that poor wonderful nurse in the face. Not to mention the panic that spread so quickly I couldn't calm it back down for a few hours after! That was not a happy day for me. It was hard I was mad at everyone for everything they were doing to Ben and I want to protect him and I wanted more than anything to just make everything better for him! At some point during chemo #2 they also did chemo #3 which was a 15 min push. So that one wasn't so long but by the end of the day Thursday poor Ben had had 3 different kinds of chemo and one of them wouldn't be done until Friday and it is also the most potent stuff they make. GREAT! (insert sarcasm!)

Friday was a much needed day. I felt a little bad but it was definitely the right thing to do. Friday I took a day off from my life. I threw in the towel, called Ben's Mom and ask her to sit with him for the day so that I could just stay home. I stayed home with the kids, we played and watched TV and just had a day that would have been a horribly lazy unproductive day two weeks ago but that day it was exactly what we all needed! I needed it so bad I can't even tell you! The kid therapy helped me feel better and I think the girls needed that time to just be at home for a day with their own things and their own mommy!

Saturday was a hard day for Ben. He was totally wiped out. We knew the chemo was going to eventually catch up with him and it finally did on Saturday. Poor Ben was totally wiped out. He slept almost the entire day and actually felt like he had just done a weeks worth of chemo (duh!). The girls spent the day with Grandma Merritt while I cleaned house with my mom for half the day and spent the other half of the day with Ben. The girls and Grandma went and saw Aunt Mallory and Gavin for a little bit and both of them talked about playing with Kira (Mallory's dog)!

Sunday was church. I was nervous, I figured out that my panic attacks are set off from social things where  I know I am going to be ask a lot of questions by many kind and caring people but it can be very overwhelming after the 100th time you answer the same questions. BUT thankfully I got up and got all of us ready and out the door in plenty of time to get to church. I made it through all 3 hours of church without any major melt downs from myself or the kids. Alayna did get taken out once from a tantrum she apparently really wanted to have in the middle of sacrament meeting but it was fine in the end because we went back in and she did great for the rest of the meetings! I went and saw Ben for a bit of the afternoon before going to Loveland for dinner and some quiet time with my family. I needed that and enjoyed all the love I feel there.

At some point during the end of this week. I don't remember exactly what day it was, we got the results back from the marrow sample that was sent to the Mayo clinic. They were running some chromosomal tests on Ben's marrow to see exactly what mutation occurred that caused his cancer. Much to our dismay the mutation that occurred is called the Philadelphia chromosome. What the results of this mean is that Ben will have to have a bone marrow transplant. We are very hopeful that one of his three sisters will be a match for him and will be able to donate their marrow for him in a few months down the line. We do not know everything that this will entail for us in the future. I have not done much research on the subject and I am sure that in the next couple of weeks we will be meeting with the transplant specialists down in Denver. Things that we do understand currently about the process, His sisters are his best option if they match. It is not an invasive process for the girls or Ben. They will give Ben a lethal dose of chemo before the transplant and then he will be hospitalized and live in Denver for 1-2 months following transplant. I will give better details as I know them.
All week it has been a continual outpouring of support and help and I cannot even begin to tell everyone thank you enough for what you are doing for us. For all the prayers and the support the offers to clean my house, do my laundry, and to take my kids; everything. The times that so many of you have listened to me break down in my moments of complete and utter overwhelming fear of the unknown and my irritation with how hard this is! So thank you to everyone I owe you big time!

When the World comes Tumbling Down!

Well it's been a bad week in this house. I wish I could say that there was some part of my week that was just peachy but to be honest none of it was peachy. It wasn't pretty at all.

Monday morning I went to the doctor for some postpartum issues I was having and then after that was suppose to go to get my IUD but that didn't happen. The first one did but the second one did not. I was bummed to have to reschedule that apointment yet again but there are some things you just can't control! After my morning apointment and picking up some medication I came home and watched the Mott kids for a while. It was good times and in the end my house looked amazing thanks to all those little hands being put to work to clean things! It was fantastic, I sure am thankful for friends who take such good care of me even when they don't have to! That afternoon Ben went to the doctor to the follow up on his sleep study. There was some miscommunication on where that information was so while they were waiting for the information to be faxed again Ben ask the doc about a pain that he was having in his left side. It hurt when he would bend over and take a deep breath. So the doctor started poking around on his abdomen to see what was going on and sure enough he could feel Ben's spleen. This is NOT a good thing. You shouldn't ever be able to feel a spleen on someone so they started doing some blood draws to run some tests. At 10:30 that night we got a phone call from the on-call doctor about some of the test results. Ben's white blood cell count was 35,000 and it is suppose to be between 10,000-15,000. So she was concerend about how he was feeling.

Tuesday morning our Doctor called Ben about the test results. He explained to him that an enlarged spleen basically means one of two things: 1 you have mono and 2 you have Leukemia. They ask him to come in a give some more blood so they could run the mono test a second time because the first one came up negative. That was the start of our very hard week.
That day I don't even really remember what I did with the kids. I know it involved cleaning house and doing other normal things I am sure. I called Grandma Merritt at that point and gave her what little information we had and we knew what was coming. I just knew.

Wednesday I went to Loveland. First we made a pit stop in Berthoud to play at the park with the girls and then we went to Grandma Waite's house to play for a little while. Grandma was nice enough to take care of Parker that afternoon while I took the girls to the park just the three of us for a little while. It was a nice distraction from the torture of waiting for more test results for Ben and to know if we were really going to be sent to the Blood specailist in the end or not. Mallory and Evan also had the wonderful experience of welcoming little Gavin Scott Hutchins into their family early that morning! I was so thrilled tog et to hold him for just a little bit that night and snuggle his tiny little 6.14 lb body! I forget how light those little babies can feel so it was nice to hold him compared to my 12lb 2 month old!

Thursday I took the kids to Bounce (indoor inflatable play place) and hung out with Natalie and her son Jackson. It was nice to have some serious adult time and time to set other worries aside. That afternoon I got the call from Ben that not only was he being refered to the specialist. Not only that but that he also had an appointment for that afternoon as soon as he could leave work. I paniked slightly arranged for Abby to watch the girls and went over to the appointment with him. The initial thoughts from the doctor were that we were dealing with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) and that it is relativly simple to treat starting with a pill form of chemo. They did a bone and marrow biopsy that evening as well and were kind enough to give him a little bit of sedation for the procedure seeing as how they are drilling into your hip to take bone out of it! I sat in the waiting room and freaked out. We went home from that appointment to the Merritt's house where we were allowing Parker to meet his Grandpa Merritt for the first time! Yay for him coming home just in time for all this drama! It was great to see him again and so fun to hear about his trip. That night I had Abby drop me off to get Ben's car and on my way home I had myself a good hard meltdown to Lindsay (my big sister!) She responded with so much calm and help it made a huge difference for me. Then she informed me she was going to come help on Friday.

Friday was a lot worse. Lindsay did come and not only did she help she was my salvation that day! She came and took my girls and took them out for a day on the town. They went and saw Brave (new disney movie) and they went to Mcdonalds, and the park and the Library and who knows what else she spoiled them with that day but I know they came home and crashed!
AS FOR BEN: I thought for sure that we were home free with the simplicity of the treatment and the diagnosis was going to be exactly what the doctor thought it would be but that would have made our lives far too simple. Ben got a call at work from the office saying he needed to go in for a CT scan before his appointment that afternoon so he left work at 11:30 to get the CT done. That went well all except for the horrible tasting dye they make you drink and the after effects of drinking such liquids was not so kind to him! The appointment that followed was not so easy. In fact it was tramatizing. I cannot tell you how many times I scoped out that room deciding where the best place was to throw up and trying desperately to clear my head to ask questions and not burst into tears. Thankfully I did not throw up but it probably would have made me feel a lot better at that moment! Ben's diagnosis changed. It went from being CML to being ALL or Accute Lymphoblastic Leukimia. This is a much much more agressive cancer. It requires much more agressive treatment and will be harder to keep in remission once we get it to that point. BUT we moved forward. We discussed treatment and the doctor wants us to start as soon as possible. We requested that it wait until after Sunday when we will have a chance to let Ben bless Parker. Sunday after we bless Parker Ben will go be admitted to the hospital to start the prep work before starting Chemo on Monday morning. He will be hospitalized for a minimum of 1 week for each treatment and will be released for a few weeks before doing another round of treatment. The good news in all of this is that Ben is still healthy and strong instead of being like so many leukemia patients who don't know they have this until they are deathly ill and then they start the chemo. The hope is that his body will respond better to the chemo because he is currently so healthy. Pray that that is the case because we really need to catch a break here! We broke the news to Ben's parents in person and let my family know over the phone. We are sorry if anyone is offended that we are not making personal calls at this time but it is too much for us to handle so please forgive us!

Saturday has been a great day. I guess I should say that it has been a great half a day! I didn't sleep again so my body has started having full blown panic attacks. This is not a fun thing for me it results in the inability for me to keep food down, I feel really really sick and can't cope with anything. I finally ask my dad to come give me a blessing and he and my mom came together to do exactly that for me. I really really appriciated that because as soon as they came I finally got some food down (that stayed down) my blood sugars started to level out and the panic attack eased away. Other than that we have had a very nice and quiet day together as a family. The girls have been great, we learned that Parker will take a bottle just fine (I think my milk is a little sour from all the acid in my system so he is refusing to nurse well). We have had lots of visitors and many many people who are very caring and concerned for us, we can feel their love and prayers.

Sunday, The morning began with another full blown panick attack for me. My nerves sent me spiraling and I was not handling anything very well. BUT I made it to church, I got the kids up and dressed and ready for everything and we had quite the crowd there for blessing Parker. Ben gave Parker the most beautiful blessing ever and it was wonderful to feel such a strong spirit in that room. I was very emotional and not ready to deal with all the comments from everyone so it was hard to be there but we left after sacrament meeting and went to the Merritt's house where we had some great time with family and enjoyed a little bit of food and then took some quick family pictures before Ben starts to look like he has cancer!! After the lunch Ben got a blessing. He was kind enough to encourage Alan to be the one who anoited him and then his dad gave him a very touching and kind blessing. We were reminded of so many simple truths and he was promised that he will raise his family, I was releived to hear that and I know that those are not light promises and that they are absolutely true! I was very thankful for the incredible peace I was able to find in the blessing. Right after that we sent Eliza and Alayna off to have a sleep over at Grandma Waite's house and Ben and I, with his parents and Abby came and got Ben checked into the hospital and settled in for the night. Dr. Barnett came in and gave the information to the Merritt's and then answered any questions that they might have before anything else went on. The rest of the night was just spent doing prep work with some medications and fluids for the chemo to start on Monday.

I love Ben, I am scared and I know this is going to be very hard for him but he continues to be my rock and I know he can do amazing things and that he is going to pull through this! I am beyond my ability to tell people how much I appreciate all the help and support and all the offers from people who want to do anything to help me out! I am touched and feel so very loved so thank you to everyone who has already done so much and the continual outpouring of help!

Continued prayers are always welcome as we journey through this process I may become more frequent in my posting so that I wont allow everything in a week to become a total blurr as this past week has felt! I will continue to update people here as well as on facebook. The facebook posts will be shorter and probably a little less personal so if you want the gooey details make sure to read the blog!