Closure and Peace... Finally

Daniel and I have finally made peace with a place that has carried many bad feelings. Sixteen months ago on December 13, 2007 we sat in Utah Valley Imaging and heard the news that Dan has bone cancer. On that day our life seemed shattered, so naturally we cringe every time we pass the place. Today we decided to go close that chapter.

For a while now we have wanted to go back and thank the MRI technicians and receptionists for the way they took care of us that day. The whole day is a blur but I do remember dropping into Dan's lap and sobbing. Then, the technician came in and offered to talk us through the details and took so much time to calm some of our fears. He assured us that this was treatable and there was no reason not to have enough faith to fight. The receptionists came with tissues and gently rubbed my back. These were strangers when we walked in, but we left with lots of their love.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure why we haven't been back. I think we have maybe been a little bit scared. But today, I sat and looked at the exact seats we sat in when we found out. And guess what, when I looked, I felt such relief. It was a really neat feeling to come full circle. Dan and I both explained with watery eyes why we were staring at the waiting room. One of the technicians came from the back and greeted us with a hug. Surprisingly, she remembered us! She was so happy we came in and wanted to hear about everything. What a neat lady she is! It just shows the love that we feel from even "strangers" (I feel weird calling them that because it feels like more).

Anyway, I hope this wasn't too boring to read...
I guess it was just a lesson to me in facing my fears and how that can pay off. I have felt so peaceful the whole day.
And the people that work there have taught me that we can reach out to strangers and have an impact everywhere around us.

IT'S HERE!! The end of chemo!!!

I can hear angels singing in Heaven.... Dan is done with chemo!! Today was the last day of infusion and he is officially done! We are so happy!

Today the nurses all gathered around and sang us a song then gave us a beautiful quilt for completing chemo. I'm so proud of Dan! He has done so much these past 16 months to get to this point and we have been incredibly blessed. I can't even begin to name them all, but first and foremost on my mind is this miracle of remission. Stage 4 osteosarcoma is a scary and tough disease, but here we are, 16 months out and it is stable enough to stop chemotherapy. This is truly a blessing and we know the Lord has watched over us. There have been many days when Dan and I talk at the end of a day and are overwhelmed with all of the things that could be confused with being "coincidences"... but we know otherwise. The sheer number of them is proof that He is in charge and wanted Dan to get well.

As we all know, our prayers are sometimes answered through the acts of others. We have felt especially loved this week and appreciate the dinners, well wishes and prayers. It was fun to come home to this today...
It's a sign that says "Congratulations, We love you!" Thanks so much Paige, you're so sweet!

We'll wait for a little bit to start the real celebration. The effects of chemo have left my party animal down for the count. This is all the enthusiasm I could muster from him :) What a good sport.
More updates to come! I just wanted to briefly share some of our excitement! We love you all!

Quick Update, Nothing Really Exciting

This new background was inspired by the snow outside. The only way I can get through seeing snow outside is remembering that in a short 2 months I will be seeing Hawaii outside my window and not snow :)

Life is good, life is crazy but it's good. I got a job! I'm a medical supervisor at a plasma collection center. It's really fun and I'm learning a lot! I'm happy to have a job that stretches me. Daniel is doing awesome in school. I love that everything he does is always his 100%. He just spent tons of time writing this awesome paper and I can't wait to see his teacher get blown away. He's on his last cycle of chemo right now. Can you believe it? The LAST cycle!! Remission is just around the corner.

I just discovered something amazing. It's Pandora.com. You go to the site and type in any artist you want then it creates this amazing playlist of that artist and others like them. I tried Jason Mraz, the Eagles and yesterday I even tried Mormon Tabernacle Choir and I had the perfect Sunday soundtrack. Every kind of artist you can think of. No commercials. Totally free. I'm never buying music again.

Cool Things

Second to the last chemo cycle, and once again I find the time update. Things are going great... only one more to go!!! But instead of blog about that (I do that all the time) I decided to blog about fun things that have been happening to us.

You'll never guess what we saw today. We got here (the infusion room at the Huntsman) this morning and sat down in our normal spots waiting for the normal day to start. Then I spot a policeman out of the corner of my eye. There is a somewhat private room where some patients can go to get treatment if they are especially sick or something that prevents them from being in the big room with everyone else. Dan and I immediately noticed that the police was just sitting in the doorway. I thought that maybe his mom was sick, but Dan knew right away. Then I saw another policeman and they looked like they were on duty! I read their badge... "Department of corrections".... that's right, they were harboring a fugitive!!!
Okay, not that cool, but they WERE escorting a convict. So cool. We watched them walk out, he was wearing white jail garb with a big number stamped on it and had his hands cuffed around his waist. Hey, even people paying their debt to society can get cancer. Anyone can :) Anyway, I hope that's not one of those things that you had to be there to think was cool. It was just out of the ordinary.

Another exciting happening in our life is we bought tickets to...
AH! I'm so excited I can barely stand it. We have been talking about a vacation ever since Dan was diagnosed 14 months ago, and it's actually happening! Dan and I are notorious for having big plans and dreaming, but this one is actually happening. We're lucky to have our friends the Monahans and Magelssens to visit... it's going to be great. It will be the perfect way to celebrate a new, HEALTHY chapter in our life.

Dan's doctors gave us some GREAT news. The last scans showed that the spots on his lungs are stable. That's really great news, and probably means they are dead. We're so blessed. We have seen so many miracles. I know that we are being taken care of.

I'm trying to be better at updating this thing. Everyone else keeps current with theirs and I love it, so I'll try harder.
Aloha

The Red Devil.. and a few thoughts on Chemotherapy

It's the last day of Dan's second treatment and things are going well. We're hoping for the same quick recovery that happened last time. We are grateful, however, that the infusion has gone better this time around. I never chronicled the story last time, so I will now.

The treatment consists of three days in the outpatient infusion room -- Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The first day he gets doxil and cisplatin. They call doxil the "Red Devil". That's comforting. The actual drug is a bright red Kool-Aid color. You can actually watch it run along the IV line, and into Dan. The first time he got this (about three weeks ago), the minute it hit his body his whole chest tightened up and he couldn't breathe. Luckily, the nurse was right there, she yelled at all the other nurses to come and everyone rushed Dan. It was probably the most scared Dan and I have ever been. He just kept looking at me mouthing the words "I'm okay, don't worry". But it was too late. He couldn't talk... he couldn't breathe, I was worried. They stopped the IV from running, put an oxygen mask on him and after a about 1 long minute, things were fine.

The nurses all assured us that this sometimes happens and that it was just an allergic reaction. They loaded him up on Benadryl and diluted the drug and then it went a lot better. The other drug, cisplatin is the one that makes him so sick. In case you're wondering, it is platinum... So swallow your wedding ring and maybe we'll be able to know how Dan feels :) The good news is since this dose is a lot lower than we are used to, it only takes about three days after treatment for Dan to start feeling well again. Then there's about two weeks where he feels normal. He's going to school and he even worked a little bit last week!

Dan is also taking a chemotherapy pill for the first five days of the cycle. I had no idea you could take a pill! Wow! A couple nights ago I realized that the bottle says to use gloves when handling the pill. I mentioned this to Dan and his response was, "And you want me to SWALLOW it?!" Haha, I thought that was pretty funny.

Overall, this chemotherapy is MUCH easier and we are grateful for that. Dan is still sick, but it's bearable. We appreciate your well-wishes and prayers. We are amazed at the support we still feel. It's been over a year and our family and friends haven't skipped a beat when it comes to supporting us. We love you guys. We are so blessed.

Overwhelmed...

Not overwhelmed with life, just overwhelmed with this blog posting. It's been so long and I have so much!

Let me start with my Mr. Fix-It. Our DVD player stopped working. I was grabbing my keys, getting ready to buy another one, when I found this...
Dan had opened up the DVD player and was attempting to fix it! I love this about him. I sat there quietly, not wanting to disturb. Finally, he got out the hammer and it was time to get an all new DVD player. Thanks for trying Dan!!

Later that night, we tried making a gingerbread house! It turned out pretty good I think. See for yourself...
And finally, Christmas.
We spend Christmas Eve and Day with my whole family. It was SO MUCH fun!!! There were ten kids under the age of 7. I love it. This was Dan's first Christmas with kids since he was a kid. I really think he liked it. Here we are staying up that night getting ready for the morning festivities...
Christmas morning was amazing. It was madness. I love being with my family. These Christmas memories are the ones I will always hold on to. I love you guys.

Then we were on to Kansas. We loved being there. Dan's "Papa" is very sick and it was a perfect time for us to be there with family.
We love you Grammy and Papa. It was a nice, relaxing trip that got us ready to start school again. Oh, and if you are ever in Salina, Kansas you MUST stop at Serious BBQ. It's amazing.

Happy 2009 everyone! I need some New Years Resolutions, so let me know if you have any good ideas!

A Surprising Plot Twist

It seems we have jumped the gun a little bit.

I'd like to think that Dan and I always try to look for the positive and hope for the best. This is how we have tried to view the past year. After Dan's last lung surgery we hoped for the best and assumed it would be the last treatment and he would be in remission, just like our doctors predicted. The bad part about always looking to the bright side is that sometimes it doesn't go that way.

Before his right lung surgery we were told that because of how well the tumors in his left lung had responded to the chemotherapy, then we could almost be guaranteed that the right lung would look the same. This would mean Dan would be DONE with treatment! That is why we were so excited! However, the right lung tumors did not look good. A good portion of them were still alive when they took them out.

Dr. Randall said that because of how alive they still were, there is about a 75% chance that they will come back. If Dan does more chemo, then the chances would possibly drop down to 25-50%. Daniel and I are never really concerned with statistics and percentages, however, in this circumstance we were able to use those numbers to guide us in a decision. We decided that Dan needs to do more chemotherapy. It was almost a no-brainer.

He will start at the beginning of next year, so that we can enjoy the Christmas holiday and our New Year's trip to Kansas. The good news is that this chemotherapy will be much less intense than what he has done before. It is outpatient, meaning we won't have to stay overnight in the hospital. He is getting the same drugs, but just a lower dose. We are still enrolled in classes and hope to both be able to go to school. Isn't that great?!

But don't worry... because we're not worried. Dan and I know the end result... it's just getting there that is keeping us guessing. We're doing great. Especially Dan. He is so strong and everyday I see that he is preparing himself both mentally and physically for this next challenge. I wish he didn't have to do this, but it is neat watching him make this switch in his mind... and as he would say: "It's go time".

I hope you are all loving Christmas decorations as much as I am. It's nice to see that everyone is finally catching up to what I started over a month ago :) Thank you for your love and prayers. I promise that they are what's keeping us going. Life is good.