Get Away :)

A little blast from the past....

At a dance our Senior year of College - Dating days

Jim and I on the day we graduated from College. May of 2000 (just a couple months before we got married)

At our wedding shower

Our wedding day - July 1st, 2000

Our honeymoon (above and below)

And baby #1

#2

#3

#4

And now :)

These 10+ years have gone fast! God truly has blessed Jim and I with each other. Our life and marriage hasn't always been easy or by any means perfect, but we are committed to loving each other for the long haul and making our marriage good. And by God's grace, our marriage is stronger than it's ever been. We've just come out of the hardest two+ years that we've ever gone through together, yet God has sustained and strengthened us through it. Everyone who has small children knows that it can be hard to pour into each other. With the busyness of life... work, caring for a home, meals and taking care of lots of little people (to name a few things), life can get stressful and crazy.

Last time Jim and I got away by ourselves was in 2006 for a friends wedding so I think we're a little overdue :)! Well all that said, Jim and I are getting away this week for 3 days/2 nights just the two of us to recharge and spend time together (and to celebrate Jim's birthday) with no distractions. We are very blessed that my mom and step-dad (thank you both!!!) will be coming to our home to stay with our crew to give us a break. We are so excited for the time away! Last week Jim told me that he's never been so excited for anything in his whole life. I'm so thankful for a husband that loves to spend time with me!

Below are some pictures that were sent to us from the place that we are staying. It is a beautiful little cabin and area so we plan on doing some hiking through the woods and soaking in our hot tub in the evenings. We are so excited to eat out, sleep in and just be together :)!

Clinic

Abbey had her monthly clinic visit a couple days ago. We will now go monthly for her to have blood work and an exam. It's so awesome going to clinic just for a checkup and not for chemo!

Her blood looked awesome this past visit. Her white blood cell count was almost in normal kid range, platelets have never been so high (since she was diagnosed) and overall everything looked beautiful. I almost cried (happy tears) when our nurse gave me the paper with her numbers on it. The days of no immunity are over and I can't tell you how amazing that feels!

She did good with her blood draw. She got nervous for a minute, but after a quick pep talk she handed her arm over to her nurse and got it over with. I am so proud of her!

I have been doing much better than I thought I would with her being off treatment and the anxiety that we were told could come with that. I have only had one night so far where I was googling (leukemia relapse) and have overall felt very confident that she is good. When I see a bruise or anything that brings me back to those first days, it's natural for my mind to want to go back to the beginning, but I have to say that I'm really thankful for the way that I've been feeling as I know God has been giving me a peace so we can all go on with our lives.

Thank you for your continued love. God is so good and we are so blessed!

Abbey playing Candy Land with a Child Life Specialist

And braiding a bracelet :)

Man & Woman of the Year

Hi :). So sorry it's been a while again since I did any updates on here. Up until this past Monday night, I had been using most of my free time after the kids were in bed to work on a talk that I gave Monday night. Let me explain. We have been connected with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society (LLS) for quite some time. They have been a wealth of knowledge for us since Abbey was first diagnosed. They have helped in Abbey's medication co-pays and have treated us to tickets for lots of events such as CAVS games, Indians games, the zoo and The Polar Express. We have been very blessed by the support that they have given us over these past couple years.

Well a couple of months ago we were contacted by them to tell us that Abbey had been chosen to be "The Girl of the Year" for their big fundraising event called Man & Woman of the Year. There are 2 children picked each year, a girl and a boy who are both blood cancer survivors. They are in a way the motivation and poster children of the campaign.

This is how it works.... There are 9 candidates and each candidate has 10 weeks to raise as much money as they can over that time. The candidates are all outstanding citizens in our community. They are hard working, goal-oriented, compassionate people. Their relentless efforts are focused on making life better for hundreds of thousands of patients battling blood cancers. They will use our story (and Eric Reising's story who is the Boy of the Year) as they do many events over the 10 week period to raise as much money as possible for LLS. I was just looking at Todd Stuart's blog (he's one of the candidates) and his goal is to raise $100,000! Pretty amazing how hard these individuals work!

Well Monday evening was the Kickoff event for the fundraiser to begin. It was a wonderful evening! It was at a beautiful country club where we were treated to dinner and then us and the Reisings had the opportunity to share our journeys through leukemia. I was overwhelmed by the response that we received after our talks as people were so motivated and excited to get out there and start their campaigns. We got to meet all the candidates and lots of pictures were taken of Abbey, Eric and the candidates and their teams.

We are so thankful for the way in which God continues to allow our story to be heard and for it to be used for good. Just when I think things are settling down, another opportunity falls into our laps! When we left the kickoff on Monday night, my heart was so full as so many people were impacted and excited to get out there to raise money for blood cancer awareness and funds to further in the research. We are so honored to be a part of this!

Today a candidate came over and told us of all the plans that his team of 15 people have for their campaign. He shot a video of me again sharing our story and took some video of Abbey. The ideas that these people are coming up with are so unique, fun and amazing! From auctions to runs to black tie events to battle of the bands! We can't wait to see all the places that our story will go over these next 10 weeks.

On May 20th is the grande finale. We were told that when you walk in this final event, you can just feel the energy in the room. There will be about 400 people there and it sounds like an evening that we will never forget. Everything from a live band to a silent and live auction to fabulous food and cocktails, it will be a night to remember. And they will be doing a slideshow of Abbey and Eric's journeys along with our families given the opportunity to share. That evening, one of the candidates will be crowned Man or Woman of the Year! We will keep you updated on all that will be happening over these next 10 weeks :). Below are some pictures from kickoff.

My mom and Abbey :)

The Boy & Girl of the Year! Both leukemia survivors :)!!!

Sharing our story

Abbey, Eric and some of the candidates

Abbey and Eric giving the candidates their gift bags

Abbey and one of the teams

What a night!

For more information about Man and Woman of the Year, click here. And to see Abbey and Eric on LLS's website, click here :).

More pics from another beautiful day

Spring Tease

Winters in Northeast Ohio can be pretty brutal. Most winters are cold and snowy, but this winter has been especially white. I shouldn't be complaining about it because I love having all 4 seasons and we really do have beautiful winters (and springs falls and summers too :), but after a while we really start getting spring fever! Every year around this time (especially since we've had kids) we are ready for the daffodils to start blooming and for the warmer temps to come. Below is a pic of Jim doing what he does very often around here in winter!

Well today we had a little taste of spring hopefully being somewhere in the not so distant future. We had temps that got into the high 50's and the snow is melting! We finally saw some green and it felt warm compared to what we've been used to lately. Caleb was so hilarious when we got outside. He was like a caged animal, finally set free to roam around. He had a smile on his face the whole time we were out and couldn't walk fast enough (yes, he's walking :) to the next thing that he wanted to explore. It was so fun to watch him soak it all in! Abbey and Micah too enjoyed every minute of being out!

Well like all good things, our time outside had to come to an end. Lunch and nap time were still a must for the day so we had to come in. Poor Caleb. He was sooo sad :(. Hoping for more nice days soon to get these kids back out!

And I wanted to do a little update on our Jake too! Poor kid misses so much when he's in school (like playing outside with us today!). I feel a personal fun day in his near future (my mom used to let me stay home every once in a while for no reason and I do the same with Jacob :). Don't tell Jim!!! Just kidding Jim... love you babe! :) Anyways, last week Jacob was in his first pinewood derby car race. It was sooo cool! Jacob is a cub scout and Jim and him made a car together. He placed 6th in the race and the day was sooo much fun!

Jacob and his car

There were lots of really neat cars there! Jim and Jake got some ideas for his next year :)!

It was so professional and fun for the kids (and adults too)!

The kids looking on as Jacob's car raced

Well there you have it :)! Two posts in 2 days. I'm totally on a roll here! Hope you all have a great weekend!!

All is Well :)

Hi :)! I think we have the very best people following our story and loving us in the whole wide world! I have gotten several comments and emails over the past few days asking if everything is o.k. since I haven't updated in a while. I can't tell you how much that means to me, to know that so many of you are still keeping up with us and caring about us. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking this out with us! Sometimes I get tired of how never ending this journey has been and to know that many of you still care means the world to me!

Things have been pretty "normal" since coming home from the hospital. We've all been healthy (minus a random fever that Jacob had for a day) and have been staying home as much as possible in attempts to keep us from picking anything else up! Abbey is slowly, but surely regaining some strength. She was pretty fragile after coming home from the hospital and I know that week in the hospital took a toll on her little body. I have been making lemon chicken a lot (still the kids very favorite meal) to try to get a little more meat back on her bones :). Her chest in healing up nicely where her port came out and it is sooo awesome that it's not there anymore!

We had a clinic visit last week and they had to do a regular blood draw in her arm. She was nervous and upset right before Kathy did it, but after a little pep talk she put her brave face on and did amazing. It will be an adjustment getting used to the pokes in her arm, but I am confident that she will learn to accept this next step in the process.

Our next clinic visit is in early March. I am going to start working on writing letters to our doctors and nurses. Every time I even think about it my eyes well with tears. How do you thank the people that saved your child's life? I am praying that God will give me the words to show our deepest appreciation for each of their roles in walking us through every step of this journey and more importantly for giving us the gift of getting to spend a lifetime with our precious daughter.

And thank you to each of you who have faithfully followed this blog. Whether you are one of our dearest friends, someone we've met along the way, or a quiet follower, each of you have played a role in this story and for you we are thankful!

I have been bad at taking pictures lately! I will get some of all the kids over these next few days and will update some about each of them too :).

Sheesh!

Where to begin... These last few days have been pretty crazy! On Wednesday, I was literally sitting on the couch writing a post about Abbey feeling better and how nice it was to be home from the hospital when the phone rang and on the other end was her nurse telling me that we needed to pack our bags and get to the hospital immediately. I was even going to add this picture (below) of her sipping hot chocolate on the couch from the night before and tell you just how happy we were that she had gotten over that last fever.

If you look back over our blog, you will see many times that I talk about the scary possibility of a bacterial infection in Abbey's blood due to her having a port in her chest and the severity of that when it does happen in a person. The reason we have always had to get her to the clinic or emergency room immediately when she has a fever is because this is a sign that that might be going on. A bacterial infection (you may have heard it called being septic) can be very serious. We were told that kids that have bad bacterial infections in their blood can end up in the picu with low blood pressure and in very bad cases their organs can start shutting down. So to say that this is something that has been a fear of mine since day 1 would be pretty accurate. We made it through her whole treatment with never having a positive blood culture.

So I have to be completely honest when I say that we were shocked that this was happening. Here we are, DONE with her treatment. Last week we had that one overnight stay because of her being sick with something, then after a day of being home, we were being called back. We hadn't been in the hospital for 15 months (I will always remember our last hospital stay because it was as long ago as Caleb's age. I was due with Caleb any minute last time we were here. The day after she was discharged, he was born!).

So when we got the call that we were needing to go back in, and for something this serious, it was hard for me to catch my breath as I heard the words over the phone. I can't tell you anything our nurse said other than that Abbey had a positive blood culture and that she would definitely be admitted to the hospital on the children's oncology floor and to get here as soon as possible.

These past several days have been kind of a blur. Once we got here the doctors had already decided that it was very important that they take her port out ASAP. Since that was the source of the infection, and she is done with her treatment anyways, it was a unanimous decision to get it out right away. The plan before this was for it to stay in for a couple months. This is normal procedure for kids coming off treatment because they still get frequent blood draws and the port makes that so easy and less painful for them. But with this going on there was no question that they needed to get it out.

So Thursday early morning, (the morning after she was admitted) she was in surgery getting her port out. She did awesome! I on the other hand was told that the doctor would be out to talk to me 30 minutes after they took her back. Once it past the 1 hour mark, I had to hold back the tears as I sat there waiting. Those are moments I hope to someday forget. Anyways, he finally came out and said everything went great. She hasn't complained even once that her chest is sore or bothering her. She has an iv in her hand for her antibiotics which is hurting her while the antibiotics are going in, but overall she's doing well with it. I can't tell you how wonderful it is having that port out of her body! We did get used to it to a point, but being able to carry her out of here with nothing foreign in her body will be amazing! Below is a picture of her about an hour out of surgery! What a trooper this kid is :)!

What's been amazing this whole week is that Abbey has really been feeling pretty good. I have always heard such horror stories about kids having this and just how very sick they get, but God has truly spared her from being as ill as they would've expected her to be.

We made "goo" and it's awesome! She has spent several hours playing with it and when the boys came to visit the other night we made a batch with them too :).

Tomorrow will be day 5 of us being here. We were told at first that the very earliest she would be able to leave would be Monday night. Well since she's doing so great, they're letting us leave tomorrow! She has been on iv antibiotics since we got here to kill the infection in her body and will go home on an oral antibiotic. We are sooo excited to go home!... although yesterday I asked Abbey if she is missing being home and her response, "I like being here with you mommy :)."

Abbey had to finish out this journey with a BANG and had to experience everything... Not only did she have leukemia, but after being diagnosed with that she got a blood clot in her brain as a side effect from her chemo and then to end, a bacterial infection in her blood! Never a dull moment!!

Abbey has been playing doctor all week and I usually am the patient (unless one of her stuffed animals is sick). It's hilarious hearing her say all the same phrases that they say to us about her! She truly doesn't miss a thing :)!

Lots of laps around the halls with the iv pole in tow.

In the playroom on the floor right after Abbey beat me playing Junior Princess Monopoly :).

Yesterday my in-laws came into town to help with the boys at home. Jim has been working through most of this and we didn't want the boys to be juggled around between lots of places and people so we are so grateful that they came to stay with them. It has been hard being away from them and I can't wait to walk in the door tomorrow and kiss them till their cheeks hurt! Last night they all came up to see us and we had a pizza party in our room. It was much needed for Abbey and I.

Pizza party in our room.

The kiddos in the room :). Micah enjoying his new "goo".

What a week it's been! Being here is something that I don't even know if I can describe. As sad as many days have been here, memories that I don't want to ever forget have also been made in these halls and rooms. Days where God has been more real than I have ever experienced in my whole life have been days that were here. I have spent hours and hours coloring with, reading to, snuggling with, pretending with and playing games with our brave little survivor and some of the moments that Abbey and I have shared here are ones that I will remember for the rest of my life. We have cried really hard here, but also have laughed really hard here. I have walked many laps around these halls, hand in hand with people that I love. We have built relationships with many of the people who have so lovingly cared for our daughter and we've met many families going through the most devastating days as we did here. Yet as hard as it's all been, I never want to forget it. I never want to take for granted a day that I have with the people that I love.

The other day I was talking to our one nurse about the different "codes" that you hear on the loud speaker of the hospital. She was telling me what each code meant and she told me that ''code blue" means that someone is dying. I immediately held Abbey tight as I know there are families that spend days, weeks and months on this floor with their children and they never get the chance to carry them out. It's heartbreaking to think about the roads that others have to walk, that have been much harder than ours. There are not words to tell you how thankful we are that tomorrow we will leave this floor with a pretty healthy five year old little girl. That I get to carry (yes I still carry my 5 year old) out to our van and go home. That tomorrow she will be running around and playing with her brothers as I know many are not as fortunate as us.

Thank you once again for praying for us this week. It has been felt and once again God has been so good to us. Blessings and love to you all!!

Hospital Re-Admission

From Jim:

Shelley asked me to do a quick post because her computer's power cord broke and now she can't use her computer. Anyway, Abbey is back in the hospital after a day at home. Her nurse called Shelley this morning and said that the blood culture that they took yesterday came back positive for a bacterial infection. Therefore, we needed to bring Abbey in right away.
So, Shelley and her sister, Stacey, took Abbey to the clinic. After a few hours in the clinic of talking with doctors, Abbey was admitted back into Rainbow 2. Abbey is getting fluids and antibiotics in order to knock out this infection. The doctors also made the decision to remove Abbey's port tomorrow! We are excited about this, but we didn't think it would happen this soon. The doctors expressed to us that this could be most likely where the infection entered/is. So, they felt that it was important to remove the port, which would help speed up the infection fight!
Hopefully Shelley will have a new power cord tomorrow and she will post some good news! One more thing... Abbey is actually doing quite well. She has no fever and Shelley said that she is in a good mood while watching lots of movies and coloring!! Thanks.

Jim