Caring Bridge

Here is Grandpa's Caring Bridge site. We appreciate all prayers as this could be a long journey. He is doing well so far and so strong! We gave him a card and he had tears in his eyes...and he pretty much said, "Don't worry, I got this!" What a great attitude! They shaved his head tonight since being on chemo now for 5 days, 24/7, his hair will begin to fall out.

Here is a before and after. I think he looks pretty dang good! :)

Faith>Fear

" Let your faith be bigger than your fear"

Once again, I've been absent again. In between working out, being outside, playing with Macyn, a bombshell happened on Monday. My grandpa was diagnosed with AML Leukemia on Monday. And quite frankly, it makes everything other little thing I would blog about seem less important.

Monday:

Grandpa was diagnosed. There was no cancer in his blood two weeks ago. The doctor said he could die in the next minute or hour. He gave him 2-3 days to live because he was so sick. It was a rough night to say the least. His white count was 251,000....which is completely unheard of. This is some aggressive stuff.

Tuesday:

Performed a procedure that takes the blood out of his body, filters it to remove the white cells, and puts it back into his body. They "washed" his blood a couple of times to get his count down. They got it all the way down to 70,000 (i think), and in order to start chemo they wanted it down to 40,000. We visited Grandpa and he didn't look too good, and was still extremely critical at this point. At anytime the leukemia cells could clump together and cause a clot in the heart or brain and he could slip into a coma.

Wednesday:

This would be a day of rest from the blood wash and transfusions. His counts in the morning were 50,000....still not low enough to receive chemo. They decided to not wash his blood and by night time his cells were over 100k again. That is not good news....extremely aggressive cancer. Because of this they decided to start chemo anyways. He is on one drug for 3 days, and another 24/7 drip of chemo for the next week. I have seriously never heard of 24/7 chemo with no break.

Thursday:

Today would be a sign whether the chemo is working. If his counts stay at 100k, that means its preventing replication. In fact, they went down to 80,000! They continued to go all the way down to 40k, and we visited him. He looked great and was laughing and smiling. Since this is extremely aggressive cancer that is hardly ever seen before, they actually called it "Acute Acute Lymphoma." Meaning...more aggressive than aggressive cancer.

Friday:

Counts continue to go down and we are so thankful. Unfortunately, the road is only going to get tougher as he will begin to get sick from the chemo. In two weeks they will do a bone marrow biopsy and hopefully be in remission. If he is, they will start to give him white cells. If not, stronger chemo.

Other things:

• I am extremely grateful he is still with us. They gave him 2-3 days with his counts that high....and hes still alive. Thank you, Lord.

• He has bad chromosomes in his body, which signifies how hard it may be to fight this

• If chemo doesn't work, there is no other cure

• He is too old for stem cells and too old for bone marrow 

Even though Grandpa is doing much, much better now, he still needs lots of prayers. This is going to be a long, fighting road....just trying to visit him now while he is in good spirits since I know next week he will have no white cells left and will most likely be sick. This is the calm before the storm.

We have great hope he will make it through this. He is my last living biological grandparent and he told us that he is going to fight this. What a great attitude! We are so blessed he is still with us. Thank you, so much for answering our prayers, Lord.

 Cancer cannot cripple love
Cancer cannot shatter hope
Cancer cannot erode faith
Cancer cannot eat away peace
Cancer cannot kill friendship
Cancer cannot shut out memories
Cancer cannot silence courage
Cancer cannot reduce eternal life

Cancer cannot keep us from praying our hearts out for Grandpa.

Picnic time!

It was such a nice day we decided to pack up some food and have a picnic in the park. Macyn had a good time eating outside and playing on the playground.

2 Years 6 Months

Well another month has past and my "baby" is now two and a half! We have spent a lot of this past month outside, riding bike and blowing bubbles. Macyn continues to amaze us with the words she has and her big personality. Needless to say, most of the past month has consisted of whining and crying and throwing tantrums. She also has her good side too. Here are the "good" things about being two.

• She can now pull down her pants and go to the potty all by herself - #1 AND #2 :)

• She can tell the quite the stories and has a big imagination. She gets so excited sometimes that she begins to stutter.

• One of her favorite sayings is, "Oh my goodness!" and she says it quite often

• Her favorite colors are pink and purple, and she thinks yellow and orange fruit snacks are the yucky ones

• She loves to paint, blow bubbles, and play in water

• She can take a bath by herself. Sometimes we aren't paying attention and all of a sudden we will hear the toilet flush. She gets out of the tub by herself, goes potty, flushes, and gets right back in. Little miss independent!

• We are still working on her bedtime routine to have her fall asleep by herself.

• She is really smart - I was listening to the Christian radio station and all of a sudden Macyn goes, "You like Jesus music, Mommy?"  I seriously had no idea she even knew the difference!

Bad things about Macyn? Temper tantrums. About anything, and everything. Here is a sampling of the past day (yes, past day):

• Refuses to wear an outfit because she didn't like purple that day

• Yells and says, "OPEN YOUR EYES!" when I am trying to take a nap

• Gets upset that she wants a bagel for breakfast....we haven't had bagels in the house for over a month

• Give her a waffle instead and then she gets mad when it was toasted golden brown, because then its, "yucky"

• Refuse to bring her backpack with her clothes in it, and finds an old baby diaper bag instead

• Give her a cup of juice at church, where she says, "I want ice in it!"

• Bringing her to the wrong bathroom stall that results in getting her fingers slammed in the door

• Wanting to wear church shoes that are two sizes too small

• Taking her step stool away because she likes to turn on the water in the bathroom and leave it running

• She also got mad at me at the table because I put chip dip on my plate

• Eating a banana and then accidentally breaking it in half - declares she needs a big one. I didn't give her another one, which resulted in her banana being chucked across the house

Now, some of these things she argues about don't seem so bad, but it is usually followed by kicking, screaming, whining, hitting, biting...the whole works.

She also talks back. When I scold her she says, "stop it, mommy!" She also has a sweet side to her too...if she does something wrong, she will usually come up to me, give me a big hug and say, "sorry, Mommy...love you!"

Despite her tantrums, we still have good times together - being silly, going to the park, playing outside, and letting her help us in whatever we are doing (such as making supper). Every time I work out, she always has to copy my stretches. And putting her to bed at night with a great big hug and a kiss and an "I Love you?" Bittersweet.

Sunday Best

Easter is here! Macyn wore her spring dress and Mommy & Daddy dressed up too! Here are some pictures before church.

(a special thanks to the air conditioner, who let us use him as a stand for the self-timer)

Yummy Munch Mix

I made a new recipe from my coworker for our Easter. It is a nice, sweet, snack that everyone can enjoy. Macyn also enjoyed helping in the kitchen as well. Here is the recipe:

1 bag puff corn

1/2 block of white almond bark

2 T peanut butter

M&Ms

peanuts

Mix all the puff corn, m&ms, and peanuts together. Then melt the almond bark and peanut butter. Pour over the puff corn mix and coat. Lay it out on waxed paper to let it dry for a little bit.

Warning: This is super addicting - bad to have in the house if you are on a diet :)

Easter Egg Hunt

We decided since Sunday would be super busy, to have a small egg hunt for Macyn on Saturday morning. She was pretty excited when she woke up to see all the eggs the Easter bunny had hidden for her during the night. She told us that, "I heard the Easter bunny hopping!" Then I asked her how the bunny got in the house and she said, "He knocked on the window." Quite the imagination! We put gummy bears in half the eggs and left the others empty. She would then open the eggs, and if it was empty she could exchange it for a present. She was pretty happy with her loot!

The Easter bunny visited me too and brought me these:

In the Clear (Again)

We brought Macyn in to check the lump on her neck, and fortunately it was a reactive lymph node. It happens when you fight a respiratory infection and the lymph nodes will swell. We are very thankful that this didn't turn out to be anything serious! The lymph node "bump" should go away within a couple of weeks or months. Again, the doctor reassured us that it would be very rare to get ATB again. So thankful, again!

Easter Eggs

We bought a cheap Easter egg dying kit and we thought it would be a fun activity for us to do! Macyn dipped the eggs herself, and then decorated them with the stickers that came with the set. She had a good time and was pretty proud of her eggs! They actually turned out pretty cute in the end, and served as a nice Easter centerpiece.

Sunday Best

Today Macyn wore a white dress with a pink cover up to church today. She also wanted to wear her purple bow that matched our blooming bush in the backyard perfectly!