Updates

Today at clinic, Nathan's doctors took him off of all of his medicines except one that he'll have to take for about 6 months!!!! This is so exciting for us!!!!!!

We're looking at either January 27th or 28th for his scans to see if he's in remission. The doctor said based off of his past history it's looking good.

Nathan enjoyed a wonderful Christmas!!! The doctor said in a few months we can resume any activities he enjoys!!!! He can also return to church in a few months!!! Yay!!! Though I'm not sure how he's going to act because he's been out of church so long, he's not really used to having to sit still.

I'll post more updates toward the end of January after the scans!!!! Remember no news is good news :-)

I Will Find A Way - Fred Hammond

I just love this song and wanted to post it. God Bless

He's Done

I can't put into words what we're feeling right now. Nathan is officially coming off of treatment!!!!! His last day of chemo was yesterday and today he's home!!!! I'm so excited!

I can't gather the emotions I've felt. I've been in really good spirits. I sat down on Wed. night and just reflected on how this all began, in January Nathan was in a ton of pain and couldn't even move his left eye at all. Diagnosed with stage 3 cancer the doctors couldn't even tell us anything except the medicine they were going to try. They couldn't guarantee anything.

I've seen a lot this year and I have to thank God over and over. We don't have a declaration of remission yet and I'm not going to worry over the future. For now I'm just glad to be celebrating this present milestone.

It's been a long year, we said goodbye to the people on the floor today and had a mini celebration full of gifts and hugs. I almost got emotional when the resident walked in who sat with me the first week of Nathan's diagnosis, a ton of memories came back.

It's bittersweet. I've spent a ton of time on that floor and I genuinely love the staff and families like my own family. I've hung out in the hall at the desk many times at midnight and beyond talking to them and laughing when Nathan was asleep, I'll truly miss them. It was funny because as we hugged we knew as much as we all loved each other we never wanted to see each again at least not on that floor :-).

Dear Lord,

I thank you. As weird as it may sound to those who may not understand I thank you for what we went through this year. It drove us to our knees in ways I never thought were possible. I thank you for the hard times, I thank you for the good times. I thank you for the lessons learned.

The most important thing to me right now Lord is that we don't forget. I've been reading the Old Testament lately in Leviticus and Numbers about the grumbling and complaining of the Israelites. It seems so stupid to me. They saw all the plagues in Egypt, they literally saw a sea part right in front of their eyes yet they still grumbled and complained against you.

Lord I don't want to become them. I don't want to forget this ordeal. I saw you in action throughout this year. I've kept my sanity this year thanks only to you. You've been my strength and my comfort. You've changed my entire perspective and I don't want to go back to the way I was before. I want to continue learning and growing and I truly want this family to be used by you.

In the end let your will be done.

In Jesus Name

Amen

Welcome to the North Pole!!!!!!

Nathan had a wonderful time!!!!!! Unfortunately he didn't make it into any of the news shots :-( he was off somewhere when I was on talking!

Happy Birthday Nathan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nathan will be 4 tomorrow (December 6th)!

Seriously at the beginning of this year I didn't know if Nathan would make it to see his birthday but by God's grace not only has he made it but he's doing really well!!!!! Thank you Lord!!!!!

Update

Hi!!!

Just a quick update.

Nathan ended up going for Chemo on Tuesday. I told the doctor to give him every anti nausea medicine on the books and it helped. He didn't throw up as much this time.

He needed a blood transfusion on Wednesday but was able to go home Wednesday evening.

His floor had a huge Thanksgiving dinner for the patients and their families. It was really nice!!!

Nathan is recovering pretty good this time. He's been pretty tired but he's home and we're thankful for that!!!!!

One more hospital stay left!!!!! Next month will be it and then he'll get his last scans in January!!! I'm praying they come back clear! It's been a llllooooonnnnnngggggg year!!!!!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at home. Sam and I put together a nice dinner, a lady from church contributed to it with the BEST macaroni and cheese you've ever eaten. LOL secretly when we found out she was gonna cook it for us we were pretty glad that no one else could come so we got it all to ourselves (greedy I know).

I'll update more later as I'm kind of in a rush. Keep a friend of mine in prayer. I met a new mother at the hospital last week who's 9 month old was just diagnosed with leukemia the week before.

My heart goes out to this husband and wife. I remember all too vividly the first time we heard Nathan had cancer. I talked to her for quite awhile. They have 4 children all together ages 5 and under. They're a WONDERFUL family. Please keep them in prayer because they have a long road ahead and they're just starting out.

Leukemia is different from Nathan's cancer, thankfully Nathan got to come home a lot but Leukemia patients sometimes stay months at a time and for this little guy and their family it's no different, but please pray because as soon as flu season hits the siblings won't be allowed at the hospital (This happened to us last year with Peyton). And it's really hard to be separated from your other children to take care of one, it puts such a strain on the family that most people just can't understand. Anyway, she's been heavy on my mind so I'm asking everyone to take a minute and pray for her.

Sophie Scholl

Seriously, I just watched the best movie ever and wanted to share it with you.

It's about Sophie Scholl. Have you guys heard of her? Well neither had I until last week. I was listening to Family Life last week and Barbara Rainey mentioned her saying she was a courageous person. Most of you know that I'm a history buff. I love history, maybe I should've majored in that instead of computers in college. Anyway I looked her up and her story is so inspiring. You can read about her here.

Then I went to Youtube to see if anyone had posted any history videos on there and found this movie of her final days and watched it. Below is the trailer. And below that is the first part of the movie. You can rent it or watch the entire movie on youtube. Whoever LiberalDemocrat83 is out there, they posted the entire thing so below is part one and you can follow the links to find the rest of the parts (I think there's 16 total). Such an inspiring movie.

It's all in a different language with subtitles and truthfully that made the movie all the more fantastic, suspenseful, and interesting in my opinion. Seriously when I started it I couldn't stop, though I had too because Nathan woke up early from his nap...followed by Peyton :-) But then I picked it up later on and finished it. Hope you guys enjoy learning about Sophie as much as I did.

Oh and if you have a netflix account you can stream it online here!!!!

God Bless

This is the Trailer for the movie

This is Part 1 of the movie