Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Ahh-BUM-Hug!!!

Hey everyone, this is Corinne.  If any of you didn't understand the title, it's my families way of saying "Bah-Hum-Bug" for this Christmas season. :) My mom has been a little busy so she is having me type up a blog post that she wrote inbetween all of the craziness going on with our family.  So it goes.

Marsha:
Someone called me today and said, "Things must not be going to well because I haven't seen you on Facebook or a new blog post for a while."  That is exactly it.  On Monday December 20th, Craig had his 3rd chemo treatment.  It was pretty rough.  Wednesday we went in to get the pump off and get more fluids.  He has really been having a hard time staying hydrated.  They made us another appointment for fluids on Thursday hoping that would give him enough fluids to make it through until Monday after Christmas.  NOT! I could tell on Christmas Day things were not good.  Towards the end of the day he was very lethargic.  He had slept a lot and I was hoping that it was helping him. Sunday morning when he woke up we could both tell that he needed more fluids and they had told us that if by chance he needed more over the weekend we would need to go to the ER.  So we got the kids off to church and we headed down to Timpanogos Hospital. A few hours into it, the Doctor was concerned with all of the pain in the stomach, and ordered a CT scan.  It came back showing what they thought was Psuedomembranous Colitis, which instead of a pain in the butt, he also has a pain in the belly, which we hope is one of the reasons that he is not staying hydrated.  They treated him until about 7:00pm and sent us home and then told us to contact Dr. Breyer in the morning. 

The night was very long.  From 10:00pm until 4:30am he had gone diarrhea 6 times (6 times to many).  He was almost back to where he was before we went to the hospital.  So the next morning we contacted Dr. Breyer and she suggested that we admit Craig into the hospital for a few days to help him get through this and rebuild his body for his next chemo treatment that he will have next Tuesday, January 4th.  (That is where I am right now, writing this blog, sitting in the ER waiting for him to be taken up to a permanent room) 

When we were on our way home from the chemo lab last Thursday, it was dark.  That was really okay; Craig had not been out of the house at all to see the Christmas lights.  I think he was really enjoying seem, especially ours.  Christmas Eve, before everyone went to bed, the kids decided that they wanted to get up and start unwrapping presents at 9:00am.  Cool!  The life of having teenagers; that was okay with us. 

Christmas Morning was a blast.  Here are some of the things that happened or were said.  Ashlyn was getting a whole lot of clothes and McKaye was getting very excited for her, and herself.  McKaye kept mentioning, "Hey that's cute, good things we're the same size!"  Then McKaye and Ashlyn started arguing over the clothes with Ashlyn saying that she wasn't going to let her borrow anything when she moved out for college.  When mom said that McKaye wouldn't be moving out until she got a job and started making some money, Ashlyn then said, "Hey I saw an amazing opening down at Wal-Mart!!" It was a lot of fun.  Later on Corinne opened up a book and Craig shouted out, "Yes! It's a good thing we're the same size!"  The kids enjoyed the rest of the day playing the Wii and just having fun together.   

One of the kids said that it is kind of a different Christmas vacation.  I very much agree.  Usually we are up at Craig's family's cabin the whole week between Christmas and New Years; snowmobiling, playing games, sledding and just having a lot of fun.  Things have really change around here. Hopefully we will get back to our "Normal Life" soon. 

I hope the kids are able to have some fun this week, but we all know that life isn't fair all of the time.  I know this is not what Craig and I would have choosen to do the past few months, but we are trying to keep our heads above the water.  There has been a few times that we feel like we have swallowed a little water but there has always been our family and friends there to bring us back up and we are so grateful. 

Well, sometime between last night when my mom left the hospital and this morning when she talked to my dad, the doctor came to him and told him that what they thought was an infection causing him all of his problems right now, they think is just the chemo.  So as of right now everyone is really discouraged.  The doctor has said that they will use a chemo only if it is helping and your body can take it, and right now it looks like his body isn't really taking it well.  We just hope and pray that he can get feeling better and be able to continue with this chemo treatment for as long as it is killing the cancer. 

~Corinne

 Here are some pictures from the Cancer Center, Christmas, and Dad in the hospital.



 

4 comments:

  1. Like we always hear : "Just Keep Swimming Just Keep Swimming" :) Love you guys. We were these wrist bands proudly!

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  2. Thanks Corrine, I have been wondering about you guys but figure you get tons of people calling so I didn't want to bother you. I am glad to see the sense of humor even in this tough time. And it is good to see there are normal family situations like arguing. That is life, and it helps us grow as people. I am sorry the chemo is causing problems. We are still keeping you in our prayers and think about you all daily. Good to see your smile Craig, even if it is in the Cancer Center. Shauna

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  3. What can we do besides pray? Is there anything? I put your name on the prayer roll at Timp this morning Craig. But even that is too easy. What else can we do for your family? We love you all.

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  4. Thanks for the update. We love all of you so much. Thanks for being great friends for so many years. We look forward to your next report and pray for good news.

    Evan and Iva

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