Count Your Blessings

Sorry my last post was so long! I guess I need to write more often!

We leave Monday afternoon for the Cancer Center in hopes that Matt will be able to get his chemotherapy. He had a blood test on Thursday and although his white blood cell count is really good, his platelet count is at 99,000. It has to be at or above 100,000 for him to be able to get his chemotherapy treatment. We are praying hard that by Tuesday it will go up by that tiny little margin of 1000! We have ordered some supplements that the naturopath recommended, but it is taking a long time in getting here.

While at the hospital next week we will meet with the oncologist as usual, but we will also be meeting with the gastrointestinal doc who will schedule Matt for another colonoscopy. We are praying that when he has this procedure the colon tumor will have shrunk significantly. If it has then Matt will be able to add another medicine to his cocktail of chemotherapy meds. This medicine is new and has had good results, but because it could inflame the tumor in his colon and cause a blockage, the doctors decided to wait on it until the tumor has shrunk. We are also hoping that they will perform another ct scan on Matt's liver to see what is going on with the liver tumors.

Matt and I had a big scare this past Monday. All of last weekend Matt had a very bad headache. It was so bad that he actually took some pain medication for it. Matt rarely takes Tylenol or Advil, so for him to be in so much pain that he took a prescription pain med, he must have been really hurting! On Monday morning I called the cancer center and spoke with our nurse. She then spoke with the doctor and he told us to go get a ct scan of his head since this was a new symptom. You can well imagine our fear that Matt would have tumors in his brain! We were very scared!

We arrived at the hospital here and immediately we were confronted with typical bureaucracy! They were all booked and the cancer center in Goodyear was going to have to have authorization from our insurance company first before the hospital here would do the scan. By this point we were very agitated and wanted nothing more than to get the scan as soon as possible. Miraculously the head of radiology came out, he is also our beloved Bishop, and asked what was going on. I told him what was happening and he looked me lovingly in the eye and said, "go sit down and relax. We will take care of everything and he will go back right away." Sure enough 1 half hour later they took Matt back to have the scan and everything came back ok......no tumors in or near the brain!!!

This experience and so many others makes me realize the hand of God in our lives. We have been blessed so much. I would like to share some of these blessings with all of you:

1. We have felt so much love from so many people and we hear about people praying for Matt and our family everyday!

2. Friends and family members we haven't seen for such a long time have made special efforts to come for a visit with us! Matt's cousin whom he was best friends with in high school and college has made 3 trips out to the cancer center to bring us treats and to catch up with Matt. Friends have come and taken me to lunch, others have invited us to stay with them while we are in Goodyear. We have received numerous phone calls, emails, texts, face book messages, cards, etc. from friends all over the world!

3. My children here at home are more loving and more appreciative of each other. I almost keeled over the other day when my youngest son Rodrigo asked his sister Helen, (these two do NOT get along!), if he could make her something to eat!! Then a couple of weeks ago my two daughters got into a big fight, but instead of holding onto their anger, my older one Bethany apologized, a real apology with tears and everything, to her younger sister Helen. Helen was so taken back by this that she started crying also and said she was sorry and they ended up hugging!! This was definitely a first for them!! :)

4. Matt and I are more in love now than ever before! We take the time now to say "I love you!" as often as possible. We enjoy each day and make plans for tomorrow.

5. I have learned the true meaning of family and why Heavenly Father has placed us on this earth within a family! My sisters have been my rock! I don't know how I could face this trial without them. They come over almost everyday to check on me and they are the ones that I can talk to about all of my fears. My mom, who is on a mission for our church in Paraguay, calls me several times a week to check on me. It has been difficult for the both of us to be so far away from each other, but I told her not to worry about me because my sisters were doing such a wonderful job taking care of me.

Matt's brothers and sister in laws have been wonderful. They call us often and invite us to stay with them whenever we need to. They have shown us love in so many ways. They have provided service to us that we can never repay.

6. Lastly we are so blessed because we have felt our Heavenly Father's love for us so strongly since all of this began. We went to the temple today to do sealings for some deceased family members and we had my sisters there as well as Logan, Tom and Brittani. At one point we were able to have Brittani, Logan, and Tom around the altar with us as we did a sealing for a family. My heart was full to be in the temple with my children and I look forward to the day when my younger ones grow up and we can all be there together! Heavenly Father loves me, loves my family, and he knows us. I am certain that my Savior Jesus Christ knows what we are going through and that we can leave our fears and burdens at his feet. Sometimes I forget this, so that is why it is important for me to be reminded just how blessed I am!

I am sorry again to have written such a long post! I think that I don't have much to say until I begin to write and then it seems I can't stop. This blog is good for me because I am able to write down my feelings and everything becomes so much clearer.

I will post again in a few days to let you know if Matt was able to have his treatment.