Maggie's Rainbow of Colors

At my June 11th writing Maggie had just left for a week at church camp. Kate and I traveled the two hours with our friend Renee midweek and enjoyed a visit at camp and some great praise and worship. Maggie had a wonderful week at camp and said she wasn't quite ready to come home:) Tears filled my eyes and tugged at the hearts of many others at church on Sunday morning when Maggie shared before the congregation that her week at camp was an awesome experience. She said she learned that God is always there for her and that she can lean on Him. She shared that it has been a difficult year for our family but she learned that she didn't have to be strong, because God is always there for her and He also has given her friends and family in her life with whom she could share her concerns and cares. What a beautiful thread of gold, God wove into the tapestry of Maggie's life as she grew in her understanding of her heavenly Father.

A bright splash of colors flooded Maggie's day upon her arrival home from camp.
In Maggie's absence Kate and I orchestrated a "While You Were Out" and gave Maggie's bedroom a make over. Maggie's dream room burst into colors of bright orange, laudable lime, magenta pink and calypso blue with fun accents of gerber daisies. Our drama princess did not disappoint us with her reaction as she walked around the room touching each color and decorative touch saying over and over "oh, my goodness", I can't believe you did this for me.

Maggie's dance recital was absolutely beautiful! We are so proud of Maggie and marvel at the beauty and grace that mark her ballet and lyrical dancing. Watching Maggie express herself through dance is like watching the sun glisten on the rain and make a beautiful rainbow of colors.

Walk Through the Weeks

It's AMAZING what a little make-up will DO !!!!!!

It's been a couple of weeks since I've had time or energy to sit and write a blog update. The weeks have taken us through through the color spectrum in our hearts and spirits. We've had bright days with vibrant orange and yellow hues, we've had warm comfortable days of peaceful blue, warm golden colors and we've also had dreary days of dull grey that clouded our hearts and spirits.
As we've walked through the past weeks I am reminded that God is weaving a beautiful tapestry in our lives and that each color is essential to the final masterpiece. The threads both bright and dull are woven together with sparkling threads of gold running throughout the array of colors. It is that glistening golden thread of God's touch to our brightly colored days, our tranquil peaceful days and our dull, difficult days that combines all the colors to create a beautiful masterpiece of His purpose and glory in our lives.

One fun colorful thing that we did was to host a mom and daughter night with some of Kate's friends and their mothers. Our dear friend Patti shared with all of us about pure, safe and beneficial Arbonne products. We experienced hands on a skin care regiment and had fun afterwards experimented with the make up of many beautiful shades and hues, suited to each different lady or girl participating. We shared many smiles, much laughter and count that evening of fun and fellowship as one of the warm, golden colors.

We took some pictures of our make over fun and promised that they would definitely be blog material:)

Stay tuned for more the next couple of day !!!!! :)

Radiation Complete !!!

Friday was Kate's final day of radiation. We are glad that those daily trips to Pittsburgh are behind us. We are so thankful that Kate did not battle heavy nausea and vomiting during this three weeks of radiation - what a gift of grace.
The biggest side effect seems to be fatigue, which has been magnified by the pain medication Kate is on for her shingles. She's taking naps and goes to bed early. She's felt good and is enjoying going to graduation parties of friends who have just graduated. She tires easily and isn't up to staying long, but she's glad just to be out and about with friends.
~Praise for an extremely smooth three weeks of radiation.
~Please ask that long term side effects of radiation, which may not show them selves until further down the road, would be minimal to none, as were the immediate side effects.
~Please ask for Kate's counts to rebound and her immune system to recover quickly. Kate's platelets are low as evidenced by bruising. WBC's are low as evidenced in Kate's encounter with shingles. Kate's body has a lot of healing to do. Please pray that she will be strengthened each day.
~Kate will be doing some physical therapy to build up her weak thigh muscles. We hope to be able to do this locally, and not have to travel daily to Pittsburgh.

This afternoon Maggie departed for her week at church camp. She was excited to say the least. God's grace and mercy have been so apparent in Maggie's life. Despite all that she has been through on our journey of the past few years, her heart has remained tender, she finds joy in even the littlest things and has such enthusiasm and passion for life.
~Please pray that Maggie will experience God in new ways this week and that she will grow in her walk with Him and that He will renew her in the areas where the wear and tear of this journey may have left its mark.

As always we are grateful for your on going prayers. Each morning brings God's gift of a new day filled with blessings to be unwrapped and enjoyed to the fullest. While some days bring challenges, we experience God's amazing grace and mercy, as He gives us reason for joy and smiles even in the midst of those challenges.

Only by grace,
Elaine

Home Again :)

We are rejoicing that Kate was discharged from the hospital early this afternoon.
We're always happy to be back together with Maggie and Grace. It's good to be home and also back in our own beds. Those hospital beds for patients and fold- out beds for moms are not known for their comfort:)

Kate will continue a regiment of pain and anti-viral meds for awhile. Our prayer is that the shingles heal completely, don't spread and do not come back, as Kate's weakened immune system is suppressed even more from radiation.

Maggie's last day of school was yesterday and she enjoyed her first morning of sleeping in today. She finished her year strong, with another high honor report card. She's officially now an eighth grader. Next week she will be at Jumonville, our church camp, for the week. This is always one of the highlights of her summer. She arrives home in time for dress rehearsal for her dance recital next weekend. Our drama princess loves being on the dance floor. This year she has studied ballet, pointe and lyrical dance. We're looking forward to the performance.

Again, thank you for carrying us in your prayers through still another hospital stay. Hospital time is growing old for all three of us. But God in His goodness and understanding brought special pick-me-ups to all of us through out the time through time shared with good friends, flowers, emails, phone calls at just the right time, and a caring and compassionate medical team at Children's that goes beyond their medical role to just be there for us.

Embraced by grace,

Elaine

Fountain. Bottle or Can ???? We want YOUR opinion

Kate and I have been talking about bringing a bit of fun and debate to the blog, since week one of radiation treatment (RT). I guess being bored and in the hospital now with lots of time on our hands presents the perfect opportunity to actually put our point of debate out to you in writing.

After completing that first long day of radiation with all the tedious filming, Kate came out of the treatment room and said, "I need a fountain Pepsi." The nurse quickly offered a can of Pepsi available for the patients. Kate said thank you, but explained that it had to be a fountain Pepsi. So from that day on, while Kate goes in for her treatment, I go to the cafeteria on the 11th floor and get a "fountain Pepsi" and have it waiting for her when she comes out of RT each day. Everyone at the radiation/oncology department is quite entertained by Kate's preference for fountain Pepsi. Her radiation oncologist heard that I was headed for the cafeteria for her fountain drink and offered her one of his cokes from the refrigerator in his office. She said no thanks, it had to be fountain. He laughed and told her the fountain drinks were not as good as they were watered down by the ice. She told him that's what she likes about fountain drinks:)

So we put our silly little debate out to you our blog family and friends. What do you think? We know some of our friends who live overseas have definite opinions on this.
It's wonderful to think that you who have prayed with us, rejoiced with us, cried with us, and walked with us through all the seasons of this journey, can laugh with us too at a silly little thing that has brought laughter and fun to our daily RT routine. And so we give you the great debate... FOUNTAIN, bottle or can?????

Update

Viruses are just one of those slow and tedious things that you have to wait out and wish they would "run their course" just a little bit faster. We know we're where Kate needs to be, to best battle this virus, but as you can imagine hospital stays and the changes they impose on our lives and routine are growing old for all three of us. So we're doing what we need to do, trying to keep a good attitude and trusting that we'll get home sooner rather than later.

Friday Kate's shingles seemed to spread a little bit more, while others seem to have begun to dry up. The goal (much like chicken pox) is to get all the blotches to dry up. Based on how the blotches look, we still have a ways to go. There's really no way to predict how quickly this zoster virus will run it's course. The pain medication makes Kate sleepy. The maintenance dose the machine gives her automatically seems to be helping enough so that Kate can avoid pushing the button for an extra dose of pain meds if she knows friends or family are coming and she wants to be awake enough to enjoy their visit.

Kate had radiation as scheduled yesterday (Friday) and that completed week two. Next week will be her final week of RT. We are thankful that this will soon be behind us and that Kate has the summer to allow her body to recover from all that it has been through. Yesterday we had a physical therapy(PT) consult. Since Kate's high dose chemo, we have noticed significant muscle weakness in Kate's legs. This was evidenced early on in her gait when walking. While we have seen improvement in her walking as her muscles slowly strengthen, it still takes considerable effort for Kate to climb stairs. During our PT consult several simple movement tests confirmed this muscle weakness in her thighs. The therapist gave Kate a series of thigh and hip strengthening exercises to do each day. Kate was a willing and diligent patient (of course the fact that the PT therapist is a young, good looking guy, might have had something to do with her positive attitude and willing spirit:) Those of you who know and love Kate know that she willing admits to not liking sports or being into exercise. We laughed with the therapist that this is "Kate's kind of exercise" she doesn't have to leave her room or break a sweat! We will probably continue some outpatient PT once Kate is released from the hospital. Please continue to pray that Kate's body will be renewed and grow stronger each day.

We are grateful for friends and family who help us pass the time in the hospital. We're looking forward to a visit with friends today and tomorrow when family comes bearing a picnic lunch filled with some Kate's favorites that she requested:) As always we are grateful for God's grace and your faithful prayers.

Walking in His strength and grace,
Elaine

Anther Virus !

Those were Kate's exact words when we learned that she has the zoster virus...in other words...shingles.
On Tuesday Kate noted a contained rash that was only itchy if touched. Upon consulting with her nurse practitioner, she told us to keep an eye on it and let her know if it spread, blistered or became painful.
Sure enough by the Wednesday all three symptoms were added to the equation.
Kate's rash is on the right side of her body, and as is typical of shingles, follows the nerve line. They called in a prescription for an anti viral medication which Kate began immediately. Today (Thursday) we had a scheduled clinic visit for counts prior to Kate's radiation treatment. When the doctor examined Kate's shingles, she responded without hesitation and very definitively, "we need to admit you". Kate's shingles had spread and needed to be addressed more aggressively with IV medication. The anti viral medication does not "cure" the shingles, it hopefully makes it run it's course a little faster. In addition to the anti-viral IV, Kate has a PCA (a pump) which allows her to administer a narcotic pain medication as needed. The anticipated length of her hospital stay is three to five days. We were a bit surprised by the decision to hospitalize Kate, as she was feeling and looking good, with the exception of the pain associated with the shingles. However, there was no hesitancy on her doctor's part to do this, and the we all want to get Kate on the road to recovery as quickly as possible. The doctor was also not surprised when Kate presented with shingles. With Kate's suppressed immune system, she is very susceptible to such things. With the addition of radiation, Kate's already compromised immune system took another hit and made it even more likely for her to come down with another virus. Again, because of her own weakened immune system, this virus came from with in and was not contracted from someone.

Kate's spirits are good and she enjoyed a visit with good friends this evening. She was also fine with me coming home for the night to get Maggie squared away to stay with two of her good friends over the next couple of days, as my parents, who she usually stays with, are out of town.

REQUESTS
~Please ask that Kate will rebound quickly from the shingles, that they will not spread further and the pain will be manageable.
~Please ask that the final week of radiation will go as smoothly as these first two weeks. WBC and ANC counts dropped today, as anticipated with radiation. Ask that Kate be protected from other viruses while her counts are lower. Nausea has been manageable and fatigue, while present, not consuming... what grace and mercy we have experienced.
PRAISES
~Praise that we caught this when we did and that the shingles are not much worse. God has graciously made Kate very aware of her own body and even subtle changes she quickly detects.
~Praise that Kate finished her last final on Wednesday and has no pressures of school work hanging over her head while she is recovering. We are thrilled and amazed that Kate was able to finish her junior year on time...another amazing grace gift!
PRAISE for the gift of good friends to care for Maggie, and for brave, extended family to care for Grace:)

Each day has evidences of His hand of care and reminders that He is in control going before us, with us and coming behind us in every aspect of our lives and this journey!

Covered by grace,
Elaine