Lumbars and lobs

Later today Ben and Jackie stopped by and it was great for me to meet/talk to them. They were so fun and we look forward to playing games with them in the future.

The surprise I had planned for Emily was to have a hair stylist  (Jaclin Terry) to come cut her hair how ever she wanted it. Jaclin was so great and made Emily feel pretty and comfortable in spite of her headache due to her spinal tap. Jaclin is a friend of a friend of mine, (Stacey Hymas) from Boise. Thank you to Stacey and Jaclin for making this night just a little more special for Emily.

Joe and Krystal made it to the Wheelers tonight and we are going to meet up with them tomorrow. They brought us a bunch of stuff from our apartment for Jack and us.

The start on the ritual

Today the grabbed Emily about five minutes after I left to get the car serviced. We are learning pretty quickly that we just have to be ready at a moments notice to go have a procedure done. The hospital works great and is kind of like 100 mini businesses all working together. So we know that a particular thing will happen that day but we never know when. Which is tough some times with Jack and knowing when it's ok for him to come.

My mom has been awesome with that and so willing to do whatever. She is getting another spinal tap with some chemo today to get the bad cells away from her brain. After that she has to lay down for a few hours so she doesn't get a headache for the next few days. Joe and Krystal are coming down from Canada to visit the next few days and they are going to stop by in rexburg to pick some things up for us.

The only issue is that we have all the keys to the apartment! Fortunately, the guys from work were able to pop the door off and get it open. So thank you guys for that!

Father's day

Today was a nice father's day. This morning I picked up my dad and he headed off to Tremonton to meet my Uncle Danny who was kind enough to wake up early this morning and drive 5 hours here and 5 hours back to take dad back to Boise.

I am very grateful for my uncle and all those who have served us in the ways that we need in the moments we need. What a great brother who will drive 10 hours at the drop of a hat to help.

Emily is doing great. She's got the baby blues every now and then but the best remedy is Jack. An update from the last post, Emily has lost 9 lbs in 24 hours in excess fluids!

Sheila and Audrey stopped by on their way to Logan and gave us some really needed pick me ups from them, the Brants and my sisters. Thank you guys so much for everything you gave us. We desperately needed some super soft blankets!! We will put those to great use.

Good luck Audrey with orientation!

Jack was as great as ever and just did baby stuff by way of eating sleeping and pooping and just being dang cute. Tomorrow Emily has a lumbar puncture
And a special surprise later in the day.

Did I mention self stick?

Liquid sunshine

This morning Emily's oxygen level was lower than normal so they gave her some through a little mask thing. After some research they concluded that her bad cells were dying faster than her kidneys could handle. Fluid was starting to fill her lungs. All this caused was a little shortness of breath and being that she is monitored every 20 minutes, they fixed the problem very quickly.

They gave her a solution that would help her to use the bathroom to get rid of those fluids. 5 minutes after the solution was given at 11am until about 3pm she got rid of 6 litres of fluid! That's nearly 4 lbs! She is feeling a lot better today and more energetic.

Jack is amazing. He is just a super baby. He is taking 2 ounces every 3 hours. He hardly cries, and when he does its only for a few seconds. His skin and hair are darkening up too. We couldn't have hoped for a better son.

We also got Emily some more cute comfy clothes.

What Emily will have to do to win

Rigorous but proven effective.

Why we win no matter what

We caught Jacks first big smile on camera. He went to the pediatrician today with my parents. Everything went great. He is an ounce under his birth weight and 20 inches long! Sniff* I remember him being 18.5 inches like it was 3 days ago...oh wait that was 3 days ago.

I ran around all day talking to the school about letting her just graduate. The results aren't in just yet but it's looking like the admissions office is leaving it up to the Dean if the English college. Emily got an A in his class last semester so I think our odds are good.

Work has been incredibly generous and such a huge support during this time. They have gone above accommodating and we are so grateful for that.

Prognosis and improvement

So Emily has B cell lymphoblastic leukemia. As far as we know she will be in the hospital for a month. They started her on steroids last night and you can already see the difference and improvement

The picture in the blue and white is from yesterday and the picture in the Grey and pink is from today of just one treatment.

Much Needed Baby And Momma Time

Jack and Emily finally got some alone time today. I don't know who is more tired, Emily who got a spinal tap, iv port and bone marrow sample, CT and MRI scans in one morning or Jack who is 2 days old and just started to open his eyes.

The Beginning

So there we were, sitting in the doctors office waiting to hear what was wrong with Emily's shoulder and neck. The doctor (doctor Codd from Glenwood/hillspring) told us that the biopsy that Emily did the previous Friday turned concluded that she had cancer and that the baby had to come out that day or as soon as possible. We had an hour and a half to get checked in to our room where a whirlwind of emotion hit us. The hospital staff was really nice and after an epidural and 6 pushes, Baby Jack was born. He was 6.7 lbs and 18.5 inches of awesome. Hardly ever cries, such an easy goin little guy that we feel that the Lord told him to go easy on us for the first little while. 

 He looked like his mom at first but he is surprisingly darkening up lol.

 Most of his faces seem to be like, "is it ok to cry like all the other babies yet? no? ok".

Emily is doing just fine. She has had an internal IV placed, a bone marrow sample as well as a spinal tap. For being a person who doesn't like needles, she is absolutely amazing. It's no wonder where Jack gets his courage and calm from. My parents are here and they are so great. They take little Jack and night to let Emily sleep. They have been so understanding and willing to help us in any way needed.

While Emily is focusing on treatments and recovery, I am the task man. I am fixing the school, work and insurance situations as well as moving logistics, family helper coordination and general informer. I will post and update as much as I can. We love that everyone is so willing to help and the miracles keep rolling in. In order to not overwhelm Emily and I with phone calls, please check the blog first for details on how everything is going. parents are exempt. Thank you again for all of your prayers and support! Lots more to come and if you have any questions, please comment on the posts with questions and Emily and I will do our best to answer them in the next post or two.

Managers conference

A few weeks ago. Emily and I went to Utah for a managers conference. We had a blast staying at the hotel. We would go to the hot tub every night because I was in meetings pretty much all day long. The company took Emily and I snowshoeing up to a yurt! They had a 5 star chef cookout a five course meal. Unfortunately most people were full after the second course. It was very delicious and I'm very happy that nobody liked rack of lamb except for me. So I had probably 6 plates of lamb. Then we went to a BYU mens volleyball game with some friends from Thailand. We also stayed with Sarah and Matt and Tennyson over the weekend we went to the zoo in and Tennyson was so funny and so sweet. The conference went really well I learned a lot of things and Emily got a lot of homework done.

General conference

Last weekend Emily and I went to Utah for General Conference. Are friends Ben and Devin had special tickets for us to sit with her family during conference. Those tickets also got us into a special lunch where all of the General Authorities eat in between sessions. We met elder cook and elder Bowen and also elder wick. The one who talked about his wife jumping out of the car with their baby. Then Devins mom took us on a tour of their neighborhood and showed us where sherry do elder Nelson, Elder Hales, and many others lives. We booked a hotel for cheap and it was super creepy and, well, super cheap. I didn't want to stay there I would have rather stayed with Sarah or Emily's grandparents but we're already but the room and it was too late to cancel the plus side of the location was that it was right across the street from the red iguana. So we had an awesome food there. We also stopped by Sarah and Matt house in played more card games and Matt taught us a lot of cool games. We're so happy to hear about his job and anxious for everyone to come stop by our place and hang out because we have a lot more room then we had before. probably triple the space.

Our apt.

This is our awesome apartment! We got couches that needed some TLC so we got a brown sharpie and that did the trick! It was awesome how well it worked. That's the before and after pictures. We bought the entertainment center and the foot rest/table too. All the colors matched! The picture in our room is big and fun to look at. Its really really big haha.