Over A Week Without #2

I know the title sounds awful. I couldn't think of another way to explain it, though. Mary Ann and I use to refer to our kids as "thing 1" and "thing 2" from a Dr. Suess book. After we found out about Amanda's leukemia and her weakened immune system we knew we had to be careful everywhere we went and especially at home. Of course, #2 (Erin) had a cold, runny nose, cough, etc.

During the 2 weeks Amanda was in the hospital we did our best trading off days and nights with one of us with Amanda and the other with Erin. We were so grateful for all the help we got especially from Mary Ann's sister and her family. Erin loves her cousins and her Aunt Jenny. We knew the time had come where Erin had to get over her cold before we could have her around Amanda. It was tough to do, but we packed a few bags and sent her off to live with her cousins which turned out to be for over a week. We all missed her at times and at other times we enjoyed the quiet. There were a couple of days, though, that we all felt that home just wasn't the same without Erin in the house.

It hit me hard a couple of times how much I missed her. As trying and difficult as she can be, I missed having her around and her ability to be so cute you could forgive her for about all the rest of the things she does. Probably equally challenging was just missing being a complete family again. It seems like it has been a long time since all 4 of us felt good, healthy, and had a great time together. I long for those days again.

Now I have to share both my feelings and my experience with Erin coming home. I feared that she may not want to come back and live at home. She really likes being with her cousins and hanging out with Jenny. It seems to be much more fun and entertaining to a 3 year old than here at home. My fears were confirmed when Erin finally returned home after 9 days away. She had a hard time adjusting to being back home. I got home after work and I could easily see on Mary Ann's face how tough the day was. As soon as I walked in the door Erin was screaming. She sees me and yells "I don't want to see Dad." I tried to say hi and be nice but it only created more screaming and crying. I had to leave the room for about 20 minutes before she was able to calm down and was ready to say hi and be nice.

After another 10-20 minutes I soon had Erin giving me a big hug and we were playing games again. However, she did tell me at least 10 time before she went to bed she wanted to go back to Jenny's house. Its real easy to start counting all the trials we have. Its difficult to have Mary Ann so sick, Erin so difficult, and Amanda starting on a long road to recovery from leukemia. I have to stop and remember to count my blessings instead. I'm glad to have Erin back in the house, no matter how tiring it is now. I'm glad to have such a wonderful family. I'm grateful for the support that is pouring in for us now. And I'm very grateful that Amanda is doing so well so far with her treatments and is surrounded by people that love and support her. We take things day by day here and the more time we spend counting our blessing the easier it is to get through each day.

A New Blog For Amanda

For those wanting to follow how Amanda is doing and what she is going through, we will try to keep you up-to-date on a separate blog. As it has been said before, it is difficult to give updates over and over again so we hope that this may help. Please feel free to read, add comments, and share your support for Amanda on the page below.

http://supportersofamanda.blogspot.com

Thank you for your support.

The Worst Week of Our Lives

That may seem pretty tough, but if you don't know all of the details of what has been going on in our lives you wouldn't understand. I will try to share a couple of the details that have made this such a rough week.

As many of you know, we have been trying to find out what has been ailing Amanda for a while now. She has been having a lot of headaches, fevers, and body pains. After some frustrating clinic visits (I won't take time to go into the details at this time) we were instructed to bring Amanda to Primary Childrens Medical Center ER to make sure she gets the attention she needs until we figure things out. We came in on Saturday April 25th and spent some boring hours in an ER room while we waited for blood tests and x-ray results to come back. I think some peoples' version of Hades may be stuck in an ER room anxiously waiting answers for hours with no entertainment or distraction other than a TV that can pick up one channel and it happens to be NASCAR.

After several hours Amanda was admitted with not many answers other than her blood counts were low. A lot of possibilities were thrown out but not until a bone marrow draw confirmed on Tuesday that we were dealing with leukemia. I didn't even know how to spell leukemia until that day, let a lone know what we were up against. We were about as unprepared for this as they come. If you would like to know more about it you can visit this site. Amanda has been diagnosed with ALL which is the best possible type of leukemia and has the best prognosis.

Amanda has already started the chemotherapy process and things are looking good so far. The road will be a long and emotional one for all of us. We are still dealing with Mary Ann's complications with her pregnancy, trying to raise a 3 year old with allergy problems and the rest of everyday stresses of jobs and life. We have to take any positive news or happy thoughts and hang on tight to it. The greatest thing that keeps us strong through all of this is Amanda's strength and spirit. She can make all worries fade to nothing with her infectious laugh. Thank goodness for the XBOX that is in her room. She gets such a kick out of driving Lightning McQueen into walls. When she starts to laugh it seems to make everything better.

Our hearts have been broken several times this week. It has been very difficult to take the news that we have been given this week. We are given strength from all the family and friends that have shown their love and support for Amanda. This has affected so many people because Amanda is so loved by everyone that knows her. She has had many visitors that bring smiles to her face. She even had a visit from her school custodian that brought tears to my eyes because it made Amanda so happy.

We will soon have a separate blog setup to keep people updated with her condition and what she is going through. It has been very difficult to retell the news and events so we hope that it will help others to understand what she and all of us are going through.

Thanks to everyone that has offered their support, time, and prayers on our behalf.