Sharing

 Playdate with Walden! Jack unfortunately could not stand the fact that Walden was playing with his favorite toy. So he crawled over and stood up right in front of him. At first Walden was like, "Hey, aren't you guys gonna do something about this?"

 Then Jack decided Walden was still in his way so he stuck his bum in Walden's face. Poor little Walden was like, hey!

Then I guess Walden gave up and decided he would just play around him. Poor little guy. My Jacko has definitely not learned how to share yet. (Joseph knows all about this as well).

Crawling Counts

Well, Tony's blood counts are coming up...slowly, very slowly. But that is actually a good thing. The slower they come up, the less likely he is to get graft vs. host disease (where the new immune system attacks him). They are are 0.7 now, so we are getting a bit closer. Tony is down to only having 3 tubes go into him: The prograf (which keeps the new immune system suppressed to prevent graft vs. host disease), Antibiotic (that they don't have in pill form), and then his nutrition. He has been working diligently to get off the nutrition. He has to eat so many calories a day before they take him off of it, so he is being forced to eat like a pregnant lady (5 or 6 small meals a day instead of 3 large meals), because he doesn't have much of an appetite and his stomach doesn't hold quite as much. It's out of practice. We are hopeful that he will be able to come home next week. A toast to a brand new year! May it be cancer free!

Carpet Cleaning

We decided we wanted things to be really clean when Tony comes home so we have been deep cleaning the apartment.

I was amazed at how much stuff we were able to fit in Jack's playroom. This is the carpet before it got cleaned, and that is the cleaner itself. I was pretty heavy. I got a great workout hauling it around. 

Here is our bedroom, we got most of the stuff right up against the wall. It was kind of gross because you could see where our bed had been. I guess we haven't vacuumed under our bed in awhile. There was a ton of dust.








After the carpets dried, we put all of the stuff on the other side of the room and then carpet cleaned the strip that had stuff on it. All in all, the apartment is looking pretty spick and span. (I scrubbed the tops of the cabinets in the kitchen........really gross. It is amazing the nooks and crannies that we forget about).

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve at the Botts! We had so much fun hangin' with the Botts and the Glenns. We had some delicious salmon and then, of course, had a wicked game of white elephant. I am pretty sure J.C. "lost."

And then Christmas morning at the Hamiltons! Jack was being sooo funny. Everytime I got the camera out, he would pull this face. 

Skyping with the Hamilton grandparents. Jack fit right in. 

Let the presents begin!

Jack got an awesome set of the "Cars" cars from Abby and Kate. He was so funny, he just sat and examined the cars from every angle. He had to make sure they were all there. Thanks for the awesome gift! 

Jack knew exactly what to do with my ferrero rochers. Yes, they are for eating, but no, they are not for you Jack. Sorry. That's mom's much awaiting Christmas gift.

Jack loved loved loved his singing soccer ball. What a perfect gift. Someone knows our family really well. 

Jack especially loved Kate's stroller. He spent so much time playing with the wheels and chewing on the handle. Sorry Kate Kate. And sorry Jack, but I still will not be getting you a pink stroller.

Tony got a pretty sweet stocking on his IV pole. Thanks mom and dad Roring. 

Tony and I doing laps at the hospital.

Jack's much awaited visit to Dad. He loved seeing Tony. We had to go to the floor's family room and Tony had to wear a mask and not touch Jack. But Jack tried pretty hard to touch him. He reached out and I think actually succeeded once in touching his arm. He misses his daddy.

And then we had a wonderful Christmas dinner at Aunt Paula's. What a wonderful bunch of people! This is the second year we have been able to go to Paula's for Christmas dinner and I am sure the tradition will continue. We sure love visiting with them. (Paula is not even in the picture! Sorry. But this is everyone else besides her, me, Claire, and Jack).

This was a wonderful Christmas surprise we got from my family. My mom took some of Tony's (millions) of hospital socks home with her when she left, and now everyone in the fam has a little piece of Tony. Haha. Even little Joseph is wearing Tony's socks.  Pretty great picture, eh?

Blood Counts

I decided that a lot of people probably don't understand exactly what I mean when I say that we are waiting for Tony's blood counts to come up. So here is a short lesson on blood counts. There are 3 things that they are mainly focused on: White blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets.

White blood cells: White blood cells are the things that pretty much make up your immune system. They fight off illnesses. When you are neutropenic, it means you don't have enough white blood cells and are at a high risk for infection. Tony has been neutropenic now for a couple weeks. (In his charts, they put everything in thousands, so when I say 4.2, it means 4.2 thousand). A healthy range of white blood cells is between 4.2 and 10.2. Tony has been 0.05 for the last little while, but in the last few days, that has changed to 0.31, so they are slowly coming back up.

Red blood cells: Red blood cells carry oxygen. You are anemic if you don't have enough blood cells. This is why Tony has been so tired is because of his low red blood cell count. A healthy range is between 4.04 and 6.13. His counts have been hanging out around 3.89 which isn't super low. Usually his red blood counts get much lower, but for some reason, this time, they have really hung in there. He has been really lucky and has not needed a blood transfusion this time.

Platelets: Platelets are the things that clot your blood and stop you from bleeding. It can be really dangerous to have low platelets because you are at risk of bleeding to death. It is called thrombocytopenia when you have low platelets. A normal range of platelets is between 140 and 440. (And remember again, that this means thousand). When you reach 10, you are at a severe risk to spontaneously bleed to death (internally), so they have to give you a platelet transfusion to bring those counts back up. Platelets have a shorter life, so he has had to have several transfusions throughout this transplant. He kept having out of control nose bleeds because his counts were so low. So he usually gets a transfusion about every 3 days.


I hope this makes sense. I am certainly not a doctor, but this is how everything works as I understand it. The doctors predict that if everything goes well, Tony should be able to come home in the next 5-7 days. The big thing are his white blood cells. The other big thing is they need to get him off of all the IVs. He needs to start eating 3 good meals a day so they can get rid of his nutrition bag. He needs to be able to swallow big pills again so they can take down the antibiotic IVs. He still has about 5 IVs so we are just waiting for him to become independent of those. Anyway, there is my lengthy update.

Santa!

We drove down into DC by the White House to go see Santa today. Kate and Jack held hands in the car. They are so cute!

We loaded the kiddos into the BOB and began our journey to Santa's Workshop. 

 And it is one really impressive workshop.

And the pictures you have all been waiting for! Jack with Santa! Santa braced himself for a crying baby, but that is not what he got. He was really surprised. I think Jack made his day. He looked at Santa, and then he looked at the camera, and then he looked back at Santa. 

While we were in line we kept saying "santa" to Jack and he said "tanta" twice. So cute!

Trees Trees Trees

Here are the Christmas trees! Our is finally up at home. It took us long enough. And yes we are very spoiled by so many people! And this little beauty is Tony's Charlie Brown tree. Best gift ever! Thanks Mom and Dad Roring. He sure loves looking at it in his hospital room. It brings just the right amount of Christmas into his room.

Final Chemo!

There he goes! This is what Tony does every day. He tries to do 20 laps a day around the hospital floor. He is required to wear a mask so that he doesn't get sick. The doctors have all been impressed by how much he has been walking. He is one tough cookie.

The Hamilton's gave Tony a little something to toast his LAST CHEMO EVER! It's sparkling peach (non alcoholic) and he is very excited to drink it....one day. But it was really fun for us to fake toast.

This is his nurse hooking up the last bag of chemo to his pick line.  

And Tony holding up the chemo line.









And last but not least, the empty chemo bag!!!!!
This is one of Tony's favorite nurses. She is truly awesome. Thanks for taking such great care of him!

Jack Man

This first picture is of Jack and Walden at the Blue Pearl restaurant. We went with my mom, Channa, and the boys. It was a party :)

 I love this picture. Jack is such a character. He's like "'sup."

And I had to put up this picture because it is one of the only ones that I looked at it and thought: "Jack looks a lot like Legrand. Thoughts?

Isn't he just the cutest ever!

Christmas Tree O, Christmas Tree

Here is a picture of Tony's mini tree and our mini gingerbread houses. His dad set up a Charlie Brown Christmas tree today, so I will have to take a picture of that sometime. (His Dad is awesome and flew in today to help us out).

Here is Tony with his Gingerbread House.

A few days ago I buzzed his head so that the hair falling out would be smaller. (It was getting everywhere, but we couldn't shave it for fear of cutting him with his low platelets). Well today, most of it fell out. He now has these awesome manly bald spots. Super cool. 

Tony calls this his real Christmas tree. He talks about how the nurses decorate it all the time (with new bags) It is definitely a "tree," but I would exactly call it Christmassy....... 

Gingerbread Houses!

The nurses brought around a package of gingerbread that I am sure was meant to make one big house, but we couldn't tell how to put it together, so we made 3 small houses. The middle one is mostly Tony's, and the two on the sides are mine. I was excited that he was feeling well enough to make half a gingerbread house. Go Tony! He also was able to get his full 20 laps in, so he is starting to feel a bit better.

While I was at the hospital, Tony starting bending his knees and just kind of bouncing up and down. I asked him if he was ok and he said he was doing a "happy dance." His happy dance was in honor of his final chemo ever this coming Sunday. He is thrilled to finally be done being poisoned. Hooray for Sunday!

Trains with Grandma

We went to the Botanical Garden Fairy and Trains exhibit in DC right before dropping off my mom at the airport. Jack loves watching the trains, and mom really liked the exhibit. It is really creative.

Jack telling Grandma to go faster!

This was the Botanical Garden's awesome Christmas Tree. It was huge! And very beautiful.

We will sure miss her. She was a very big help.

Thank You

This post is just so that I can say thank you. We have been nothing short of astounded by the incredible amount of support, love, generosity and service shown to us through this whole thing. 

Thank you for the fundraisers in Tremonton and Virginia/DC. 

Thank you to our whole ward for putting together the Amazing cookbook. I love every single page. 

Thank you for all those who pray for Tony each day. 

Thank you to all of the medical staff that have put so much love into caring for my Tony.

Thank you for those that have been so willing to help with Jack so that I can visit Tony in the hospital. (Even if you haven't gotten a chance yet, thank you for being willing, because I know so many of you are). 

Thank you for the smiles. 

Thank you for the hugs. 

Thank you for the phone calls, the emails, the texts, the letters and the posts.

Thank you for helping me cover Tony's hospital room with drawings, pictures, cards, and holiday spirit.

Thank you for the kind words of concern and encouragement that we receive on a daily basis.

 If we only learn one thing from this experience it is that we have the greatest friends and family in the ENTIRE world. We have been so touched. 

I put this picture in because this is basically exactly how I feel. I was finally pushed over the edge today after receiving a card in the mail from an anonymous friend giving us support. And yes, tears were shed. Thank you. To everyone. I am sure we would not be where we are without all of you. I am sure we don't deserve all the wonderful people we have in our lives, but we are so sincerely grateful that we are blessed with so many angels watching over us. (We consider you all angels. Truly). I could not ever say thank you enough. Ever.

Thank you!

Love,

The Roring