Day 2 in the hospital!

I like cookies for breakfast. I like that Mom and Dad will let me eat whatever I want whenever I want.

Day 2 at the hospital. Payton got his chemo late last night and everything went fine. We are moving up his chemo today, so that we can go home early evening and wait for his counts to drop. He only has two more treatment cycles to go. Payton slept in today until 11:30, he was pretty tired. He has been playful and has wanted to play with his bouncy balls. Payton is looking really good right now and has filled out a bit. He has chubby checks, tummy, and legs. We are thrilled to have him looking so good.

Back to the hospital for another round of chemo! (#8 and two more to go)

Savannah and Payton were exhausted after waking up so early on Christmas.

We are back to the hospital today and getting ready for another round of chemo. When we pulled up to the hospital Payton said “no nurse, no doctor.” We have been hydrating Payton prior to him getting his chemo. Already, we are on our second noodle since Payton managed to pull the first one out. Payton is still not liking the nurses to “hug his leg.” I think it’s his one way of showing he has control over something. My sister volunteered to watch Savannah since she is out of school and doesn’t like being here much. She has been so great.

It was so great having Christmas at home. Our kids are at such a fun age. Payton and Savannah have had fun playing with all of their toys. Last night we stayed up and watched the Christmas Story with the kids next to the fire place. Savannah was exhausted since she got up so early, but Payton watched the whole movie without ever moving. Payton was always such a busy body before this happened. We couldn’t ever get him to sit down and watch a movie.

I Just wanted to write a few cute things about Payton that I don’t want to forget. Payton likes to eat Clementines, “white” ice cream, “Joe’s” hot noodles, and have milk @ bedtime. He really likes to watch the show Caillou (I think he can relate to Caillou’s bald head). He also thinks everything is a rocket ship right now. He climbs on everything and pretends to drive his rocket ship; like everyone’s Christmas presents, pillows, mom and dad’s lap.

Christmas Day!

Kids had a great Christmas! Payton was so excited, everything that he opened he would say “Oh, Oh”. Payton and Savannah could hardly wait to rip into their presents this morning. Savannah woke up @ 3:30 this morning and wanted to open up her presents. Finally at 6:30 she said “that’s it, I can’t wait anymore, everyone get up!” They both enjoyed opening up their presents and got lots of fun things. We love and miss everyone.

Home for Christmas!

I took Payton back to the clinic on Friday to have his counts rechecked. Payton’s counts were just barely high enough to start another round of chemo. Dr. Bowman our oncologist said that he didn’t see a problem if we wanted to wait until Wednesday the day after Christmas to start the next round of chemo. We decided that it would be really nice if Payton felt well for Christmas. And we also considered his history of ending up in the hospital with neutropenia and we didn’t want to chance that we would end up back in the hospital. We are really excited to all be home for Christmas and have Payton feeling well. Payton and Savannah are so excited for Christmas they can hardly wait.

Can't Wait for Christmas

Payton has been getting really excited for Christmas this year. He has been carrying around his Christmas presents and can hardly wait to open them. Payton decided to open the corner of one of his presents the other day and told me that he peeked and saw that it was a plane. I taped the present back up. Since then Payton has been carrying around the same present telling me “mom this is a plane”. This morning I awoke and started getting ready to head to the hospital since Payton was still sleeping. While getting ready, I heard Payton in the other room awake and talking about a plane. I walked in and found that he had decided to open up his plane. I guess it is too hard for a 2 yr old to wait.

We went to the hospital today to check Payton’s counts and found out that his counts were not high enough to start the next round of chemo yet. We are now supposed to go back on Friday to check and see if his counts are high enough then. Payton is also due to have an EKG on Friday to make sure that he doesn’t have any damage to his heart from the chemo drugs. Although we are really anxious to finish up with all of this, by pushing it off to Friday, it should almost guarantee that we should be out for Christmas.

Thank You!

We have had a lot of fun at home this past week. I hate to make Payton go back to the hospital tomorrow. Hopefully, his counts will be high enough to start another round of chemo. We are ready to get this over. This round is only a 2 day hospital admission, so we should be able to go back home on Wednesday if all goes well. We are really hoping that we can stay out of the hospital over Christmas. It would be nice if the kids could have some sort of normalcy for the holidays.

I have struggled so much wondering if Payton’s cancer will ever return. Will he go on with life living life as a healthy child? Will he end up with any long term side effects that we will have to face from this nasty chemo and radiation? I’ve never been faced with something that I have felt so helpless with little control over. I know that all things are in the Lord’s hands and time and whatever happens is His plan. It still doesn’t make it easy at times. I don’t know what I would ever do without my little Payton and I don’t ever want to know what that would feel like. There are never any guarantees in life, but all this has made me do a lot of thinking. I love Payton so much and feel so blessed to have him as my son. I often think about why this happened to Payton? Why did this happen to my family? Why did Payton have to have cancer, surgery, get sick, be poked and deal with challenges that he faces? It just doesn’t seem fair that a 2 year old should have to endure so much. Is this his challenge? Is it my challenge? Did he accept this challenge in the pre-life? What are we supposed to learn from this? I know that the Lord has said that he will never give us more than we can handle. I have definitely questioned this over the past 7 months and I will definitely have a lot of questions to ask some day. I think that sometimes we go through life too quickly not realizing what is most important. I know that I did before all this happened. We have to stop and think about why we are here and what we are supposed to accomplish while we are here.

One thing that I do know is that we were meant to be in Texas during this time. I know that we were meant to be close to my sister whom gives me strength, faith and courage. I have been so lucky to have such a wonderful boss that has helped us financially get through this. We have been so lucky to be close to a children’s hospital. We have been so blessed to be in the ward that we are in and to have the friends that we have. I believe that we were meant to be here to have the friends that we have to help us get through this challenge. It would have been extremely hard to get through this without the support we have had. I just wanted to say how grateful I am to all of my church ward members, friends and family. We have been so blessed to have such wonderful friends. Thanks to all of you for the gift cards, cookies, meals, visits, and other anonymous packages. You have all been so kind and we really appreciate your generosity. It has been a crazy 7 months and it’s nice to know that we have such an awesome support team. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

It's great to be home!

I wanted to say thank you to all of our friends and family who have helped us get this far. I have appreciated so much my church ward bringing in meals at different times. There have been some days where Payton has not felt well and just wanted to be held the whole day. On those days, it was nice not to have to worry about cooking. We also appreciate everyone’s kindness, especially this last week. We have had cookies brought by, carolers, and gifts anonymously placed on our doorstep. Payton has been through so much and it’s been so nice to see him get so excited. Thank you to all that have been so kind. I feel so blessed to have such great friends. I appreciate all of you so much.