It's Tool Time!

Starring: Nope not Tim Allen, the one and only Eric Allen!

My handy, skilled, handsome husband has been working on building some beds for the kids. He bought the wood at Home Depot and then cut it, drilled it, sanded and sanded and sanded it, stained it, lacquered it, and finally put them together. These are some of the nicest, sturdiest beds I've seen. He even designed them so when the need arises we can stack them to make bunk beds. For now they are twins and it gives us more places to put our food storage. He's a talented hubby for sure. Sorry lady's he's taken! I love you and appreciate you more than you know Eric! Thanks for all you do for our family! The Girls Beds
The Boys Beds

Faithful DUO

While I was in the hospital my Grandma & Grandpa Bowles would come and visit me every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This was a huge emotional boost for me and a wonderful blessing. They gave up their walk at AZ Mills Mall to walk all the way to the 12th floor hospital room. It was a joy to visit with them. I just love my Grandma's fashionista styles and my Grandpa's cute smile! They even took my dirty laundry home and would return it clean on their next visit. So thankful to my faithful visitors! I love you Grandpa & Grandma!

Marriage...is what brings us here together today....

On December 25th, 2008 my Mom gave me a gift for Christmas that I didn't appreciate at the time. Here is what she wrote at the front of my book... Dear Leah, this is a wonderful book. I wish I'd discovered it 34 years ago. It will bring you much happiness. Enjoy! Love, Mom

The Book is called: The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands; By Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Dr. Laura holds a postdoctoral certification and licensing in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling from the State of California.

I didn't appreciate the book because I thought to myself, "What kind of a gift is this Mom?" Why would you give me a book about how to take better care of my husband for Christmas. Now 2 LONG years later I know why. I think I'm understanding just a glimpse of why I had to acquire this Cancer. The many things I'm learning, the many tender mercies I've been receiving are all directly correlated with the humbling of my soul. So today I say to my sweet Mom. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me THE BEST gift a Mother could give her daughter. I read the book today while laying in my hospital bed. I can't thing of a more important thing to do with my time either. I have a recommendation for every woman in this world.... READ THIS BOOK! It WILL change your life! You won't be sorry you spent the time. Here is a segment from the book that Dr. Laura shares from one of her callers. "Then like a slap in the face, it hit me: I was taking advantage of him without considering his feelings. I always considered my girlfriend's feelings because I didn't want to offend her, or make her mad, or loose her friendship. How stupid is that? I didn't have the same consideration for my own husband! It's like I wasn't caring about what he thought or felt." How truly sad this comment is. But it's true I fall into this category more often than not. So to each of my children, friends, family members. READ THIS BOOK!

Reflecting

Aren't you so glad to not have to look at the Lymphoma post first thing anymore? I sure am! It's been FOREVER since I've blogged. There are too many excuses to list and I'd rather not so we'll just skip that part. :) I have been asked by almost every caller, "Are you bored"? I can honestly say NOPE not one single bit. Why???? I have been bored out of my mind at every other hospital visit I've ever had to endure. This time I have a destination to reach. A landmark to hit. I want to be HOME, and home to stay. I want to be a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, brother oh woops nope I don't want to be a brother. I just want to be a better person ALL THE WAY AROUND! It is because of this small trial in my life that I have come to realize this important fact. You see when you go through chemotherapy your body withers away and your mind says, "wait a minute, I'm still here! " So while your body breaks down into almost nothing they give you these awesome shots(don't hurt a bit) to make your body not wither away. All the while your mind is still going 100 miles a minute. Except for when you need to remember that one word in the sentence you're trying to finish and because of "chemo-fog" you just can't put your finger on it. So on with my reflecting... I battled with the idea of this bone marrow transplant until I thought I'd talked myself out of it. You see I'm a weakling, a natural human being and I was scared SPITLESS to go through anything of the sort. I just truly didn't want to go through all the pain that it would entail. So being raised in a church that teaches us to have faith in God and the need to have communion with him I decided to ask and I hoped to receive! I hoped to receive the news that I wouldn't have to go through this terrible transplant. I learned that this is NOT how our Father in Heaven works. He sees the BIG picture, he sees each of us progress and digress in this life. When we choose to succomb to our own will we are torn between what way to choose but when we fervently pray to know the will of God and we have faith he will open up the windows of heaven. This exact thing happened to me. I received the answer that I needed to go through the transplant. This process put me in the hospital on Nov. 1st 2010(Happy Birthday to my Uncle Jerry Garner and Aunt Sharla Carpenter) where I began receiving heavy duty doses of chemotherapy. I received the first type called BCNU for the first 3 days. Then on the fourth day I received a chemo called NP16 which happens to excrete through the skin. If there are any bandages, tight clothes, jewelry, or anything restricting on your body you will have a 3rd degree burn all over that area. I soared through both of these 2 types of chemo with minimal complications like nausea that they treated very well. I LOVE drugs! Legal ones, no worries! Then I had a day of rest, yay for days of rest. On the fifth day I received the third and final type of chemo CYTOXIN this one was the booger for me. It made my body feel so sick and I was nothing less than miserable. Then another day of rest and on Monday Nov. 7th I had my second birthday! The day of transplant. Where they dumped all 8.89 million stem cells I had collected previously in my body through IV tubing in 30 minutes flat. 1 of the 4 bags of my very own stem cells
The only complications were from the perservatives they put in my stem cells. This gave me an aweful nasty STRONG garlic taste like no other I've ever tasted. Olive Garden is not on my top list of restaurants anytime soon. This is Jen my nurse for the day, she was AWESOME

Haha but with my sweet honey by my side, helping me breathe through each coughing attack and offering me gum and mints I managed to survive it! Now I'm day +2 out of transplant. They say that I should feel good after transplant and I do! I feel so good I wonder why I'm here still. We have to wait and make sure that I don't have any pain or problems when my white counts continue to drop from the chemotherapy. As it is I'm doing far better than I had expected or as the doctors had foreseen. I like to blame this on the marvelous gift of prayer! It truly has been a miracle in my life, to actually be the one on the receiving end of so many heartfelt fervent prayers. From people that I do not even know. I am most grateful for this gift. I have come to lean on my testimony of a loving Heavenly Father who sent his son, Jesus Christ to suffer the sins of the world both in body and spirit. I am in awe at the marvelous sacrifice he made for me. Why did he do this???? Because he saw the bigger plan, he loves each of us so very very much. He wants us to grow and develop and to return to him some day. I know this with every fiber of my being. I have felt his loving arms sustain me when my mind would tell me I could bear no more. Now looking back I would choose cancer all over again. You see if life was a merry go round, we wouldn't grow. We would have no desires to better ourselves or serve others. It would just be an endless walk down paths of uncertainty and fear. I want my children to know how very much I love them. Each has a special purpose here on earth. I will forever be changed in a good way by C-A-N-C-E-R!

T-Cell Lymphoma

In April I began having pain in my right groin. I had Eric check the area for any reason to explain my pain. The only thing he found was a small red bump that looked like a mosquito bite on my inner thigh. I went to my Family Doctor for my breathing/allergy issue and while I was there I showed her the bump on my leg and told her about the pain in my groin. In mid sentence she cut me off and said you can only talk to me about 2 different things in one visit. Then she said from her little stool it looks like a staph infection to me, take this antibiotic and you will be fine. So I took the medicine as directed. The pain never went away but grew more painful and the size of the spot grew as well. It was a weekend and I was in too much pain I decided to go to the ER. The ER doc happened to be a good friend of our families, Olin Vance. He looked at it and said we need to take a little biopsy of it and see if we can drain it. The culture he sent off came back fine and so he sent me home with pain meds. The days went by and this spot on my leg kept growing. It was super painful because of wear it sat on my inner thigh. It was constantly being rubbed by my other leg. Ouch, I began to despise this new addition to my leg and wanted it gone NOW. So I figured if I went back to the ER they would see how nasty it was and cut it out. Once there a nice PA told me I wish we could cut it out but unfortunately this isn't emergent and so you will need to go to your primary care doctor and get a referral to a surgeon. The next day Eric changed my primary care doctor to a new one and made me an appointment to have this "thing-a-ma-jig" out of me once and for all. I went to this new Doctor and was so impressed by there promptness and there genuine concern for me and my pain. By the time I saw this Doctor it was the beginning of May. With a referral in hand I made an appointment with the surgeon. When I went to the surgeons office he was super kind and told me he had never seen anything like it before. He said that it was most likely double the size inside my leg and he wanted to take it out as soon as possible. We talked about worst case scenario, he said when he sends the mass off to the pathologist there is a chance they won't know what it is. And so in that case we would just chalk it up to having a weird deal and unless another grew back we wouldn't worry about it. I asked him if it appeared to be cancerous and he said not at all. On May 19th he finally removed my mass. The surgeon told Eric he was able to remove it all and it was about the size of a golf ball. He said it was very granular and he had never seen anything like it. The mass was sent off to the pathologist here in AZ and they said it was some sort of lymph tissue but they didn't have all the necessary tools to give it a name. So my mass went off to Minnesota to the Mayo Clinic pathologists. On June 1st while I was up north enjoying the cool weather and family, I received a call from my surgeon. He said he received the results from the Mayo Clinic and he was sad to tell me that it appears to be Lymphoma. I said, " I have cancer"? He said yes, you have a form of lymphoma called T-cell lymphoma. Then he began to tell me of a cancer center with a really good oncologist that he has worked closely with before. He hung up after giving me the address and phone number to the oncologist. I had an appointment scheduled that day with Dr. Joseph Nabong at the Ironwood Cancer Center. I invited my Mom to come with Eric and I so that she could take in all the info given to us. We all three were super impressed with the doctor. He was gentle, calm, knowledgable. Everything we weren't he was and I immediately felt at peace with what was going on in my body. I have a serious fight going inside my body and I need chemotherapy to attack it and rid it once and for all. The form of lymphoma is aggressive and rare. The doctor wanted to get right on my therapy so that I would have the greatest chance of remission. I began to have pain in my left breast and when I called the doctor he told me I needed to go to the ER. He said that we needed to make sure the lymphoma wasn't already spreading. The CT scan I had showed a mass on my left breast and on my liver. It isn't very relaxing to be in the hospital. In fact they poke and prod you so much you hurt worse while there. But I was grateful to be in good hands where testing could be done if needed. I spent three days in the hospital while doctors scheduled different tests and blood work. On the last day the pathologist came in and did a bone marrow biopsy. I was so relieved the pain was short lived and the results of the biopsy came back clear. I had an outpatient mammogram done the next day and the radiologist there couldn't believe that the mass on my breast was now nowhere to be found. What a blessing! Two miraculous blessings in a row. My spirits were high and the oncologist said we're starting chemo ASAP. Friday June 18th. It went well sitting down at the cancer center with all the white haired people drinking my chemo juice. I was there for 3 hours and left with only a headache. I felt very good for the next two days and thought I was getting lucky with my symptoms being NONE. All that changed drastically on Sunday day three after my chemo. I felt like life was being sucked from me. It literally feels like my body is dyeing. I have no energy and I feel nauseous. The symptoms today, 7 days out of chemo are getting better. I still have nausea but I believe its caused from heartburn. Each day is getting better, I understand I must continue on with the treatments for my families sake. I will do it for my family, but I DON'T like it! Not one bit!

Disneyland 12 year old style

Derick was turning 12 years old in 2 months and not motivated the slightest in finishing his Faith in God for boys goals. I decided it was an important thing for him to earn and tried many different things to encourage him to want to earn this award. When he turned 12 on April 16th there would be no more opportunity to earn this award. After much fighting I finally decided to give him something he wouldn't want to pass on. A trip to Disneyland on his birthday with 3 of his best buds. When I told him this idea he was fully supportive of the idea and began that very second setting goals and passing off requirements for the award. It was marvelous how quickly the attitude changes. He went from completely against anything Mom and Dad asked him to do, to basically doing everything he knows he should do all on his own. He completed the requirements about 2 weeks before he turned 12. Whohooo! I was one happy momma. We loaded up and drove to CA on Thursday afternoon. We spent all day at Disneyland on Friday, and on Saturday we spent all morning at the Beach and then headed home. It was such a fun, fast paced time. Did I mention fast paced??? I'm used to walking through Disneyland with a family. Usually pushing a stroller and dragging slow walking kiddos. With four 12 year old boys it was almost impossible to keep up with them. They would go from ride to ride clear across one park and then back to the other side. I think I walked an equivalent of 30 miles. Eric and I are both sore, sore, sore. We feel about 40 years older than we are. But we are glad for the experience of a life time.

LIBERTY

Zach's school class had a vocabulary word parade. Each student needed to pick a word and figure out what it means and then create a costume that symbolizes their word. Zach was assigned the letter "L". He looked through a dictionary and didn't know what Liberty meant so we decided to do that word. Thanks to Susie B. for helping us figure out how to make the project a success! The Liberty Bell is a symbolism of our Freedom as citizens of the United States of America. Here Zach is all dressed up ready to show his vocabulary word.

Notice the Gold glitter Zach wrote on the top of each letter. Pretty spiffy if I do say so myself. Way to go Zachary!

On Tuesday Olivia was invited to a birthday party. Her kindergarten teacher was also invited to the party and was in attendance. When Eric went to pick her up from the party Olivia's teacher said come give me a hug Livie. So Liv went and gave her a hug. Then Eric remembering something Olivia has been telling us piped in, "Olivia, I thought Miss Killian didn't like you? Olivia getting all embarrassed said nothing. Miss Killian said Olivia, I love you! Come give me another hug. We as parents think it's so funny that children sometimes develop untrue thinkings about various things. I guess it's the same as us adults. So after that ordeal was over, Miss Killian told Eric something so funny about Big O. She said they were practicing rhyming words at the rug at school. Miss Killian said who can tell me a word that rhymes with "map". Olivia was quick to raise her hand and Miss Killian called on her. Olivia spouts out: "CRAP". That's my girl!

Scriptures & Satan

So as a family we are trying to be more diligent in reading our scriptures together. It was so hard to keep a regular schedule of studying scriptures as a family because we have too many schedules. So I decided that I would have to sacrifice my most precious commodity and get up at 6:00 am. UGH! I hate mornings but I love reading and studying the Book of Mormon with my family. So up at 6:00am I go every morning. I have noticed some very significant changes in our family life through this regular study of scriptures. First there is less fighting amongst the children. There is a sweet spirit of peace and love that we can all feel each and every morning. What a wonderful way to start off our day. Second I have seen a greater love for reading the scriptures, and other books for that matter. I have found our children curled up on the couch or in their beds reading both the scriptures and their own choices of books. Third, I have noticed a more powerful force of Satan in our home. Why is it that such an awesome powerful book and effort read by our family would cause Satan to increase his temptations among us individually? I am not sure why, other than we have some children that are reaching some very important stages in their lives. I feel very strongly about keeping up with this special time even if it is in the wee morning hours. For the mere fact of teaching our children that we as a family can withstand the pressures and temptations of the cunning one. We can learn to command him to leave. We can learn to choose to be best, closer as a family and individually stronger.

I love MOVING.....

only when I get to move back into my home. I never thought I'd say I love MOVING, but the closer it gets to our moving back HOME date the more excited I am to load up these boxes. If any of you want to lend a helping hand or two, we would LOVE it even more! We'll keep you posted on the exact date.

Change.....

It's been a long time since I've written about our families hustle and bustle so I figure it's about time. A lot has happened since my September post. We enjoyed the wonderful fall that Colorado has to offer. We enjoyed spending time with one another and making new friends. The one thing that we as a family didn't enjoy was being soooo far from home. We missed all of our Arizona friends and family so much while we were gone. I couldn't continue working as a police dispatcher for Littleton PD after my car accident. Things just weren't working there for me. So I quit my job and found myself in the job hunt. Having found nothing there I decided to go for a visit with the children to AZ just in time to celebrate the one year anniversary of Jeremy's passing. I couldn't bare the thought of missing out on that special time. Eric was still in school and working at a mortuary so he stayed behind in CO. I opened up a can of worms while in AZ and the children expressed great desire to return. They stated how much they didn't like leaving AZ. I was a bit worried on how Eric was going to take the news. It turns out that all was well and after prayer, and family council we realized we needed to move back to AZ. We did have a few hurdles to jump through in order to do that. First we needed to break our lease and pray new renters would take over (which they did) then we needed to scrounge up some money which we didn't have any of. The move to CO broke our bank. Thankfully we have family that love us and help us enough to get us back on our feet. I moved back to AZ with the kids in November and Eric stayed in CO to finish off his semester of school and his two weeks of work. He joined us the beginning of December which I was forever grateful. Life as a single Mom is NO fun at all. My parents were gracious enough to let us live there with them. In the meantime I began looking for work. I was lucky enough to land a job at an Elementary School so I have the same hours as my kids. We found a good home to rent and are able to rent month to month so that whenever the renters move out of our home we can move in. It's a whole lot of moving in a short amount of time. I don't recommend it at all. One more move and we will be done for good! Our home in North Mesa is just the right size for our family. We have remodeling plans for the home as soon as we get back on our feet. We are all thriving here in AZ. The children are enjoying being back in their old schools. We all just love being home and back with our ward family. Eric has found himself with a full load of school and doing really well at it. He is really enjoying this new phase in his life. He has found a love for learning and is really looking forward to a job in the mortuary industry in the near future. Eric is back working with the deacons in scouts. I am serving in the humanitarian area of our church. I have decided to set some new goals for myself. I HATE doing it, to be really honest but it needed to be done. First I am NOT wasting anymore seconds of my day on Facebook or any other forum like it. I have a very addictive personality. With that addiction comes a very lazy attitude about getting any task done. It was just easier for me to sit in front of this silly computer and play games and chat than to be a Wife, Mother, homemaker, and friend. My marriage went to pot, my mothering went to pot, my house was seriously a pigstye, and my friendships went to pot as well. It is hard for me to admit all this but it's true. True enough that I hated myself for doing it, but didn't have the will power to do it. So yesterday I did it. I am having myself a much better day already. So here is my first blog post of the new year. A new beginning for me, for my family, with lots of CHANGE!

PS Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad, I think that's 36 years worth! :) I love you both!