We had great news today. April’s white blood cell count went from .1 (yesterday), to 1.5 today! We also walked around the unit wings 4 times (almost a mile). Thank you for the prayers.

Jonathan here again, and this will be pretty brief. First of all, thank you for your prayers. There will be a few specific requests at the end of this post.

The first couple of days after the stem cell transplant were pretty good. We walked the halls, ate regularly, watched a few of the Jaws movies , etc.

And then day 3 or 4 (after the transplant) came. April has suffered through some intense side effects – burning and blisters on her skin, throat sores that make it impossible to swallow (she hasn’t had a gulp of any liquid or any food in days), a fever at times, lack of good deep sleep, and plenty more. A pain pump has helped. And I’m happy to report that she is able to speak again pretty freely.

Please pray for continued recovery – specifically that her white blood cell count increases (she was at 0, went to .1, and is at 0 again today).

Compared to earlier in the week, things are actually much better. Also, April’s Mom came to allow me get some sleep at the apartment during the night. The pain pump meant hourly vital checks…

Again, thanks for your prayers. God is good. We can’t always understand our present situation, but our future is on a firm foundation thanks to Jesus.

This is Jonathan. Today is a big day.

It is time for the stem cell transplant. We should begin in less than an hour. So, please pray that everything goes well and that her blood counts bounce back quickly. Also, the chemo is causing some difficult side effects, so please pray that they are minimal, and that her recovery is swift and complete. Finally, please continue to pray that this is the last step in this story. We are ready to get back to our new life, with a completely different view of priorities and the value of a day.

Please enjoy this video that our church made for April. Oceans has been one of our favorite songs through this time, and the FCC band was amazingly kind to record this for us in the studio.

As of Tuesday, I have been admitted into MDA’s stem cell transplant unit and we are going full force. The expected length of stay is 3-4 weeks, but (don’t tell the staff) I’m aiming for 3 weeks or less. I promise I won’t walk out, but that’s my goal. Below is just some lighter stuff  – for once, right? Please continue your encouragement and prayers. I hear that I will have some low days ahead of me.

My Warrior Hair Style (which I’m losing again).

Our daughters and their friend made a 47 second video and sent it to us. 🙂 View it here.

Our 11-year-old’s drawing: “Daddy at Work”   For those of you who work from home, you totally get all of the details.  By the way, I questioned Jonathan when he left his good job 21 months ago. Now I see how his mobile working abilities paid off.

Our Battle Song!

p.s. Thank you to Jonathan’s brother and wife for caring for our youngest this round. And thank you to our church family for the fun updates on our daughters at camp – and all the love you are showing them!

I am so thankful for the clear scans, and thank you for joining in with your comments of celebration! I find that each day offers highs and lows, and that news was definitely a moment of relief and praise. I’m on such an adventure (which by choice, I’d never choose), and here is my update.

After meeting with the nurse practitioner who gave me the CT & PET results, I headed to “Apheresis” for my first stem cell collection. The process uses a centrifuge to pull the stem cells from the blood. They expected my collection to take a few visits, but I had an abundance of stem cells in my blood stream, so we collected it all in one shot!

Friday morning I met with a dental oncologist. He had to give the go ahead for the stem cell transplant from his point of view. He wanted the background on how my diagnosis unfolded. I explained how just prior to my symptoms of lymphoma starting, I had an infected tooth (that had had a root canal and crown put on it 4 1/2 years earlier). I told him how this has been the suspected cause by a couple of other oncologists. He agreed that this is the most logical source of my lymphoma, but as I’ve been told before, we will never know for sure.

After meeting with him, I had to get my IV exchanged for a smaller one. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, but the nurse had a very difficult time removing the larger one and inserting the new one. The process took a long time and it made me very nervous. The IV didn’t feel right to me and I was sent to X-ray to check for placement. I was then sent back to the nurse because the X-ray showed the IV was all coiled up. I was tired, my emotions were high and the idea of going through this procedure again was agonizing. The charge nurse was my nurse this time. She struggled forever to remove it and then finally began to replace it. I could feel my anxiety rising. The placement caused heart palpitations and I was mentally picturing what was physically happening with this IV in my chest. I  could feel my throat tightening, my heart pounding, and I warned her that I was about to have an anxiety attack. I’m sure this didn’t help her as she struggled with the placement, especially after hearing her say under her breath, ” This will be a miracle if this works.” I breathed deeply through the attack and she was able to complete the placement with the subsequent X-Ray thankfully showing it was exactly where it needed to be.

This is the point of my story where I’m going to lose some of you. I’ve even questioned if I

should write this, but I believe it to be true and I want to share it. I’ve had a hard time finding any joy in this trial. However, I do believe there is a blessing in it. It forces you to get to the nitty gritty of your faith and challenges you on what you truly believe. I have never felt closer to God, more dependent on God and more aware of Him in every aspect of my life. After my emotional upheaval, Jonathan and I grabbed a bite to eat, then I went to sit on a bench under a covered driveway while Jonathan went to get the car.

No one was sitting near me. I crossed my legs, had my hat pulled low and began to text a friend. My body language was completely closed off. There was nothing visibly obvious about me that would show that I had been upset. A tall, thin black man walked up to me. He was dressed in a valet uniform, had missing teeth, a short beard and warm, brown eyes. As he spoke, I wanted so badly to remember every word he said, but I couldn’t. I just remember the gist of what he said.  He told me to stop texting and lift my hat/face so he could see my beautiful smile. I don’t remember him taking my hand, but he cupped my right hand in between his hands.  His message to me was gentle, but emphatic: I must not worry anymore (in a sense that I had no choice in this, I just cannot worry anymore). And believe.  They go hand-in-hand. Relinquish it, no worry & believe. He said something about the doctors told him (in the past) he had a hopeless diagnosis. He said something about Jesus. He gave me a sense of healing. As soon as he began speaking to me, the tears silently flowed down my cheeks. All I could say before he left was, ” Thank you. I needed to hear that.” There was no introduction when he walked up to me, and no closure before he walked away. I believe this was an angel. I sensed that as I listened, he knew that I knew that he was an angel.

The Bible clearly states there are angels. It also says we will not always recognize them as angels. I honestly, at my core, believe I got to experience one. It was beautiful and reassuring.

Talk about an emotional day.

I rarely have two consecutive days without medical appointments, but I had Saturday and Sunday off.  Saturday morning we left for Texas Hill Country. I know, I thought Texas was flat too. But, it was beautiful! Our friends’ aunt opened her ranch cabin to us. It is set on 90+ acres of hill country with the cabin sitting right on a river with a beautiful cliff landscape following along the banks. Amazing! Their satellite tv was shut off, there wasn’t any wifi and we had sketchy cell service. Jonathan has always felt his connection with God is most evident in nature. The weekend was filled with beauty, and the apex was when a low, bright, upward shooting star suddenly appeared and separated into two bright dashes of light.

It was the most peaceful, solitude-filled, beautiful place I’ve ever experienced without a tent. It was a weekend of rest, refreshing and renewal for both Jonathan and me.

On Monday, I was back to reality with a very painful bone marrow biopsy and yesterday I had a bone scan – a scan that has a radioactive tracer “light up” your bones in images. Today I’m off, and tomorrow is a full day of appointments. Lots of appointments until I’m admitted on Tuesday for the stem cell transplant.

If you’ve made it this far down, thanks for sticking with me. I questioned whether to write all of this. I feel I need to share it. We live such busy, noisy lives and I want to reassure you that there’s more than what we see. And it is worth pursuing.

It has been one year since I squeezed in a quick visit to a local walk-in clinic. It was July 17th when I sought out an evaluation of the frequent headaches I’d had since May and the small, growing knot under my right eyebrow I’d noticed in June. Surprisingly, I was sent immediately to an imaging center for a CT scan.  It has been a long, windy story from there, but here I am one year later.

Wednesday is an important day and I ask for your prayers. After 3 surgeries, 7 cycles of chemo, and 29 radiation treatments (and being in the midst of stem cell transplant preparation), it is time to be scanned to determine if I’m in remission. Please pray for absolutely clear scans.

Two nights ago I talked to our daughters to check-in on them. Once again, I intended to encourage them, but they reversed it and encouraged me. Our younger daughter told me she felt sorry for me. I told her that this situation stinks, but that I’m at the best cancer hospital in the world, I have the best doctors and I’m getting the best medicine.  She interrupted me and said, “Don’t forget God.” Yes! How could I have not said that first?

Later, our older daughter and I spoke. She (as many first borns do) had made a list of three things she wanted to remember to tell me. The first two were regarding some online orders for her, and number 3 on the list was “God”. She said, “God is watching you and He has plans for you. He has plans to prosper you and not to harm you.”

It was a comfort for me to hear these words from them, and a reminder to have the faith of a child.

Our youngest child prayed for me at a Mexican restaurant on Sunday. He said it very quietly and no one could really hear him, but my sister said she caught one word, “treatment”. God knows what he said, and that’s all that matters.

Thank you for your prayers too. I’ll never know exactly what you’ve said to God on my behalf, but God does.  And that’s all that matters.

It’s been an emotionally draining week since I last wrote. On a high note, I finished my last radiation therapy appointment on the 23rd! We took it to a max dose of 52 gray/29 treatments to seek out every last cancer cell and destroy it! After ringing the celebration bell and heading to my stem cell appointment, we walked by the MDA message board that Jonathan and the kids had written on the week before. My mom wanted to write a message this time. She’s one that normally contemplates and seeks out what to write (looking in her Bible, devotional, online, etc.) but, this time the words came to her suddenly. She had my dad write it on the board.

I decided to “claim” this as truth and believe that God has put me into remission and healed me. Today I awoke to this verse on my phone.

And this response from my sister after I passed the verse along to my family.

I’m not positive God always works this way, but I’m taking this as God speaking in my life!

As for the downs of the week – which how in the world can I let them surpass the goodness of God? –  I’ve had some doozies. (I’ve never written that word, so I’m not sure that’s even spelled correctly.) I had the catheter inserted into my chest. Once again, not a procedure I’d recommend you seek out, but not as bad as I anticipated. I had two outpatient days of chemo with the second day including a take-home backpack with IV fluids and medicine. (what?)

The backpack was interesting enough without the ER visit that followed that evening. After returning home from the second day of chemo, I began having nausea, vomiting, chest pain and muscle aches running down my arms. I thought maybe it was an anxiety attack, so I took medication for that. I thought it was reflux, so Jonathan drove around town in the middle of the night looking for antacids, but finally it all became too much, so Mom, Jonathan and I headed to the MDA emergency center. Just to top it off, after asking the cop where the ER was, I had to bolt out of the car to vomit into a conveniently littered McDonald’s cup. One thing I forgot though, was the backpack. So after quickly darting from the car, my tethered companion made his location known when it jerked me back.  I grabbed him and thankfully felt no pain from his pull.

The ER doc gave me pain meds, anti-nausea meds, and some electrolytes that I was low on. I guess they were just side effects from the rigorous treatment.

Let me see if I can wrap this up. The week closed out with 6 family members heading back home, and a sadness knowing it’ll be weeks before we are with the kids again. Jonathan is now officially the “caregiver” of my IV catheter maintenance – ‘in sickness and health’- those words ring true. I look like a bandit which adds to my beauty and mystique. 🙂 My skin is horribly damaged from the radiation, so I have ointments slathered on at all times and now that I’m prepping for stem cell transplant I must wear a mask to prevent getting sick. Just when I thought it couldn’t get more RIDICULOUS. . .

This week and next, I’m giving myself daily injections to mobilize my stem cells and get them ready for harvest in 2 weeks.  Jonathan is picking up the pre-filled syringes at the pharmacy as I’m writing this. Yesterday, they wanted a $10,000 copay at the register, but thankfully the insurance came through today after some hospital footwork and now all $15,000 is fully covered.  (Update: Insurance came through with one caveat, I will go in daily for a nurse to administer the shots.) (Update to the update: the pharmacist called and said the insurance will now cover me to pick up the shots and self administer.) God is good. We just have to look for Him in the details sometimes.

Prayer Requests – Stamina: mentally, physically, emotionally & spiritually. Healing of my body. Patience and trust for our entire family.

With family here, the weeks are flying by. It’s definitely a nice distraction from purely focusing on my health situation.  We’ve packed in a lot of fun as our time together is now starting to wind down.  It’s funny how we’ve probably had more concentrated family time here in Houston than we’ve ever had back home.  Not only do we have my parents and our kids here, but we also had lunch last week with Jonathan’s aunt and uncle from NC, and my sister took an impromptu flight from Atlanta to come stay with us until mid-week. Our apartment is busting at the seams, but we are managing fine and having fun at that.

Let me see if I can quickly update the happenings here. For family fun last week, we went to the

Houston Zoo, the Natural Science Museum and we took the kids to the movies to see “How to Train Your Dragon 2.” In medical happenings, I had 5 more radiation treatments, and some tests in preparation for the stem cell transplant – chest  xray, EKG, labs, etc.

I will have my last radiation treatment tomorrow morning at 7:45 am, then I will move directly on to the stem cell department (literally, I go there at 8 am). There will be no lapse of time between the two treatments. As of now, we are proceeding with an autologous transplant (using my own stem cells).  We do not have a donor lined up,

and even after finding a match, it could take many weeks before we could harvest their stem cells and give them to me.

So, the plan, as I understand it, is to do an autologous transplant and then follow-up in 2-3 months with an allogeneic (donor) transplant. Or watch me like a hawk after the autologous transplant, and at the first sign or recurrence, do an allogeneic (donor) transplant.  Have I confused you enough? It’s a lot to understand and we will just have to take it step by step.

Tomorrow I’ll have more lab work, sign my informed consent for treatment and a few other necessary hurdles. On Tuesday, I will get the dreaded catheter inserted into my chest that’ll stay there for a few months for infusions and blood draws. (I got over the tungsten eye shield insertion, so I imagine I’ll be fine with this as well – so much of it is getting past the idea of it.)  On Thursday, I’ll have a light outpatient dose of chemotherapy – that helps get the stem cells “mobilized”. The next 2 weeks include daily shots to help my bone marrow bring an abundance of stem cells into my bloodstream for later harvest (collection and refrigeration).

Please pray: that I’m in remission as I finish radiation & that my (harshly) treated skin will begin to heal, for wisdom for my doctors as each step of the stem cell transplant is executed, for the well-being of our family and continued growth of our faith and trust in God.

Praise: I thank God for the immensely talented, brilliant and loving radiation team that has surrounded me. It is surprisingly hard for me to leave them as I must move on to the next medical team, but as I leave,  I’m confident that I’ve seen God work through their personalized and skillful care.

Happy Father’s Day! It is great to have our children and my dad and mom here on this special day. Jonathan and my dad are wonderful examples of Godly men, and I’m blessed to have them on this journey.

It has been a wonderful and busy week doing fun activities, and it has also been physically and emotionally taxing  in regards to my treatment.

We are making the most of our time with our family being reunited. This week we’ve been to the aquarium, the Space Center, the fine arts museum (including a round-trip ride on the Metro Rail), the apartment swimming pool, individual and group visits to the hospital and family worship at church.

Jonathan and I also threw in a quick trip to Austin to attend a taping of Austin City Limits.  Jonathan and I entered a drawing for tickets a week ago, and I received an email saying out of 7,000 entries, my name had been drawn. (If you need help with low odds, I’m your girl). We had a nice escape to see Ed Sheeran.

I’ve had radiation every day. I’m responding very well to it, but my skin is suffering.  I’m very red, I’ve lost eyelashes on one eye and most of both eyebrows, I’m also treating broken skin and a mild infection around my eye. (I go everywhere with sunglasses and a head covering now – indoors and outdoors.)

My dad, Jonathan and I had a sobering doctor’s appointment with my stem cell doctor. He was much less encouraging this visit. He said that 50 medical personnel discussed my case for 30 minutes, and there continues to be a debate on the best type of stem cell transplant. The argument continues to be around the super-aggressive nature of my lymphoma, the resistance to chemotherapy and the effectiveness of the two types of stem cell transplants (weighing risks and benefits). We may have the decision decided for us based on MD Anderson’s discovery that a search for my stem cell match wasn’t initiated for me back home. They are now urgently moving on the process. Anyway, it is all overwhelming and I need your prayers on this.

Jonathan and I spent an hour with my radiation oncologist and her resident physician on Friday. She helped us filter some of the information from the stem cell appointment, encouraged us with the progress we have made using radiation, and ultimately she and her colleague have decided to take my treatment to the maximum dose (at the expense of my skin). This will be in effect for 6 more treatments. Since radiation is the definitive treatment, it is imperative that no microscopic, undetectable disease is left.

It has been a wonderful and exhausting week. We thank God for our family and my physicians, and pray for healing with our Heavenly Father receiving the glory.

Please pray for: our family time, my physicians’ discernment and wisdom, physical healing and emotional stamina.