TRANSPLANT DAY!!

Wow, what a day.  God started us off by hearing a testimony from a tech who's wife had had a transplant 4 years ago and he shared his faith and told us how God had answered prayer.  How precious for the Lord to bring a brother in Christ to our room to bring some encouragement!  Also, our nurse for the day, Yvette, also a fellow believer, walked through our entire process with us and was so sweet and a blessing to us.How kind it was for the Lord to surround us with believers for this process.  

Here is her blood!

Mom flew through this today with flying colors. The process was very uneventful except for the gravity of the fact that some young man gave his blood for mom to have new life! Sounds vaguely familiar doesn't it?! We kept thinking and talking about what a picture of Christ and salvation this is, How Jesus sacrificed for us and gave His blood so that we might have new life.  They kept saying this was Mom's new birthday, just like our new birth in Christ!! As my Kanakuk kids would say, awesome "life apps!"

Anyway, after the transplant was finished, we celebrated with a "new birthday" cake, and then they brought us a special dinner this evening and sang happy transplant day to her! 

We are about to settle down for a viewing of the Chosen and then hopefully to bed a little earlier tonight, we stayed up till past midnight last night talking!!

Thank you for praying!!

JJ

Rest Day before the New Life Giving Blood!!

Hello friends and family,

Today is Monday, August 30, 2021.  I just arrived to be with Mom at the hospital.  Sorry for the delay in updates, I was busy and distracted trying to prepare to be away from my family for awhile in Stillwater.  

Mom has been doing very good, with only a headache to complain about after they placed the port the first day.  They have been giving her 2 types of Chemo for the last 6 days to prepare her body to receive the new stem cells.  They have also been loading her with all kinds of anti this and anti that meds!! She is hooked up to 3 different bags right now! But today is rest day, no chemo, getting ready for tomorrow. 

When I arrived today I found Mom just like I pictured her to be, walking the halls and making friends with all the nurses and techs!! They just love her here already!! 

Tomorrow is TRANSPLANT DAY!  They expect to start sometime in the morning before 12 noon.  The process should take several hours, and is just like a blood transfusion the way they run it into her blood stream.  She will actually be sleeping during most of the process, and we will have a nurse in the room with us throughout the entire procedure.  This will be considered Day 0 and then every day from that point on will be +1, +2, +3, etc.........

We have been really encouraged by her rounding doctor, Dr. Matthews, who continues to tell her he thinks she will come through this with flying colors.  Also, our nurse tonight, DJ, is a bone marrow transplant survivor himself. He had one 7 years ago, and sat down to share his story with us tonight.  Very interesting and encouraging.  We are trusting God and so so thankful for all the prayer and support.

As I sit here and watch the sun set across Dallas tonight, I know we serve a God Who sees and knows right where Mom is.

With love,

JJ

Now we are fighting with Mom.

 Well, honestly I didn't think I would ever post another entry on this blog, but God has other plans and here we are again, with Mom.  I will be updating as we walk through this journey with her and trying to keep our friends and family posted on her progress and how to pray.  Thank you in advance for walking through this with us.  We know you love Mom and can already feel the support of all those lifting her and our family up.  

To recap, Mom started feeling sick in the late Fall, between Christmas and New years.  After several conversations with the doctors, tests, and blood work, we found out in early January that Mom had AML.  She was immediately admitted into Harris Downtown where they began 3.5 weeks of Chemo.  After performing several bone marrow biopsies, we found out that one of her mutations was not treatable with chemo, and our only option to beat it was a bone marrow transplant.  After much prayer and conversations with the family, Mom felt we were to step into this next treatment, praying all along that if this was not God's plan, that He would block it.  So far, He has flung the doors wide open.  They did not find a match in Mom's living siblings, but did find a match from someone else in the bone marrow regristry!! She past all her prerequisites with flying colors and they say she is a great candidate for this procedure.  We are looking at 100 days of being in Dallas, the first month in the hospital, and the next two months across the street in an apartment complex for medical patients and families that have to be close to the hospital.  These are considered the critical days of the transplant process, and then as she progresses, if she is doing well, she can move back home to the ranch.  

She will enter the hospital this Tuesday, Aug 24th to begin the process.  She will be in Medical City in Dallas and will not be able to receive visitors but can receive mail and I will post the address here.  I will update as we go along, but in the meantime, please join us in praying for Mom, that she will be able to withstand the strong chemo to prepare her body to receive the new bone marrow and not reject it, and that the new bone marrow will not attack her organs and systems and will start making wonderful new blood cells to replace the old.

I will keep you posted!! Thanks for joining us,

Love,

JJ