Happy Thanksgiving!

What a wonderful life that I have! I have a wonderful husband, three beautiful children and many family and friends who love me and make life so full. Life would be so sad without family and I am so grateful for the knowledge that we can all be together forever!

I am grateful for our incredible, miraculous bodies. They are truly amazing and I have come to appreciate the miracle that they are even more these last few years. I am also so grateful for the amazing health care providers who dedicate their lives to help others. I wouldn't have my Jared with me without them!

I am grateful for the miracle of organ donation. It is truly miraculous! I am grateful for Jared's donor family. Without them, I wouldn't have a happy, healthy, three year old who gives the best snuggles in the world. Wherever you are, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I am grateful for kind, generous people. Some that I know, and some that I don't, who are constantly blessing our lives and providing service in so many ways. Thank you!

I am grateful for medicine and therapists who have made my Tyler happy again. Oh how I missed him last year! It is such a blessing to see his sweet, bright, happy spirit again.

I am grateful for my amazing Alyssa. She is so creative, caring, generous and happy. She brings a brightness to our home even when things are pretty low. She is one of the happiest little souls that I have ever seen!

I am grateful for this incredible country that we are so blessed to live in. I am grateful for our home, for Jeff's job, and the comforts that we enjoy. I am grateful for all those who have and who are currently working on preserving our freedoms. Thank you!

I am grateful for the gospel! I am grateful for the temple and a living prophet on earth today! I am grateful for the scriptures that teach me daily. And I am so very grateful for my Savior, who suffered and died, so that although imperfect, I will be able to live with him again.

I am so very blessed! So very, very blessed!

Derek's Gift

About four years ago, I set my brother, Tyler, up with the cute girl that lived across the street. It was a match made in heaven and they have been married for almost four years now. As a result, her family has become part of our family. Krista's parents still live across the street and it has been so wonderful to get to know them better and comforting to know that I have "family" across the street.

On Monday night Krista's younger brother, Derek, passed away unexpectedly. He had the flu and had taken an aspirin on Sunday night. On Monday he woke up sicker and by that afternoon his mom decided to take him to the ER. They had him stable and was looking really good except for being a little dehydrated. His heart rate and blood pressure suddenly took off and he went into cardiac arrest. The doctors tried everything but they couldn't bring him back. Two hours after arriving at the hospital, he was gone. He was only 23 years old.

We are all in shock. It happened so quickly and my heart has been aching since I found out yesterday morning. I know that he is happy and at peace and reunited with his brother and sister. It was his time to go and I am sure that Heavenly Father has important work for him to do on the other side. We will see him again, but we still feel the loss.

I also found out that they donated his organs. Wow. That was when the whole situation really hit me hard. Jared received his gift of life from a young man that was probably about Derek's age. Ever since Jared had his transplant, his donor and his family have always been tucked away into my heart. The whole transplant experience is such a conflict of emotions. We were so joyful, excited and grateful for Jared's gift. It was giving him a chance to live! And yet, under the surface, there was the knowledge that another family was grieving at the loss of their loved one. It is so difficult feeling both of those emotions at the same time and so in order to survive, you have to try to not think of it too much. After learning of Derek, all of those crazy, conflicting emotions have come rushing back! My heart is so full, that I have a difficult time even putting words to describe what I am feeling! Organ donation is a miracle. I see that miracle every day as I watch my healthy Jared grow and smile. Knowing that someone, somewhere, has received the greatest gift of their lives from Derek, makes my heart smile. It doesn't take the pain away, but it adds a sweetness to the sorrow. I hope and pray that all of the families of donor's everywhere can have some peace, knowing that they and their loved one, have saved another. Derek, we will all miss you so much! Thank you for sharing you life and spirit with us all!

New plans of attack

Jared had labs and transplant clinic today. His white count is still low, as expected. His ANC is still at 600 which isn't so good. The nephrologist doesn't feel good at all leaving him so vulnerable to infection and has decided that we are going to stop the Leflunamide (the medication causing the white count problem). The tricky part is that this med. is one of his anti-rejection meds. and it has also been keeping his BK virus under control, but the risk of infection is just too great. So we are doing another 5 shots of GCSF to hopefully get his numbers looking better and then hoping that we can add on a different anti-rejection med in a couple of weeks. Basically, we are focusing on the current, biggest threat until a different, bigger threat comes along. So we get his white count up but run the risk of rejection because he is only on one anti-rejection med,and his BK coming back because he is no longer on the medication that is keeping it under control. How crazy is that! Jared does like to keep the doctors on their toes! I do feel better getting his white counts back up though. As I was reading up on neutropenia (low white count), I was getting more and more worried. Basically, if he got an infection, it could progress to the life threatening level within a few hours at his current white count status. That's a little scary especially considering that we are entering the cold and flu season. So, we will just pray that we can keep rejection at bay while we figure all of this out. Besides that, Jared is doing really well. His kidney function is excellent and he is getting closer and closer to walking! It was another fun day at the hospital! :)

My Tyler

I have mentioned before that my parents have a TON of trees in their yard and so we rake all of the leaves in the entire yard into one, big, leaf pile right under the perfect climbing tree. The kids love jumping in and they look forward to it every year. A year ago, we were all playing in the leaves and having a wonderful time. All except Tyler. He was not having a good day. He didn't want to join in on the fun and just wanted to go home. He ended up having one of his insane panic attacks and was just soooooo sad. I remember just feeling so sad that he couldn't enjoy one of his favorite things in the world and feeling so helpless because there was absolutely nothing I could do or say that could help him. I remember feeling a sense of panic, wondering if and when we would get our Tyler back.

Well, my Tyler is back! We had a wonderful Fall party tonight hosted by my dad. We had a record setting pile of leaves, a bonfire, hotdogs and smores. It was a great evening and best of all, Tyler was having a blast!!!!! He jumped and jumped some more. Threw leaves to his hearts content. His face was covered in marshmellow and chocolate and he never once asked to go home. It was such a contrast to last year and my heart was so happy watching him be a kid again! How blessed we are to have finally found the medication that is helping him. I knew,even on the worst days, that my Tyler was in there somewhere. I'm so glad that he is with us again! I love you my incredibly strong, bright, sweet boy!!!!!!

The white count mystery

Jared's white count was down again today. So much from the anti-biotic theory! After seeing the hematologist I am feeling a little better about things though. He was a very nice man and spent a long time answering all of my questions and tried to explain things as best as he could. He thinks that it is the leflunomide, one of his anti-rejection meds, that is causing he white counts to stay so low. Unfortunately Jared can't come off of that one because it is keeping the BK virus under control, but luckily, Jared's body seems to be handling things ok because he hasn't had any severe infections during this time(I knew Jared was tuff, now we have even more proof!) The nasty bacterial infections like Pneumonia, and bad gut infections and skin infections are the ones that we most worry about and so far Jared hasn't had any of those yet. So, the plan is to not change anything right now. As long as Jared stays healthy we are good. If he starts getting recurrent infections than we will have to come up with a new plan. So, I have to stay extra vigillant in looking for signs of infection, primarily fever, and if he does get a fever we have to get him in for labs as quickly as possible. Hopefully his little body will continue to be able to fight off those pesky bacteria and we can keep him healthy. It's amazing how complicated this stuff is! If we leave him on the meds. than he could catch a life threatening infection, however if we take him off of them then he could lose his kidney or get cancer from the increased EBV levels. As for now, I am just grateful that it is the meds that are causing the problem and not something else!

Halloween!

Halloween was a fun day at our house. The kids are out of school at lunch time on Fridays, so after spending the morning playing and partying at school we went to Cornbelly's to pass the time until it was time to trick or treat. We brought the kids' friends, Matt and Chris, with us and we had a great afternoon exploring the corn maze, riding the cow train, taking a haunted hay ride and many other fun things.

Alyssa was a black cat, Tyler was Robin Hood and Jared was a bee this year. They all looked great and Tyler and Alyssa came home with a record setting amount of candy. We took Jared to a few houses and he enjoyed it but wasn't quite sure what to do with the candy after he got it (Jeff and I helped him out by eating his:)). He spent the rest of the night helping me hand out candy and "witch's brew" (root beer and dry ice)to the spooks and princesses that came to our door. We were all exhausted by the end of the night, but it was a successful day of Halloween spooking!

Fall Leaves

My Dad has planted more trees than he knows what to do with over the years in his backyard. It gets crazy when its time to bottle all of the fruit but fall is wonderful! His backyard turns into a leaf wonderland! The grand kids all LOVE to come and play in the leaves and they are able to make quite the gigantic piles of leaves. On Thursday my brother Ben and his family were here from Nevada visiting for a few days and so Jared and I joined them to play in Grandpa's leaves. Jared has always been pretty cautious about anything, especially things that have strange textures, but he has absolutely loved the leaves this year. He will sit in a pile and loves having leaves dumped on his head. He laughs and laughs! It is so fun watching him enjoy life!