Round 5 Starts Tomorrow

Round 5 starts tomorrow. We are both pretty nervous. Round 4 turned out the be the lowest, and the highest, point in chemo so far. Kent had not had so much pain and sickness before. It broke my heart. We almost ended up in the ER. Then in answer to our prayers he started doing much better. He had 3 really good days this time, which was a nice break before feeling sick again. We are so grateful for the tender mercies the Lord is showing us right now. We are grateful for this opportunity to learn to rely more on the grace of the Lord than on our own abilities. It is turning into a great blessing for us, although it isn't the easiest.

Our little ray of sunshine, Kennedy, has been especially tender with Kent this last week. I think he knows something is going on, and he is taking good care of his daddy. Every morning he likes to crawl over to Kent and pat his cheek, just checking that he is ok. He gives a kiss then is off to play. :) We know that the Lord blessed us with our little angel to help us get through this crazy time. He really is our sunshine.

Round 4

So we officially finished the fourth dose on Thursday afternoon. This one is a doozy. Poor Kent is really sick, but he is a fighter! I am so grateful he is willing to go through this for me and for our little Kennedy. I love him so much.

New symptoms: none.

Fortunately nothing is new this time, but everything is just a little worse than before. Even when it is nice and warm inside he is so cold that it is like glass all over him. We try to keep him warm, so he is super bundled up.

For now we keep going! We'll see what happens next! We are just so grateful for the blessings we have in our lives. We are being so blessed right now.

Pictures

Here are some pictures!!

After surgery many, many weeks ago. (When I can get more pictures up you will see how much weight my sweetheart has lost.)

Photos of my cutie pie. No, it isn't a head injury. Kennedy spent 5 days in Primary Children's (part of why I haven't gotten this updated sooner) having an EEG run because the doctors think he is having seizures. The test pretty much came back inconclusive, but he sure looked cute! He hated wearing the turban. It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. He successfully ripped it off several times, which meant they had to put it on several times, which he hated. But never fear, he is as happy, active, and adorable as ever. :)

Round 3

I have been a super slacker. Sorry about that. Our life has been CRAZY lately. But we are back!

Tomorrow is round 4. Hurray! We are slowly making progress.

Round 3:
    - Kent got intense chest pain and got sent to the hospital for chest x-rays. Everything came back normal, which led the doctor to the conclusion that Kent is one of the lucky random VERY few people to ever get this side effect.
     - Kent had some rough stuff with the symptoms and ended up on a lot of medication for a couple of days, but is feeling much better.
     - Extra IV's because he is getting so sick. They have decided it is going to be standard protocol for Kent.
     - Regularly taking B6 vitamins for neuropathy (lots of numbness, poor guy).
     - We had a LOT of fun on chemo day. We played this game that a member of our BYU ward gave us and had a blast. We were laughing a lot and had a lot of people staring and laughing too. It was lots of fun. The nurses said they didn't mind if we wanted to stay longer because we were worth a good laugh. Haha. :)

Here's hoping tomorrow goes well!

We have seen this in our lives, especially recently. It is such a blessing to have the "heavenly help" Elder Bednar speaks of. What a blessing this Gospel is in our lives.

Answers to Prayers

We want to say thank you for all the prayers, fasts, and happy thoughts sent our way. We really are so grateful.

This post isn't meant to be preachy. We just felt that we needed to share this because there are so many who have done so much for us, and three are those who have expressed sadness over this.

We wanted to let everyone know that we are feeling those prayers. I have had so many people express their love, and yet sorrow that we aren't seeing the impact of those prayers. Kent is still sick, and struggling with chemo, so why aren't the prayers being answered? They are. We know they are and want you to know they are too. We can feel the Lord's comforting love and have seen blessings come in so many ways, many which are unexpected but appreciated. Although we aren't seeing a miraculous healing, we really are seeing so many other blessings. You have all touched our lives, even if it is hard to see what you have done. This is something that Kent, our whole family, gets to experience. That includes all the ups and downs, but we know that the Lord is always there to love and support us.

Thanks for all the love and support. We love you all. We really like this quote. We know He is near and aware of us. We really love the last part, "Every one of us is more beloved to the Lord than we can possibly understand or imagine." We know that is true and we feel that love every day.

A New Symptom

A new symptom has arisen, unfortunately. Mouth sores. They hurt a lot unfortunately, but our wonderful doctors have gotten Kent a special mouthwash that will (hopefully) make it all better. With the symptoms coming so quickly, severely, and lasting so long, the doctors have said we may need to lower his chemo dose because Kent is apparently very sensitive to the chemo. We shall see!

Round 2

Round 2 started on Tuesday and... well it has been a beast. Poor Kent didn't even make it 10 minutes into chemo before he started to get sick. By the time we left the nurses were all staring at him. They told me to carry him out. He said he was fine, but he was white as a ghost and shaky. Every day seems a little harder, unfortunately, but he is a trooper.

New symptoms this time:
- Numbness and tingling in his hands and feet
- Feeling really cold
- Muscle twitches

They gave us more medications to help keep him healthy, which we are grateful for. He is just getting lots of rest though, which helps. The cold sensitivity really set in fast this time and everything he eats/drinks has to be steaming. When this is all over we are going for a great big milkshake! :)

My cousin shared this quote and I loved it! This is how we are trying to live, and we hope we are.